Before I move on to discussing why healing isn’t easy and
quick, let me insert an extremely vital point to healing that I have come to
learn. What I am about to tell you I
have in no way read out of a book and then walked through the healing
process. This knowledge has come only
through the path of experience and it did not merely take a single trip on this
road for me to figure it out. Rather, it
took many painful journeys and I am still in the process of walking this path
and learning this key point.
This basic, yet so exceedingly significant point is that it is
imperative to understand that the choice for healing is ours, yet the work is
God's alone. There is nothing that we can assist with, add to or
bring to the table that will, in any way, promote, expedite or secure our
healing. Healing is not based upon, nor will ever come by way of the
number of prayers we pray, how many times we fast, how often we attend church,
working in an area of ministry, being a member of a church or even according to
the passion and fervency in which we carry out any of these acts.
Yes, we can and need to do or be a part of these things,
they are essential in our Christian walks. However, if we think for one
moment that these acts are an avenue to healing, then we will conform to the
fallacy that healing is merited by our works, and from that, it can be won or
lost by what we do and how much we do it. We risk setting ourselves up
for absolute failure with that belief because God never intended for us to
sustain ourselves in any shape, form or fashion!
Had that been His intention He never would have provided
manna and quail to the Israelites, they would have found their own food. He never would have sent Christ to die on a
cross for our sins, we could have saved ourselves. I could go on and on, but we can clearly see
the absurdity in each of these things:
there will never be enough food in a desert to sustain millions of
people at any given time and it is demented to even entertain the thought that we
can somehow atone for our sins. Yet, God
did (Jehovah-Jireh, the Lord our provider) and can (Jehovah-Hoshe’ah, the Lord
saves)!
God’s utmost desire is simply absolute surrender to
Him. Not just for our provision and our
salvation, but in every area of our lives, including healing. Do we think that He provides for us and even
saves us, yet leaves us to our own devices in the area of healing? If this is our belief then we couldn’t be
more wrong. In the last post, we
discovered that God is our healer, Jehovah-Rapha. It is not just that He is our Healer, but rather
that He longs to be our Healer. He
patiently watches for the ceasing of our feeble attempts at performing a
restorative work. He awaits our
surrender, which is nothing more than a confession that we cannot carry out the
work of healing and a trust that He can and will.
Once we come to this knowledge and thrust our hands in
the air in a display of defeat, this is when He steps in and takes over. It is now that the true “work” can
begin. It is here that healing can truly
take place.
I have struggled for years with working things out in my
life and wasted so much valuable time in doing so. This is nothing more than a legalistic
bondage that, in the least will keep our healing at arm’s length and at the
most keep us securely locked in a bondage of works, hindering us from
experiencing the true freedom God intends for our lives. There are few things shocking to a Christian
than getting a true reflection of the selfishness that is present in a works
mentality. When God began revealing this
to me I wanted to deny it, but I knew it to be the truth.
I had not trusted Him fully enough to allow Him unlimited
access to my heart to perform the work. And
in keeping the task for myself, I felt that my healing (and even my salvation) was
on a rollercoaster; up and down, here today, gone tomorrow. It was constantly on the lost and found list
and would come and go according to how I felt I performed at a given time. The truth was ugly, but had it remained
hidden I could never have faced it. I
was attempting to work out my own healing.
This only led to me trodding the same path over and over. It was like circling the bottom of the
mountain numerous times, seeing the same sights and never moving upward and
wondering why I couldn’t get out of the rut I was digging. I couldn’t because the first step upward
belonged to Him and He was just waiting until I stopped and realized that.
Taking off the gloves and putting down the tools of my
work has been the most rewarding thing that I have done in my quest for
healing. I know that it sounds like an
oxymoron statement, but the greatest
results were yielded when I quit working.
There are days that I don’t touch the tools and allow Him to work. There are days that I reach for the tools and
think better and draw back my hand. And
then there are days that I ignore all warnings and snatch up the tools and
begin work again. Learning to fully
trust Him for all things is a path that will encompasses both setbacks and
growth, but it can never start until you stop…stop relying on yourself.
Don’t waste the precious time that I did. Acknowledge that you cannot bring about your
healing, surrender the work to God and allow Him to do what you were never
meant to do. Allow Him to heal you!!!
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