Your Faith has Made You Whole

My neighbor told me last weekend that she had recently had one of her kidneys removed and that she had some tumors that were likely cancer on her bladder as well. She had those removed as well last week. Whenever I hear about such things, I get quickly to praying partly because I feel powerless and partly because I believe in the power of God’s healing.

Today, I was reading about several of Jesus’ healings and I was struck by the way that the bible describes it. After each healing, Jesus would often say to someone that their “faith has made them whole.” I wondered what He meant by being “whole” and I also noted that the person’s individual faith seems to be at the very core of the person’s healing.

The word “whole” that is used in the New Testament is from the greek word “sozo” which means “to save, keep safe and sound, to rescue from danger or destruction…to save a suffering one.” It’s interesting to me that the word healing was not used in this context. The greek word for healing is often “marpe” which means to cure or heal. Another greek word used often is therapeuō from which our word therapy is derived. In both of these words, we tend to think of healing as something that happens to us physically like the curing of a disease or injury. We seldom think about healing in the way that we probably most often receive it which is in the form of spiritual healing. You see, I believe that God doesn’t always heal us in the way that we might expect. I believe that he always saves us from our suffering. He restores us, but not necessarily physically as that may not be the type of healing that we need most.

I have pondered many times over the years why some great people are struck with disease, pain, or tribulations while others’ lives are virtually free from any. Life rarely doles out fairly the infirmities of life. Still, I have found that no matter the highs or the lows of what we suffer through, we always have something important to take from those experiences. The apostle Paul wrote about an infirmity that he suffered from, and he came to God three times with a request for God to remove it, but it was never removed. God’s beautiful response to him was that “My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness.”
Maybe today your strength is also made perfect in weakness. God is a gracious God. He wants to make you whole, but if making you whole means that he is saving you from whatever will prevent you from receiving His love, then it means that healing is not always about our physical bodies, but our spiritual souls. I believe that when we pray for healing, we always receive it, but in what form it comes is a very often a mystery.

Many of my loved ones and neighbors live with a variety of ailments. I would love to be able to stand before them and promise healing, but instead I would rather promise that no matter the circumstances, their faith will make them whole. Whole, to me, means that even though your body, brain, or heart might be breaking down, your spirit is brought to a deep and abiding peace through your relationship with Jesus Christ. That relationship holds the key to the greatest healing that we can receive. Our faith will make us whole. Jesus has promised that to all of us and even if that doesn’t come in the form of physical healing, it comes in the form of peace and abiding love.

Childlike Faith

I stepped out into the early evening sunshine with a scowl on my forehead. Deep in thought about what I was going to do to get dinner on the table for my family, I wasn't thinking about those around me, only what I was doing and how it was affecting me. Suddenly, a young toddler jumped in front of me, planted both feet a foot apart and gave an unrestricted smile right at me. Even though I continued on, the smile stayed with me for quite a little while and the scowl that was aging my forehead was turned smooth and soft as my eyes crinkled into a smile instead. I wish I could do what that toddler did.

When Jesus talks about coming unto Him like a little child, I realize that this surely must be what He meant. The openness, honesty, and purity that I felt from the little guy was worth more than anything. He wasn't mine, but I wanted to pick him up and cuddle him until all the horrible weights that I have placed upon myself are lifted.

What does it really mean to come to God like a little child? When I was a child, I didn't feel like I was. I thought I was just as equal and important as the next person. Now, when I look back, I am sometimes embarrassed by my childishness. As a mother, I have gotten into the habit of correcting my son on everything that comes up. Obviously, that is a mother's job, and if I didn't, I would raise a child who doesn't respect. So, I get in the habit of viewing children through my mother eyes. Instead, I should be trying to see life more often through my child eyes. The child in all of us sure must still exist. We have done everything that we can to put it aside, but it is still there waiting for us to acknowledge. Perhaps even standing before there daring us to smile again.

I think Jesus knew that coming to him like a child meant without reservation and without question. I think He felt that we should make our home at His feet or perhaps even in His lap, loving Him as the protector that He is. If we could come to our Lord in that way, perhaps we would understand that the adult thinking that we have developed has really been somewhat detrimental to our faith. We have learned not to trust in the adult world and that isn't faith.

Even beyond the way that a child comes to his Heavenly Father, the way a child brings joy and unconditional love into the world is one of life's most precious and beautiful things. If each of us could even for a day or a moment tap into that beauty there is no telling the way it could change the world. That is the kind of beauty that Jesus taught. He taught us to love one another like a child, open and without reservation. He taught us to be accessible the way a little child opens his heart to you. He taught us to reach out to others and to our saviour the way a little child reaches out to be held. That is childlike faith.

I wish I had a button that would bring that kind of accessibility and love to light in my own life. I think that's what Jesus meant when He told us that others would "know us by our love." It's what He meant when He told us to be the light in the darkness and for us to shine like a city on a hill. If I could just once jump in front of someone, plant my feet, and give a beautiful, open spray of sunshine in the form of smile, others might know that my light comes from light of God.

P.S. The picture is my beautiful niece, Eden Grace.

Acting Out of Faith

Every so often, I have a dream about being high up in the mountains and hiking in a precarious area where I could step off a cliffside at any moment. Sometimes, I am just standing in a precarious situation, other times, I am clinging to the side of a cliff nearly ready to take the fall. Sometimes, I am sliding down the slope.

I think we all have times when we are slipping in our lives. Lately, that has been me. I have let a lot of things lapse lately, and they have lain at the back of my brain burdening me until finally I got tired of having them there. At that point, I had to get off the couch and into action.

It's easy to leave our faith in that place in the back of our brain as well, but I believe that faith is a far deeper and important faith when it is an action rather than a reaction. Don't get me wrong, I think it's important that we react to the wonderful gift of salvation that God has given us, but that same faith has to be driven by an action. Faith has to be more than just what we think or feel, it also has to be something that we do.

I learned that lesson when we started our senior ministry six years ago. Before then, faith was something I spoke about, read about, thought about, prayed about. Then, one day, my family and I took a step forward and we made our faith an act. In doing that, our lives were forever changed.

One of the things that I love the most about God, is that He always manages to do at least two or more things at the same time. Through us, He reached out to seniors and showed them their value and worth, and through the seniors, He spoke to us and showed us our value and worth as well. As we stretched our hands out, a spiritual hand stretched out to us and changed the way we approached our God and our community.

That's why I always encourage whomever I meet to take their faith to the streets. Maybe not literally, but I do encourage them to make their faith an act, whatever their personal cause is. Whether we are interested in environmental issues, homelessness, world hunger, human rights, it changes us to be part of the working force of Christ-followers. Let's face it, there are plenty of non-active members of the body of Christ and we need more people who will make that faith an action.

I walked down the halls of one the senior facilities about a year ago, and I saw hundreds of seniors in the rooms of a wing I had never been in. I realized at that moment that I was barely scratching the surface of the need that is out there. What if everyone started to take seriously Jesus' call to visit the widows and homeless? Would the wings of that senior facility suddenly be filled with people standing in line to chat with the seniors?

Faith is an act. It doesn't save us, but it does redeem us and teaches us. When we move into the action of faith, we learn so much more about ourselves and our relationships with others. We learn how to love.

Losing the Winning Game

My new job at work affords me the opportunity to train people on computers and lately, we have been in the throes of bringing two districts online with a software student information program for schools that our office supports. Today, I had to be the hall monitor for a bunch of adults who think it's okie dokie to write emails while in the middle of training. This is the reason that we tag-team these classes. One trainer stands at the front of the class and the other--in this case, me--stands at the back helping folks through the exercises.

Before the class, I was instructed to step in if anyone was checking emails during class, and I did so--three times. It's the third time that actually was interesting. When I stepped behind this particular person and calmly said, "Could we please stay focused on our task?" she turned to me with a red face and said, "I already know this!" The irony is, that one day I will be getting the support phone calls for these people once they go live with their software. Attitude is everything, as the saying goes.

This week, God has been reminding me of that fact. In my regular post at www.doableevangelism.com on Mondays, I wrote the contrast between strength and weakness. Today, I am considering how it often takes more strength to be a person who is willing to take second than it does to be the one who wins a good fight. It is supported by Jesus' concept of "the first shall be last and the last shall be first." We all should stop a moment and consider exactly what that statement means and what it means when Jesus said, "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth." Huh? The meek? Why the earth? Why do they inherit the earth. I wonder if maybe it's God's way of saying that if we can give up first place, we make a better way in the world.

You see, it's really hard for me to be meek. I mean, really hard, but I find that when I carry off a quiet strength as opposed to a loud agressive one, I am viewed in a totally different manner. Of course, there are times when it's easy to be meek and mild, and there are other times when it just seems so impossible.

In the whole first vs. last concept, we have to consider the fact that we are actually losing when we win. We also have to consider that we are winning when we, in fact, think we are losing. Why? Because the way that God judges things isn't by the standards that we judge them. He thinks it is more important to be good to others than to be right. That's often hard for me to live by, especially when I don't think people are being fair.

Think about how Jesus handled being here. He was a king born in a stable. He lived so that he could die for us. He lost so that he could win. And what was his advice to us? Be last and you will be first. Be first and you will come in last. That is a sharp contrast to a world that tells us that we have to strive for what we get in our lives. It's a sharp contrast to a world with bumper stickers that say, "He who dies with the most toys wins." God has his own bumper stickers and they are totally contrary to what we think they should be. He says to have the faith of a little child, to live by putting others first, to love others as you love yourself, to bless those who curse us, do good to those who despitefully use us, and to walk two miles if someone asks us to walk a mile.

I don't know about you, but I could be a lot better at that.

The Front Page

My brother-in-law picked up the Sunday paper when we were visiting in Las Vegas, and his wife sat over morning coffee reading it. From where I sat, I could see a cascade of small, square pictures of women of all races and shapes staring at me from the bottom of the front page. Under their pictures, the heading read "Las Vegas' 50 most prolific prostitutes."

I suppose that the paper thought they were doing the good people of Las Vegas a favor. In a city coined as "sin city," it seems ironic that this paper took the time to print these faces on the cover. All were under the age of 26, one only twenty years old. An array of expressions, some hardened, some strung out, one with tears running down her cheeks, my first thought was to wonder where the pictures were of the men who paid for their services. Where were the husbands, construction workers, service men, pimps, congressmen, and perhaps everyday Joes who had contributed to their situations? They weren't on the front page.

So, I prayed over each face. I said their names, read their transgressions, and touched their pictures with my fingers, all the while praying that by the Holy Blood of Jesus, they would find their way out of the darkness. Someday, God will honor those prayers. I believe it with all my heart.

The darkness is in each of us. We like to print the faces of prostitutes on the front page of newspapers, but we don't print the faces of liars, petty thieves, or adulterers. We can forgive a liar. We can tolerate someone who covets everything that their neighbor owns, who mistreats their parents, who lies on their tax forms, but a prostitute--no way! She's much dirtier than us, isn't she?

But God doesn't see any sin as worse than any other. All of us have fallen short of God's glory. If we were capable of being good, then Jesus wouldn't have needed to give up His life for us, but we were far from perfect, and the Perfect One had to give it all to save us. He couldn't give half way because that wouldn't have been payment enough for our dirt. He had to give it all, and He did just that. Even so, it does't stop us from pointing the finger at those who are worse than us. Look at those pathetic prostitutes. It's disgusting. Someone needs to do something about that problem.

About fifteen few years ago, I had to look at the blight of my own sin, and it wasn't really very pretty. It was full of lying, hatred, selfishness, fornication, and materialism. God showed me that my own blight was ugly, but God's beauty outshone all of that. The brightness of God's beauty was so brilliant that it made it possible for me to see that the point of this life is to seek the beauty that God created in us and in this world.

The problem isn't the fifty most prolific prostitutes on the front page. The problem lies in the hearts of all of us. We're willing to point our fingers at the front page in an effort to draw attention away from our own ugly, but it's only temporary. Eventually, our ugly catches up with us. Until we learn to admit our ugliness and give it up to Jesus, we will be just as guilty as any prostitute, murdered, or cheat. There is no way to sugarcoat sin. It's in all of us.

Thankfully, the whole purpose of Christ's death was to give Himself as a sacrifice so that we might live. What a gift. We don't deserve it. We can't do anything to earn it. The only way is to receive it, accept it, need it, be thankful for it. Even knowing that, a lot of Christians still think that they can clean up their own dirt. It doesn't work like that. We have to see the dirt first and realize that the mess is just too big for us to clean up for ourselves. That kind of cleaning job can only be done by One Person.

God gave up His very best for the least of us. The most debased and ugly of souls can receive what God came to earth to offer us. Especially the fifty most prolific on the front page.

The Things We Hear

We've all read those disclaimers that come in fine print on most of the things that we buy or consume these days and that reminds me of the some of the advice that I've been tossing around lately. I was thinking this morning that maybe I needed a big disclaimer t-shirt or something that says, "These thoughts and opinions are totally honest, but may not be exactly what you might expect or need."

I pondered that after I offered a little advice to my friend and neighbor after one of recent walks around the neighborhood. I just realized that maybe I wasn't very good at doing the one thing that she really needed, and that is to listen. Maybe this problem is fairly universal or maybe I happen to be one of those folks who love to hear the sound of their own voice, but I have decided that somehow I really need to get better at listening.

Great things happen when we listen. We hear where the real need is and we don't obscure it quite so much by trying to fix someone who doesn't want to be fixed. The thing is, I just wish I could sometimes take my own advice. Oh, well.

I eventually apologized to her and told her that any of my thoughts should be taken with a grain of salt, especially since I don't happen to have a teenager like she has. Thankfully, she was gracious enough to understand, but I wish that I were gracious enough to take a step back.

One thing that I have always noticed and loved about what I read about Jesus was how He had so much restraint. Usually, He would just ask a question and let the person or persons he asked struggle with the answer or flounder at the way that it stripped away the layers of what they were hiding. There is so much wisdom to the way Jesus handled people.

In the end, Jesus' parting thoughts in the world to His disciples was to tell them that people would know them by their love. I love that. It shows how love can burst out of a person in a way that words can't always and it shows how it becomes the memorable thing that people will know about that person.

When I was first married, someone gave me a little book of sayings and one of them said, "If you can learn to hold your tongue at least 80 percent of the day each day, you will have a successful marriage." There's a lot of truth to that, but I think it goes beyond just marriage. I think it goes right into the heart of all our relationships.

I think Jesus knew that there are things that we hear from others that go beyond the actual sounds. They are colored by opinions, judgements, perceptions, and prejudices. We are known by those silent messages and others perceive who we are by them, but often we use sounds to try to obscure them. It never works. No matter how many sounds we make, our real message always comes through and if it isn't about love, it won't impact others for the better. In fact, sometimes, the sounds we make send our good intentions right over the edge.

The Truth as I know it---Or think I know it...

My husband and I have a long-standing argument. He says that the greatest country song ever is "Heartaches by the Number," but I have and always will think that the greatest country song ever is "He Stopped Loving Her Today" sung by George Jones. Truth be told, it would be hard to pick any one song that could take that honor, and there are so many variables that go into a song--the songwriter, the music, the singer. Then, we have to figure in the fact that each of us have our own experiences and opinions that take us on different roads and cause us to be struck by certain things in different ways.

That's the way I think about Biblical interpretation. We all tend to read things into the Bible based on our own experiences and expectations, but there are a lot of mysteries in it still mysterious, some still waiting to be discovered. After thousands of years of debate, interpretation, and investigation, we still can't all agree on many of the particulars.

I read an article once by someone who believed that they didn't need the Bible. This person thought that the only revelation they needed was right through their own spirit. It's not that I don't think we receive revelation through our spirits, but I think leaving the greatest roadmap to a rich spiritual life out of the picture is like trying to find a bar of soap in the middle of the ocean.

I like that everytime I read it, I find something new in it. It's as if there is something always hidden within the pages that will speak to my heart in a new way. In that way, it becomes both Biblical and spiritual revelation for me.

When I was young, I had a lot of preconceived notions of my own about what it means to be a Christ-follower and what the Bible says and doesn't say. I've certainly had my own fair share of misquotes, but beyond what I think it says and what it actually does say, I have learned that it still holds a lot of important meaning for us today in the real world. Jesus is still very relevant in 2008--almost 2009.

So, rather than argue about the fine details of faith, I have chosen instead to talk about the man Jesus and who He was and what He did for the world. I've chosen to talk about what it means for us--all of us--today. I've learned that even people who don't like Christians, always seem to like Jesus. Jesus reaches past denomination, beliefs, and rituals and reaches into our hearts. He bypasses the brain and goes right for the heart of humanity, but then, he stops and asks our hearts to implore our brains to get involved in a different way. He then asks us to use our brains to finds ways to use our hearts better and more significantly and reminds us that we aren't driven by either a heart or a brain, but by both.

I still say that "He Stopped Loving Her Today" is the greatest country song ever written, but what if I'm wrong. What if one day I go to heaven and Jesus tells me that the greatest country song ever written was "I Fall to Pieces"? What if He goes on to tell me that they are all the greatest, depending on who loves them and what their experiences are? What if He says that each song had its individual purpose and each song had an important part to play in God's creation?

In the end, I just have to remind myself that I don't have all the answers. I have a few, but I am still striving and learning. When I stop striving or learning is when my faith stands still. God doesn't want that because He created me to keep reaching for Him, and so I keep stretching out my arms like a little baby who wants to be held.