In New Testament theology class I need to write a devotional, not exactly an easy thing for me to do, but alas! I did it! I wanted to share my final copy, this is what I will be reading aloud in class on Tuesday, I hope it works and makes sense.

Blessings!


Throughout the months coming up to writing for this devotional, I had many themes and ideas run through my mind. Then someone told me to do something that meant something to me, something that I am in the midst of being taught, something that touched my heart and circumstance. So, this is what I have chosen. Healing for the past five years has become an emotional subject for me. For several years I have had abdominal pain and discomfort along with some other symptoms and it has not been fun to say the least. Doctors would only tell me that nothing serious was wrong and to watch what I eat, and track what I experience. Friends and pastors would tell me that if only I would believe deeper, pray longer, hope harder then maybe healing would come sooner.
The emotional journey that I have been on has lead me up some very steep hills. Yet, I find that it is nothing compared to the testimonies that I read in the New Testament. A woman bleeding for twelve years, cast out of society because she is looked down on as unclean. Her faith leading her to Jesus Christ and with hopeful determination she goes and touches his robe to find herself healed. I can only imagine her circumstance and what emotional healing came that day for her as well. Especially with Jesus affirming her by saying, “your faith has healed you, go in peace and be freed from your suffering” (Mrk 5:34).
To be freed from our sufferings is such bliss, to be freed from physical disease or even emotional distress brings us such blessing and release. I believe like probably many of you that healing is possible, even the type that doesn’t make sense. Yet, I also believe that it pains us, sometimes we hold onto our sufferings because we grow attached to the comfort of them. The healing that Jesus did were for those suffering a great physical distress. Yet the healing of these men now meant that they had to work and were no longer able to make a living by begging and being cared for. A small price to pay for freedom. But with the comfort of a being cripple gone, the challenge of being thrown into something other than what was previously known can be scary.
One of my most favorite healing stories is that of a blind man, in John chapter nine, Jesus’ disciples ask him “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2). Jesus answered them and said “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but this happened so that the work of God might be displayed in his life” (v. 3). There is no fault found, the power of God is to be displayed through this mans blindness. So as I read this story I am not only reminded of my own circumstance, but of my friends as well and their baby boy who was born with disease and who lived only twenty eight days of life. Although circumstances such as these bring us emotional pain, Jesus says here, that it is for Gods glory to be displayed. That in the hopelessness of disease, God brings glory to himself. Noah lived so that God would be glorified, an incredible accomplishment for such a short life.
Yet, physical disease and compromise are not the only ways in which God can display is work. Emotional distress constricts the body almost as much as the physical. And it is recognizing that through these times God wants to be glorified, and he will offer his strength to those of us asking for it. It is asking for his peace, his hope, his renewal and his clean sweep of our minds that helps us overcome the obstacles that get in our way. Whether these obstacles include a dysfunction of our physical body or not.
“We do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal” (2 Cor 4:16-18).
Therefore, the healing we experience today whether they be physical or emotional or both are not what is entirely important. What is important is that our hope is in God and his return, it is in our salvation in Christ Jesus.