SHOW ME YOUR SCARS

当您非常时，傷害愛需要时间癒合

A philosopher of the modern age said those words in English! Mariah Carey singing, "Love takes time to heal when you're hurting so much!" Yes, that sentence in Chinese is the literal rendering of that latter familiar line!

This morning after my quiet time, I checked my email(s) and blog updates and found a blog entry of a faintly similar thought (or perhaps, just along the same faint thread) made by another pastor from another church- healing takes time. Although, I must admit, I did not read the whole entry until around this afternoon since I thought that the title gave away the content, nevertheless, the blog entry/devotional contains amazing truths anyone can glean.

Healing takes time. I suppose that’s a simple truth, basic, elemental, even very obvious. Still, for all that obviousness, everywhere I look, I see a city full of mighty hurting people questing after every sort of substitute to address the hurt. These hurting people can even be found in churches- from among the most inactive of attendees to people in leadership. It's easy enough to do, of course. We seem expert at experimenting with both mundane and exotic substitutes and in the process amass astonishing experience about what does not heal our deepest hurt.

God knows we excel at substituting counterfeit versions of love and healing for the real thing. We’re great talkers. Oh my! We can talk about love, healing, relationships, etc. forever and forget that genuine love and healing can only be found in God! But even as we recognize that genuine love and healing comes from God, we need to exercise principles from His Word to set our course to healing right.

If we really get this first thing set, this love, the rest will work itself out. Becca Stevens wrote, “Whenever we feel lost and wonder if God is real or why the innocent suffer, we can ask ourselves some questions that will set us right in a hurry. Did I thank Jesus for my life? Did I share His love with someone today? Did I feed anyone who was hungry today? Did I tell anyone that I loved them [and then acted accordingly]? Did I work toward peace? [Did I labor for justice in the world?] Did I offer thanks for my breath?”[1]

No question that, while walking the earth, Jesus was known as a wonderful healer. And even now, as He intercedes on our behalf with the Father, He provides healing. On earth, his healing often functioned in a subversive manner given that his reach touched the least, the last, and the lost. He was indiscriminate in who He might heal, or who he might forgive for that matter. Yet, it is important to note that Jesus never failed to point at the people's faith in the Healer. These are people who have stopped looking for healing in all the wrong places. They go out and tell others of their experience of healing in Christ, so that they too may be led to wholeness!

Here we learn the two sides of the healing equation. In order for me to get well, I need others. And, I am, myself, a healing agent as part of the larger whole.[2]

If I claim to be a follower of Jesus, it stands to reason that I will allow myself to be ministered to by others. I will actually place myself into the care of others.

Being Jesus’ follower also means I will extend myself on behalf of others. That eventually, as I continue to grow in faith, I will become “other-directed.” I will discover that my life makes sense only in relation to how I live as part of the larger community. Scarred people are worth listening to.

Every Tuesday night, a group of 70 to 80 people gather in one of the rooms of Greenhills Christian Fellowship. They call the group Living Waters, a healing, teaching and discipleship group for people who desire wholeness from their individual experiences of brokenness. That group is in every way, representative of the whole Church on earth!

The Church is a bunch of hurting people who have found the only road to wholeness in Jesus Christ.

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[1] Becca Stevens, Hither and Yon: A Travel Guide for the Spiritual Journey, Nashville: Dimensions for Living, 2001, p. 76.

[2] Stephen Bauman, Healed and Healer, CCNYC 021906