I remember the first time I responded to a shooting call as a rookie cop. A family disturbance turned into a violent confrontation. A husband shot his wife in the pelvis with a .22 revolver. Upon our arrival, my partner and I secured the suspect and the scene. We went back into service after the detectives arrived to process the evidence. 

Later that week, as the woman was recovering from her gunshot wound in the hospital, she unexpectedly died. During an autopsy, it was discovered the bullet had entered her pelvic region striking a bone and then glanced upward into her chest. When the bullet hit her pelvis, the impact chipped off a piece of bone pushing the bone fragment out of her lower back making it appear it was the exit wound for the bullet. A larger X-ray scan would have revealed the totality of the bullet’s path and where the bullet was actually lodged, but it was missed. A fatal assumption led the attending physician to believe the bullet had exited her body. The bone fragment was false evidence.

The assumed path of pain is not always the cause of emotional or spiritual death. A harsh word is like a bullet fired in rage, it enters the human soul and moves around looking for a place to create the most destruction. It requires Spirit-led discernment to discover the deadly course of these projectiles and the final destination where they are embedded in a soul. Undiscovered, they will attract lies that will create an infectious slow bleed that can lead to the death of a marriage, a dream or a person’s spiritual health.

Today, as you meet wounded people, make no assumptions based on natural sight or physical evidence. The first evidence is not always the most accurate evidence. Allow the Spirit to reveal the deeper wound paths that your natural sight cannot see. Like a skilled spiritual surgeon, once you see the hidden reality, the Spirit will guide your hand to make a gentle scalpel cut by speaking the truth in love. This incision of love will cut through the assumptions and false evidence to reveal the location of a deadly lie embedded in a person’s life. Truth and the reality of God’s love will dislodge these projectiles of darkness and allow the process of healing and recovery to begin.