Archive for healing
Why You Must Go Back
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God’s ways are mysterious, beyond my understanding and often seem downright contradictory. While in my humanity, I prefer to think in straight lines which lend themselves to defining a goal as completed, a task marked off, I find that God’s ways are usually not pictured best by straight lines. They are paths which appear, at times, intertwined, difficult to map out, going forward, then backward, orbiting around a center, and often perplexing my human mind. The longer I walk with God, the more clearly I see that He is truly not confined to my limited understanding. He is working, often His deepest purposes in me, when I am clueless.
This week, I was meditating on two of the seemingly contradictory ways of God. In the next few days, I want to explore these two thoughts:
1. You must go back.
2. You can never go back.
Huh? Sounds confusing? I hope you are intrigued sufficiently to continue reading for both statements are true and I am not being ambivalent. There are times in life when you must absolutely go back. You must go back, as it were, in your mind, your emotions, your relationships, to moments of the past and experience the moments again. There are some very important reasons for us to go back. And in other ways, we must never go back and in fact, cannot do so, but that is for another day this week.
Jesus, the Healer of Broken Hearts
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If we believe that God is purposeful in His actions, then how significant is the fact that the first words of the first message Jesus preached were, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because … He has sent me to heal the brokenhearted…”? (Luke 4:18-19)
Jesus came to heal broken hearts and not only as a side benefit; it’s one of his life purposes! That’s good news because all of us who are in this world have experienced the pain of having our hearts broken in one way or another. If we look at the life of Jesus in the Gospels, we find that he moves throughout his days interacting with humanity and healing broken hearts. That healing takes many expressions. Today I want to look at how Jesus healed the heart of a woman as recorded in John 4 and what that healing means for us now.
Let’s take a look at the story.
Jesus was exhausted from his long trip. He had gone to the city well to get a drink of water. However, what followed was not a chance happening at all because we are told that Jesus “needed” to go through the region of Samaria; he was compelled to do so.
Jews did not have anything to do with Samaritans in those days. Samaritans were considered half-breeds and unclean by Jewish tradition. Yet Jesus, a Jew, chose to go through the middle of Samaria instead of making the usual trip around the area as most Jews did in order to avoid the Samaritans.
The Inner Journey
Posted by: | CommentsIn his journey to list the seasons of life, the writer of Ecclesiastes throws this one in…
There is a time to kill and a time to heal. Ecclesiastes 3:3
Got Any Root Issues?
Posted by: | Comments"You need a root canal."
Those words led me to the endodontist. And the news got better from there. “You need two root canals, if we are able to save one of these teeth; if not, we will only do one root canal and you’ll have to have the other tooth pulled.”
Have you ever started a day better? I mean it just doesn’t get any better. You get to practice your “In everything give thanks” skills and “Pray without ceasing”, and “My God shall provide all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus” all at the same time. Spiritual aerobics and weight training at the same time.
Well, I jest of course, but nonetheless it wasn’t the grandest of news. But Romans 8:28 quickly kicked in as I sat in the endodontist’s chair. Now I clarify for any of you who would feel religious at this moment: IT WAS NOT GOOD! (Although Dr. Smith was himself delightful but seriously needs a new joke book.) But it was working for my good, not the least of which is the free material I gained for this blog.
First, they gave me two injections and allowed me to “marinate”. Then they turned me upside down, literally, and then prized my mouth open for an hour or more. So aside from that and the wonderful numbness that persists even now, it was all and all a good experience.
