He saved them out of their distresses.
20 He sent His word and healed them,
And delivered them from their destructions.
21 Let them give thanks to the Lord for His lovingkindness,
And for His wonders to the sons of men!
Psalm 107:19-21
I sat at the table listening to my son voice his heartbreak. "I don't understand why she is mean to me, Mom. I do these nice things for her and she still doesn't like me." And I knew exactly how he felt. I spent much of my life looking for affirmation and approval. But God has also been gracious enough to me to teach me truths on this matter that I still have to consciously practice. It broke my heart for him that he was struggling with these things. But in order for him to be stronger, wiser and to keep loving courageously, he needed me to teach him some truths. He also had to accept them in his own heart and mind for himself.
While talking to my son, I was reminded that although I've come this far, I have quite a ways to go. We are all at different points, but none of us have arrived. After he left the room I found myself praying, "Lord, make us all well. We need you to continually make us well."
God heals - we know that right? But many of us have rarely experienced the healing we're seeking- healing from physical ailments and disease. Cancer and disease are excruciating and these bodies are dealt many sufferings. But even when we're healed physically from those diseases and ailments, we have a tendency to live like the same ol' person. We have the same destructive and selfish mindsets that keep us miserable deep down. It is good to want physical healing, but there are also deeper things that need to be touched within us than those things that ache the flesh.
We are rarely so desperate as to pray for healing for our faulty mindsets and impure hearts. We yearn to live, but rarely put forth the same amount effort into living a joyous life that we put in to seeking physical healing and obtaining stuff. We make up our minds on issues based on our own biases, and we wonder why we spend so much of our lives in anger, resentment and misery. Those things we ignore and excuse away in ourselves are the very things that keep us bound. They are the emotional and spiritual blindfolds that we refuse to take off.
His way is not like ours. He wants what is truly best for us, and what is best for us is something we rarely know the answer to. That is why we need Him. We need Him to continually walk with us and make us well. We need for Him to show us the right way, but we have to be willing to learn. We have a lot of junk in there that needs to be dealt with, but unless we walk with Him, we'll never know how.
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