Healing in Brokenness
I LOVE Jesus so much. Seriously, I’ve dedicated my life to
loving Him back. I try to make everything that I do be an expression of love to
Him. (I actually fail at that on numerous occasions.) Every time I have the
opportunity to sing about Him or lead in musical praise, I simply cannot
express how much I love Him. I get excited, tearfully joyful, simply
overwhelmed by the fact that He loves me. I reflect on His love towards me and
I am so blown away that I have a smile that just won’t go away.
And then conviction comes. It’s a strange stirring when you
realize that you are completely lost without Him and you royally mess up every
day, yet you know that the very reason you feel that conviction is because He
loves you enough to pull you back towards Him. I mean, good parents are a
seemingly appropriate reflection of this relationship, but in their humanity, they
sometimes take a little bit more time to forgive. With God, it’s like there’s punishment
or direct discipline and then instantaneous forgiveness and love
out poured. There’s not a waiting period to see if grace is going to follow. It
just does!
I regret to say that I take that for granted so many times. Too
many times, I live on last week’s sermon, making excuses for the reason I can’t
spend time with Him. I take a second to look at a verse on my phone while
walking into work. I say a lengthy prayer over a meal and cover all my “prayer
bases”. I listen to worship music while driving and think that’s enough. I don’t
know why because honestly I know what it’s like to be completely refreshed by
His Word and to fall more and more in love with Him after even just a short 20
minutes with Him. Before I know it I’ve
gone way too long without hearing from Him and I’ve disappointed Him because I’m
not really working on the relationship as much as He is.
Sure, in times of heartbreak, I cry out to Him and ask Him
to heal. And you know what… most of the time, He does. He reminds me of His
favor, grace, and love that has carried me through a life that I completely did
not expect to live. I’m far more blessed than I deserve to be.
Today, after going through a few “dry days” of quiet time, I
got back into it and read an excerpt from Jesus Calling. Here’s an
excerpt:
“I AM a
God who heals. I heal broken bodies, broken minds, broken hearts, broken lives,
and broken relationships.”[1]
Ahem… Side note… I need healing in… um… ALL of those areas!
Just me? Yea. Didn’t think so.
“My very Presence has immense
healing powers. You cannot live close to Me without experiencing some degree of
healing. […] The first step in receiving healing is to live ever so close to
Me. […] As you grow more and more intimate with Me, I reveal My will to you
more directly. When the time is right, I prompt you to ask for healing of some
brokenness in you OR in another person.
The healing may be instantaneous, or it may be a process.”[2]
There is a situation that I have been praying about for
about a year now. The details are not as important, so much as the general fact
that there has been a particular person and a particular situation that I have been
bringing before the Lord almost every day for a year now.
I’ve read “The Circle Maker” and I’ve studied prayer
throughout the year. I understand that sometimes you do just have to keep
praying the same thing over and over again. I understand that prayer is
sometimes hard and you have to pray through, praise God for the outcome (even
before you know what that outcome is), and pray expectantly. I’ve been praying…
the same thing… for a year, and I’ve begun to think that the prayer isn’t going
to change. I was content to pray the same few sentences, not out of wrote or
redundancy, but just because I haven’t known what else to say.
That was until today.
The Lord knows my heart so infinitely well that He knows how
much of an analytical person that I am. He knows that I’ve looked at this circumstance
through every lens that I can possibly imagine and then some. But perhaps the
resolution hasn’t occurred because I’ve spent too long praying for the wrong
thing. I’ve been praying for heart change, and what I need to be praying for is
healing for whatever brokenness that person is facing. Whatever past hurt or
pain they’ve experienced. For the relationship that failed. For the health that
just isn’t cooperating. I need to be lifting up the brokenness in their
spiritual life and praying for restoration.
You know why I didn’t think about praying that stuff. Cause
it doesn’t involve me. It’s not centered around my proximity to the
circumstance or situation. It’s just praying for the well-being of the
person(s) involved. So many times I feel like my prayers for someone are almost
like tattle-telling to God. “Lord, [insert name here] is not walking with You.
Fix it, please.” Sound familiar?
Are you praying for the well-being of others? Not just the
ones who need a physical touch of healing, or even the “extreme” cases of
addiction or disorders, but for the healing of the mind (Romans 12:2) and heart
(Psalm 51:17).
We’re all broken in some way, be it in a major way, or the
fact that we still have problems with this daily quiet time thing. Just think
about this… If we all took the approach of praying for the brokenness in each
other, what healing could take place in the lives of those around us?
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