When you think of healing you probably think of relief, light, happiness, peace, etc. These are the places that we often associate as being closest to God and the areas in which He most speaks to us. It is easy to come to the conclusion that God, being Light, speaks to us in the periods of light that we walk through.
This is the push within a lot of categories of Christianity. It is a push to reach a spiritual high; to focus, worship, and pray hard enough and long enough to enter into a place of God's "presence" that they might hear Him speaking to them and guiding them.
I have often heard it preached that you are either moving closer to God or you are backsliding; there is no middle ground or stagnation. One must seek God or they will move into darkness and experience the consequences thereof. Often, this understanding of the spiritual life of a Christian and his/her relationship to God is hard to reconcile with reality. What happens when the Christian that follows faithfully the teaching of His pastor/priest, prays continuously, attends services weekly, and reads scripture consistently, but faces times of darkness, despair, apathy, and physical/financial/emotional destruction?
The answer is often "It's just the devil!" and then they quote scripture and state that these "trials and tribulations" are proof that one is living right and the Devil is just mad. So the one enduring hardship and struggle goes on with his little "word of encouragement" and tries to endure. Labeling it all as spiritual warfare, he prays that God will come quickly from whatever distant star He watches from to come to his aid and deliver him from the impending darkness. All the while, not realizing that God is right there with him, leading him deeper into the darkness and into suffering because He knows that though His child prays for relief, it is more beneficial that he suffers.
Too often we fail to see God in the midst of our darkest moments. We beg and plead, we may even demand, healing and most of the time we expect that healing to be instant. We pray for closeness to God and expect butterflies in our stomachs or the feeling that a major weight has been lifted. Though God does do this from time to time, it is not the rule. Instead, He leads us to place of suffering that may, or may not, include the demonic. The hard truth is that sometimes, Satan just isn't involved.
What is most true is that God loves us. We as humans, however, often hold falsehoods and misunderstandings as to what love is and how God should display that love. Love is the sacrifice of oneself for another, but love is also discipline for one's wrong doing. Love is a parent forcing their child to pick up an instrument and bear the pain of practicing, or pushing them to practice soccer so that they will not be humiliated on the field or refusing to let them give up just because something is hard. If a parent would cause their child to endure hardship and struggle to become a better individual, how much more with God do this out of His infinite and perfect love.
God speaks most in the silent places of our lives. In our darkest and most hideous places in life, He speaks to us the clearest. He does the most healing when we are forced to expose our wounds and weaknesses. We are often drawn back into the deepest and darkest parts of our souls so that out of our toiling, that Christ might shine through all the brighter. God is answering the prayers for closeness and holiness, and it is our duty to learn to recognize God's hand in the darkness, allow others to help us in our weakness, and then to help others in theirs.
The greatest metaphor for this that I've ever heard comes from C.S. Lewis' "The Horse and His Boy". In the latter part of the book, the young boy finds himself walking down around and is suddenly overcome by a thick fog. He is unable to see anything! All is silent and He doesn't know where to go or what to do, so he just keeps walking slowly, hoping to reach his destination in time. Before long he hears breathing and senses the presence of "another" next to him. He is afraid because he cannot see what walks beside him, but he knows it's there. The unknown being leads him wordlessly through the fog into clarity. Only then does the boy realize that he had been walking beside a massive lion! The lion was, of course, Aslan. Aslan then began speaking the boy and revealing His working in the boy's life, though he was oblivious to it all.
May we learn to see God when we lie in our dungeons or when we walk in the middle of the desert. May we learn to trust the unseen One in the fog that leads us with nothing more than the whisper of His breathing.
Grace and Peace,
Stephen
"The Light shines in the Darkness, and the Darkness has not overcome it..." -John 1
This is the push within a lot of categories of Christianity. It is a push to reach a spiritual high; to focus, worship, and pray hard enough and long enough to enter into a place of God's "presence" that they might hear Him speaking to them and guiding them.
I have often heard it preached that you are either moving closer to God or you are backsliding; there is no middle ground or stagnation. One must seek God or they will move into darkness and experience the consequences thereof. Often, this understanding of the spiritual life of a Christian and his/her relationship to God is hard to reconcile with reality. What happens when the Christian that follows faithfully the teaching of His pastor/priest, prays continuously, attends services weekly, and reads scripture consistently, but faces times of darkness, despair, apathy, and physical/financial/emotional destruction?
The answer is often "It's just the devil!" and then they quote scripture and state that these "trials and tribulations" are proof that one is living right and the Devil is just mad. So the one enduring hardship and struggle goes on with his little "word of encouragement" and tries to endure. Labeling it all as spiritual warfare, he prays that God will come quickly from whatever distant star He watches from to come to his aid and deliver him from the impending darkness. All the while, not realizing that God is right there with him, leading him deeper into the darkness and into suffering because He knows that though His child prays for relief, it is more beneficial that he suffers.
Too often we fail to see God in the midst of our darkest moments. We beg and plead, we may even demand, healing and most of the time we expect that healing to be instant. We pray for closeness to God and expect butterflies in our stomachs or the feeling that a major weight has been lifted. Though God does do this from time to time, it is not the rule. Instead, He leads us to place of suffering that may, or may not, include the demonic. The hard truth is that sometimes, Satan just isn't involved.
"He has caused me to dwell in darkness as those who are long dead..." -Lamentations 8
What is most true is that God loves us. We as humans, however, often hold falsehoods and misunderstandings as to what love is and how God should display that love. Love is the sacrifice of oneself for another, but love is also discipline for one's wrong doing. Love is a parent forcing their child to pick up an instrument and bear the pain of practicing, or pushing them to practice soccer so that they will not be humiliated on the field or refusing to let them give up just because something is hard. If a parent would cause their child to endure hardship and struggle to become a better individual, how much more with God do this out of His infinite and perfect love.
"Then, there was a still, small whisper. And God was in it." - 1 Kings
God speaks most in the silent places of our lives. In our darkest and most hideous places in life, He speaks to us the clearest. He does the most healing when we are forced to expose our wounds and weaknesses. We are often drawn back into the deepest and darkest parts of our souls so that out of our toiling, that Christ might shine through all the brighter. God is answering the prayers for closeness and holiness, and it is our duty to learn to recognize God's hand in the darkness, allow others to help us in our weakness, and then to help others in theirs.
The greatest metaphor for this that I've ever heard comes from C.S. Lewis' "The Horse and His Boy". In the latter part of the book, the young boy finds himself walking down around and is suddenly overcome by a thick fog. He is unable to see anything! All is silent and He doesn't know where to go or what to do, so he just keeps walking slowly, hoping to reach his destination in time. Before long he hears breathing and senses the presence of "another" next to him. He is afraid because he cannot see what walks beside him, but he knows it's there. The unknown being leads him wordlessly through the fog into clarity. Only then does the boy realize that he had been walking beside a massive lion! The lion was, of course, Aslan. Aslan then began speaking the boy and revealing His working in the boy's life, though he was oblivious to it all.
May we learn to see God when we lie in our dungeons or when we walk in the middle of the desert. May we learn to trust the unseen One in the fog that leads us with nothing more than the whisper of His breathing.
Grace and Peace,
Stephen
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