Tag Archives: healing

i drank from a garden hose and it doesn’t matter

“One generation will commend Your works to another…”

I am part of the generation who grew up in the 60’s and 70’s. Free love that was never really free. An anti-war generation that rallied for peace while fighting an internal war by escaping down psychedelic rabbit holes.

There is so much that my generation can pass on, and we certainly do try, don’t we? We love talking about how simple life was back then. How different, how much better things were. But this morning I was struck by Psalm 145:4, and I realized that we spend far too much time commending memories that are evidently being remembered through rose colored glasses. Because frankly, many of us who grew up in that era were just messed up.

So here’s the deal. I don’t care if you know that I drank freely from the water hose, and played outside until the streetlights came on. It won’t help you to know that we slept in painted cribs, rode around without seat belts or airbags, or that kids failed entire grades in school because they deserved to fail. I don’t care if you ever know what life was like “back in my day”.

Here is what I want you to know…

God…relentlessly pursued my heart down every rabbit hole, every dark corridor, through every bad choice. He never gave up. He chased me until I was finally broken enough to stop running. Because I am not just a face in the crowd to Him. I am not just an unseen part of  “so loved the world”. And neither are you. You are not only loved, you are wanted by the Father who created you. He is the relentless pursuer of your running heart.

God…healed me on the inside. In the unseen places where I was incurably broken, He healed me. I was convinced I had little or no worth. He healed me. I was hurt and I was angry. He healed me. I had been used and discarded. He healed me. Because that’s who He is. Healer. He desires to heal the deep places in you, to convince your heart that you are worth much. Are you going here and there and everywhere trying to find what can put you back together? Are you convinced that nothing will be able to fix what is broken? I commend to you…God. You are not so broken that He cannot make you whole. It’s not too late, you haven’t gone too far, and there is no such thing as too damaged. For man, yes, but not for God. Not for your Healer.

God…gave me purpose. After years of wandering, looking for something I couldn’t define, I was left convinced that there was very little real purpose to my life. I would live and die and neither would have any impact on the earth. But as all of that began to fall away under the love of Jesus, it revealed the truth. I was created on purpose, with purpose, by my Father. My life matters, and so does yours. In knitting you together in your mother’s womb, He wove in the uniqueness that is you, the gift of you. You have giftings, talents that you may or may not be aware exist, but they are there on purpose. And the work of God, the advancement of His Kingdom, the release of captives, the healing of broken people, all of it needs you and your gifting. He has people for you to meet, places for you to go, things for you to do. You, and your life matter. You are you on purpose, with purpose.

God…gave me rest. Removing the shame and guilt that kept me running, He taught me what stillness looks like inside and out. He gave me rest from trying to earn love and worth, from Him or anyone else. Earning is a wearying business is it not? Two steps forward, nine steps back now start all over and there’s no such thing as a truly clean slate. We may have that “so what?” look on the outside, but we’re black and blue on the inside, damage done by our own fists of self-loathing and there aren’t enough Hail Marys to be said. But there is God, and His invitation is not “try harder”, but “come to Me and I will give you rest”. Rest from earning what cannot be earned, but is freely given by Him. He invites us to let our bruises heal, unclench our fists, stop doing penance for what only His blood can take away. And speaking of blood that doesn’t just wipe the slate clean, it destroys the slate all together…speaking of that blood…

God…saved me. I could comprehend that God is good, even loving. But the heart-shocking truth is that He is so good and so loving He sent the innocent to pay for my guilt, giving His Son over to death so that death could be conquered for me. So that the slate that held my record of sins would be forever destroyed, my filthy clothes would be forever removed, so that my forever would be forever changed. God pursued me straight to Golgotha, and there I discovered just how much I was worth to my Father. You are worth no less.

To the generation coming behind me, I commend to you the works of God. Powerful, majestic, fearsome. Kind, loving, merciful. Faithful and unfailing. Pursuer of hearts, Healer of broken, rest for weary. Savior.

I drank from a garden hose.

                        He loves you so much He died.

                Which is worth commending?

i need to know

The news spread. People were bringing others with them, and soon there was quite a crowd. There were sick people everywhere…because they had heard. People in pain, some having seizures, some paralyzed. And, really? Yes, really. The demon possessed were there. Oh, it was all very messy. Very unsanitary. Strangely enough, He didn’t seem the least bit uncomfortable.

He healed them. All of them. Even the messy ones. And the crowd kept coming, growing, following Him. 

nail pierced hand of Jesus editedI’m trying to watch it all through the eyes of a disciple. Who is this man Jesus, this magnet for broken and messy people? This One with beautiful mercy for the pained, the shaking, the sick-to-the-bone and out-of-their-mind ones? They saw healing flow from beautiful hands that would soon be wrecked by the nails of their sin. But they didn’t know that yet. They only knew that He was willing to touch messy and broken. He became the destination for the desperate and the desperate left healed. And the eyes of a disciple grow wide.

Because I know. I know those hands with their scars and the nails that put them there. I know beautiful mercy. I know the willing touch of the Healer God who beckoned me to follow Him and now we’re standing in the midst of messy and I need to know what I know. Love heals broken. Mercy triumphs over judgement. Holy came to unholy to make it holy. Scarred hands are beautiful and blood washes clean and God came to messy people because messy people need God.

And if I’m going to follow Him, I need to know. 

“Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, preaching the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.  News about Him spread all over Syria, and people brought to Him all who were ill with various diseases, those suffering severe pain, the demon-possessed, those having seizures, and the paralyzed, and He healed them.” Matthew 4:23-24

leave me broken

Once I was dead. But You found me and made me alive. I came up, like a miner from the underground, squinting at the suddenness of light. You washed me in blood, healed the sickness of shame, and convinced me of love. So much. You’ve done so much. I see it.  Mostly in glances stolen from my intent stare at me, and what still needs to be done.

Then today came and You did something new. You closed my eyes to the reflection of me in my various stages of disrepair, and opened them to a different reflection. I saw it there, behind the mirror.

Me. Desperately clinging to You. That’s my hand with a death grip on the hem of Your robe. Me. Hiding behind You from an enemy I couldn’t see, but knew was there, calling for my destruction.  Me. Trying to keep my feet in line with Yours. Touching Your scars in wonder. Not caring that I was still a mess. Just wanting, needing to stay close, to listen intently, to watch Your every movement. Me. Wanting You with everything in me.

I saw it and remembered. Desperation. Adoration. Unquenchable love.

I saw it and a prayer formed, rushing into me like brand new breath.

Oh God. Leave me broken.

Help me walk straight, but leave me with a limp. I need to need grace.

Strengthen my weak knees, but leave them bent. I need my face close to the ground at Your feet. Life is better there.

Train my hands for war. Make them strong enough to grip Your hand, but leave them too weak to hold my own life.

Help me walk with confidence and authority, but with enough insecurity to keep me hiding behind You.

Give my eyes vision, but keep it dim so that I don’t look past You.

Heal my heart, but leave it aching for those who still need to be convinced of love.

Once I was dead. But You found me and You made me alive…washed me in blood, healed the sickness of shame, and convinced me of love. 

Don’t stop. Refine me. Restore me. Baptize me with fire. Revive me. Make me whole.

Just leave me broken.

exposed expectations

Who is like God? “No one!” I shout without hesitation. I’m smart enough to know the right answer to a question like that. So then let me rephrase it.

Who do I expect to be like God? 

And that’s the question that makes my heart start to squirm.

Before I go on, let me just say something up front. I intensely dislike this business of “being honest with myself”. But I’ve learned two things concerning this annoying process:  First, God is ruthless when it comes to exposing the things that keep me from changing. He’s not put off by my squirming, my whining or by my obvious attempts to avoid this process. He just keeps coming. Second, it brings revival. At the end of the process, my heart is changed, something has been healed, and my love and knowledge of God have had a sweet explosion. So I’ve learned to say “yes” to something I’d rather say “no thank you” to, which actually brings up a third bit of learning…

My “yes” to God, even in the hard things, will always be worth it.

So let me go back to the question. “Who do I expect to be like God?” To find out, I need to recall a few things I know to be true of God. The scripture references I will list is not by any means exhaustive. The questions I ask are the process I go through in allowing God to expose my heart.

His is an unfailing love. (Ps. 13:5; Ps. 33:18; Is. 54:10)

In my humble estimation, every slight we feel, every offense, every rejection, every betrayal is, at its core, a love that has failed. Who has failed to love me? Spouse? Children? Parents? Friends? The Church? Has it brought an offense that I just cannot get past, unforgiveness that I can’t turn into forgiveness? Has it made me run away and hide? Has it hardened my heart?

The answer is yes..to all of it. The unmet expectation of an unfailing love from people has been a set-up for my heart, and my heart responded accordingly. The damage was great, both to me and to others.

When the scriptures speak of unfailing love, they always point to God, never to man.  My head knows it, but my heart has a bad memory. It still looks to be loved no matter what, by people who are not like God. In all of my unlovliness, my unfaithfulness, my selfishness and my all together unlovableness, God will not fail to love me. People will. I want that to be ok with me.

He is my Healer and my Deliverer. (Ps. 103:3; Ps. 147:3; The Gospels; 2Samuel 22:2; Ps. 40:17; Ps. 70:5)

Where is the first place I turn when I need healing, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional or spiritual healing? Where do I go when there is something I just can’t get past…a wound, an offense, a sinful habit? In my early days of faith, I went to people. Lots of them. And I would love to say that today I no longer place my expectations on other people to bring me healing, or deliverance. But one look around my house at the stacks of books and cds I have bought tell a different story.

stack_of_books-300x199Deliverance and inner-healing ministries; Christian counselors and psychologists; schools of healing; books galore. Most of these resources that the Church has access to are good and very helpful.  But this is what I have observed in the Church lately – “Oh, you’re struggling? Here, you need to read this book. It’s amazing.” Or, “you need to go see so-and-so”. It’s like watching the Church on auto-pilot, sending the sick and wounded to people, rather than sending them to Jesus. Is it intentional? I don’t believe so, but none the less, it has set people up with expectations that will often bring disappointment, because we are frail and weak, and we succumb to the temptation to expect others to be like God for us.

I was recently speaking to a woman who called me for help with her marriage. Near the end of our conversation, I felt overwhelmed by what she was dealing with, and do you know what I said to her? “I think you need professional help”!! Yes. I said that, all the while knowing that the Word of God held her answer.  The Body of Christ is well equipped to help people, because we know Christ, we know His Word and we (should) know His power. But we are not their healers or their deliverers. I believe we need to get back to telling people that their help is in Jesus…not in a book, not in a ministry, not in a pastor…in Jesus.

No one heals like God. No one delivers like God. He must be the first place I go in my time of need. And because God so often works through His Body, He may choose to have me go to His Body to get counsel, but I am to go knowing that the power to heal and deliver is found only in God.

He alone is sinless. (Hebrews 4:15; 1John 1:8)

This one took some digging, but one thing I can count on is that God will dig until He finds what He wants me to see. What takes place in my heart when someone has the so-called “fall from grace” (a term I do  not like, nor agree with)? What does my heart feel when I find out that a Church leader, or the person I looked up to,  has been caught in adultery, pornography, or an addiction? Do I become a little jaded? Do I lose faith in people, or worse yet, in Christianity? Does my heart become fearful, thinking that if it can happen to them, then what’s to become of the rest of us? Do I lose respect? Is it all because I have an expectation that Christians, especially those in leadership or in public ministry, should be like God? I would not have thought so, but now I’m not so sure. Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Ted Haggard, Richard Roberts (son of Oral Roberts)…the list goes on, even down to one of my own former pastors. At the sound of their fall from the pedestal they were on, my heart felt disappointment, and the more it happens, the more hopelessness creeps in. Not grace, not mercy, not prayer nor indignation at the enemy’s schemes…disappointment, anger, hopelessness and even fear. Why? Apparently because people who were not supposed to sin did what they weren’t supposed to do. They failed to be like God. And I excelled in my sinful response.

An exposed heart is a crazy kind of scary. But I firmly believe that if I am willing to expose mine, it will help you have the courage to expose yours. To yourself. To God. To allow Him to be ruthless in going after the things that keep you from knowing Him more, from going deeper with Him, and then deeper still.

“With whom, then, will you compare God?
To what image will you liken Him?”

““To whom will you compare Me?
Or who is My equal?” says the Holy One.” Isaiah 40:18, 25

Father, forgive me for ascribing to others the love, power and perfection that is found in You alone. Help me to gather all of the expectations of my heart and lay them only at Your feet, not the feet of another. For I know that You alone are God, and there is none like You. You, my God and my King, are beyond compare.

desperate encounters – pt. 2

This is part 2 of a 4 part post in which I look at four women, desperate for different reasons, who encountered Jesus. In part 1 I highlighted the woman at the well. You can read that here.

From Mark 5:25-34

The Bleeding Woman

woman with issue of bloodThis is the story of a woman who had been bleeding for twelve years. The cause of the blood flow can only be speculated, i.e. menstruation, uterine tumors…we don’t know (although most agree it has to do with menstruation). What we do know is that it was an abnormal, chronic condition that brought her to desperation. To understand just how desperate, we need some background information.

She was a Jewish woman, so she would have been under the law of Moses. Leviticus 15:19-30 deemed her “unclean”.  That means that everything and everyone she touched became ceremonially unclean. She would have been shunned by her community, including her family. It is very likely that this woman had not been touched in twelve years. If she had been married, most likely her husband would have divorced her, as any sexual relations would have been unclean. She would not have been allowed to share in the annual worship celebrations that were considered important  in Judaism. She was not allowed to go into the temple courts, she could not light the candles for the Sabbath evening, nor could she participate in the Passover meal. It would have been as if she was non-existent in an existing world. She had every reason to be desperate.

And then she heard about Jesus, and her desperation drove her to do the unthinkable. She made her way through the crowd and touched the hem of His garment. Had He been a normal man, her touch would have made Him ceremonially unclean. And to compound it, as a woman she was not allowed to touch a man in public.

An unclean, desperate woman touched Jesus with faith that He could heal her, and the power of God was released.

So often we wait for His power to do something in our lives so that we can believe Him. Perhaps He is waiting for us to believe Him so that His power is released. 

It is here, in that moment of her touching Jesus that we learn something of the character of God. We learn it as much from how He did not respond, as from how He did respond.

He did not shame her for being unclean. He did not punish or even chastise her for breaking the law. He did not pull away from her. Instead, He called her “Daughter”. She is the only woman in scripture He addressed with that title, so, I have to wonder…why her? Could it be that this woman, untouched for so long, an outcast from her community of faith and her family, desperately needed to know she was still a “daughter of Abraham”?

An unclean outcast who touched Jesus. And in response, He publicly declared her to be clean, and called her Daughter.

I imagine this woman and her desperation. I would have been longing to be touched, to be accepted, to be healed. But having come to Jesus as an unclean woman myself, I know what it is be desperate to be clean.

While this woman lived under the law that said Jesus was untouchable, I lived under the lie that said He was untouchable. Because of the life I had lived, and was still living, I believed Jesus would have nothing to do with me.  Coming to Jesus meant coming to “religion”, something I just wasn’t ready to do. Until desperation drove me to Him, and I learned the truth.

The untouchable God became touchable through His Son, to a people who desperately need to be made clean.

Read part 3 of Desperate Encounters