Let Yourself Heal

People are quick to judge. Everybody thinks they know how quickly another person should be healed; how another ought to see things (the way they see things); how quickly another should rise up and walk after they’ve been struck down; whether another deserves to be healed or deserves the space to heal well. People are quick to strip dignity and merit from each other. People – you, me and they.

We have to be careful. Because Jesus hates that.

Luke 18:38-42 (NCV)

The blind man cried out, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” The people leading the group warned the blind man to be quiet. But the blind man shouted even more, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stopped and ordered the blind man to be brought to him. When he came near, Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” He said, “Lord, I want to see.” Jesus said to him, “Then see. You are healed because you believed.”

‘The people leading the group.’ That’s interesting. I never thought about a swell of people following Jesus as having leaders. I thought Jesus was the leader. It’s a crowd, after all; a group of people who behave more-or-less indiscriminately. But the passage said ‘the people leading the group warned the blind man to be quiet’.

Did they feel a sense of pride or ownership because they were leading a group of people behind Jesus? Did they think they had rights because they were at the head of the group? Almost like little kids in class when they’re all asked to line up – jostling and arguing with each other about who gets to be ‘in the lead’. Did they think they had any foreknowledge about what should happen to that blind man? What was it about ‘his place’ and ‘their place’ that made them feel so entitled? Human behaviour is an odd thing.

Thankfully the blind man didn’t listen. He didn’t care what they said to him. He shouted even louder. He knew they didn’t care about him. They didn’t care about his life; his neglect, his disability, his ostracism. They were satisfied to pass him by, not caring to include him; telling him to be quiet and stay where he was, blind, sitting in the dirt, begging for a better life.

But Jesus cared. He heard what was going on. He saw those ‘leaders’ and He saw the man. And He stopped. He ordered those people who were telling him to be silent, to go and get him. That’s God’s justice for you. I love Jesus for those moments.

Jesus asked the blind man what He wanted. “LORD”, the blind man said, firstly, acknowledging His rightful position; naming who He was first and then making His request. “I want to see.”

If I’m going to let myself be healed, I’ve got to know, firstly, who I’m talking to, and then what I want.

I’ve got to believe enough to know that Jesus can heal me. Not only that, but that He wants to heal me. He is willing. Just like in the beautiful story in Matthew 8 of the man with leprosy that came to Jesus and said, ‘LORD, if you are willing, I know that you can make me clean'. And Jesus assured Him so compassionately, even touching the man’s uncleanliness, ‘I am willing. Be made clean’.

Jesus doesn’t just heal one part of us when He heals. He heals and makes us clean. 

There’s just one blinding thing.

I need to truly want to let go of my wounds, and decide to let them go. All of them. Everything that I’ve identified with that makes me unclean. Everything that hinders me. The unforgiveness. The pain that’s identified my life. The experiences that have forged the path to where I didn’t want to go. The way I still see myself that is not the way God sees me.

I need to let go of everything that’s been and embrace the shaping because it is still taking me to wholeness.

Being Made Whole

It’s not always just one part of us that needs healing. We need healing on multiple levels.

Whether it’s my physical body that needs healing or my emotions or my mind. Being wounded, sick or limited in one area can veil wounds, sickness or limitations in other areas and we don’t always recognise the connection.

Our body, our soul (mind and emotions) and our spirit are intricately connected. One part cannot function fully and wholly without the fullness and completeness of the other parts. Our bodies carry the energy from any emotional distress or mental strain we’ve experienced. Our bodies have a memory. Our bodies can only carry the emotional energy we’ve stored there for so long before it begins to buckle.

In my request for healing, I need to seek a total repair job and trust God to align my healing as one whole. For that to happen I’ve got to release everything that hinders me.

Let the past go, let the reasons go, let the identity go that doesn’t fit me anymore. When I have a hope and trust in Jesus, I can also release my hope of the future, based on His promises, and trust He’s gone ahead of me and knows the way I should take. The Father has it sorted. I don’t see in full and I will always see things differently to what the Father sees and says.

I can learn to hide myself in that knowledge and not worry. I can learn to be joyful in that. I can learn to be intentional about experiencing that mentally, emotionally and bodily. It’s called rest.

Isaiah 55:8-9 (NIV)

“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the Lord. “As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.

We need to let go, and know, that He will do what is best for our life. He will bring about what He has planned if we truly want that; if we truly believe and are prepared to lay everything down. Everything.

Firstly, what identity have we constructed for ourselves around our sickness of mind, heart or body? Can we identify in a wholeness that Jesus Christ offers, or is the identity of our brokenness still prevalent?

The blind man wouldn’t have been healed if he had seen himself as the group saw him. He wouldn’t have been healed if he'd thought, ‘Great. There goes Jesus. He walked right past me. He didn’t see me. Story of my life. My one hope. Gone.’ He would have been sitting in the dirt, blind and wretched until the day he died. But he didn’t. He placed his identity in more than what he looked like and where he sat that day.

He had a vision behind those blinded eyes of being healed and made whole. When his eyesight was restored, he could go see his family on his own; he could get work and earn his living; he could rebuild what had been taken with his sight. He had to release His past and how others saw him. He had to release them.

Why do you think Jesus passed by him first? Why do you think He ordered those ‘group leaders’ to go back and get him? Why do you think He required the blind man to call out his healing?

When we place our identity in the wholeness of Jesus Christ, on the knowledge that He took all of our brokenness and placed it on the cross, we can answer His question to His disciples, ‘who do you say I am?’  Simon Peter answered, ‘you are the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of the living God’. Jesus said, ‘you’re blessed Simon. Nobody told you that. My Father in heaven showed you that.’  (Matthew 16:15-16).

We can let Jesus show us who we are, and let ourselves heal from all that has misshaped us, body, soul and spirit. He is the author of life (Acts 3:15). God’s plan was to raise Christ from the dead, which He did, because that plan was and is the same for us.

We can let ourselves be identified and healed by Jesus in the wholeness and completeness of that Name that is above every other name by letting all those other names die to us.

His name is greater than age, weight, birth or childhood experience. His name is greater than loss, grief, disappointment or despair. His name is greater than envy, pride, futility or failure. His name is greater than any name of sickness you can think of or any person who might have had power over you. You can let yourself heal in Jesus name.

Let yourself go on a journey with Jesus. If you feel forsaken, that’s not identified in His Name. Neither is ‘forgotten’, or ‘damaged’, or ‘hopeless’. Jesus brings wholeness. Seek that wholeness in Jesus just because He is who He says He is. Journey with Him in that, and you’ll find your healing.