time spent waiting...
One argument I always hear when I say that I believe that physical healing was included in the work of Jesus Christ on the cross, when I say that physical healing was bought and paid for by the blood of Jesus, an inheritance we receive along with salvation, is: that I am focussing too much attention on the physical body and being distracted from the far more important spiritual person. I also hear that I am taking the focus off of Christ and putting it on the physical here and now.
To that I have several things to say:
One: Physical healing comes from Christ. If I spend time looking at a diamond from the third side, rather than the first or the second side, have I stopped looking at the diamond? Or, in looking long and hard at the third side have I come to a fuller and deeper revelation of the whole of the diamond? Have I possibly learned that there are many, many sides (facets) to this diamond, each as beautiful as the rest?
Two: Is the ‘too much focus on the physical and not enough on the spiritual’ statement just a bit hypocritical? On average, how much time do we spend looking after our physical bodies? My morning shower routine takes about 45 minutes a day. I have recently begun disciplining myself to exercise (for the sake of my health). I’m feeling pretty picked-on, and strangely proud, if I spend 20 minutes a day on cardio. I know many people who spend an hour or more a day. I know people who pay for time at a gym, pay for the gas to get to the gym, write off the hour or so in the car to get there. Why? For the physical body. For health… (sometimes, truth be told, for less noble reasons…like…appearance…)
This is just normal physical body maintenance. Factor into this, the time and resources spent if the physical body starts to malfunction. How many weeks will you wait for a doctor’s appointment? How far will you drive? How long will you wait in an emergency room to have an ear infection looked after by a doctor? An hour? Two? Six, seven? You’ll wait as long as it takes. How many times will you go back if the original treatment doesn’t work? Or helps a little, but not enough? How many pills will you pop in a day (knowing full well the side effects) to get the problem solved?
What if you’re told you need a surgery? How many hours will that take out of your life? How many weeks will you be off work? How many things will you have to re-arrange in your schedule? What changes to your lifestyle will you be willing to make? What risks are you willing to take at the hands of a fallible human - with a knife - who may or may not have had enough sleep the night before? All for what? For physical health?? Isn’t that a little off focus? (Do you see the hypocrisy of the statement?)
When it comes to our health, we take it very, very seriously. A woman who goes three years without a pap smear or a breast exam is considered irresponsible. Am I right? All else stops when it’s an issue of health. So let’s be careful then, with this argument that ‘we’re getting off focus’ when we begin to look closely at a third side of a diamond, or talk about "all our sins forgiven, all our diseases healed, our lives redeemed from the pit…(Psalm 103)" He provided physical healing for us because we need it. He has given us everything we need for life – through… (do you remember? – through what?)
Whatif… we applied the same diligence to knowing God, and to ‘forgetting not all his benefits’, and to knowing the ‘glorious inheritance in the saints’, and the ‘incomparably great power for those who believe, that is like the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead?’ Whatif… we determined to know God as he revealed himself in His WORD, rather than in popular belief, rather than in our experience or the lack there-of.
Whatif… when we went to the elders for prayer, we invested the same amount of time – to ‘wait’ on God? When you wait in a waiting room, you wait…. Whatif… we did that in prayer, instead of the quick 3-4 minutes and if it doesn’t work then… O well,… sigh,… I guess It’s not God’s will….., back to the doctor with me…. (Does anything else in our spiritual walk work that way??) Whatif… while waiting in prayer, the Spirit requested a lifestyle change? A thought pattern change? A letting go of long held… - whatever….?
To that I have several things to say:
One: Physical healing comes from Christ. If I spend time looking at a diamond from the third side, rather than the first or the second side, have I stopped looking at the diamond? Or, in looking long and hard at the third side have I come to a fuller and deeper revelation of the whole of the diamond? Have I possibly learned that there are many, many sides (facets) to this diamond, each as beautiful as the rest?
Two: Is the ‘too much focus on the physical and not enough on the spiritual’ statement just a bit hypocritical? On average, how much time do we spend looking after our physical bodies? My morning shower routine takes about 45 minutes a day. I have recently begun disciplining myself to exercise (for the sake of my health). I’m feeling pretty picked-on, and strangely proud, if I spend 20 minutes a day on cardio. I know many people who spend an hour or more a day. I know people who pay for time at a gym, pay for the gas to get to the gym, write off the hour or so in the car to get there. Why? For the physical body. For health… (sometimes, truth be told, for less noble reasons…like…appearance…)
This is just normal physical body maintenance. Factor into this, the time and resources spent if the physical body starts to malfunction. How many weeks will you wait for a doctor’s appointment? How far will you drive? How long will you wait in an emergency room to have an ear infection looked after by a doctor? An hour? Two? Six, seven? You’ll wait as long as it takes. How many times will you go back if the original treatment doesn’t work? Or helps a little, but not enough? How many pills will you pop in a day (knowing full well the side effects) to get the problem solved?
What if you’re told you need a surgery? How many hours will that take out of your life? How many weeks will you be off work? How many things will you have to re-arrange in your schedule? What changes to your lifestyle will you be willing to make? What risks are you willing to take at the hands of a fallible human - with a knife - who may or may not have had enough sleep the night before? All for what? For physical health?? Isn’t that a little off focus? (Do you see the hypocrisy of the statement?)
When it comes to our health, we take it very, very seriously. A woman who goes three years without a pap smear or a breast exam is considered irresponsible. Am I right? All else stops when it’s an issue of health. So let’s be careful then, with this argument that ‘we’re getting off focus’ when we begin to look closely at a third side of a diamond, or talk about "all our sins forgiven, all our diseases healed, our lives redeemed from the pit…(Psalm 103)" He provided physical healing for us because we need it. He has given us everything we need for life – through… (do you remember? – through what?)
Whatif… we applied the same diligence to knowing God, and to ‘forgetting not all his benefits’, and to knowing the ‘glorious inheritance in the saints’, and the ‘incomparably great power for those who believe, that is like the power that raised Jesus Christ from the dead?’ Whatif… we determined to know God as he revealed himself in His WORD, rather than in popular belief, rather than in our experience or the lack there-of.
Whatif… when we went to the elders for prayer, we invested the same amount of time – to ‘wait’ on God? When you wait in a waiting room, you wait…. Whatif… we did that in prayer, instead of the quick 3-4 minutes and if it doesn’t work then… O well,… sigh,… I guess It’s not God’s will….., back to the doctor with me…. (Does anything else in our spiritual walk work that way??) Whatif… while waiting in prayer, the Spirit requested a lifestyle change? A thought pattern change? A letting go of long held… - whatever….?
posted by toomanywhatifs at
9:46 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home