God's Heart for Healing in your Life
We’ve all been hurt or have had pain in our lives. But have you ever been so hurt emotionally, physically or spiritually to where you didn't think you healing from it could be an option? Have you ever had pain from something for so long that you think that hurt is going to be your “new normal”?
"God doesn’t just want to save you, He wants to heal you."
God As Healer
I have a big heart to share about healing and God’s heart for healing in our lives personally. I want people to know that God is not just our Savior but He is also our healer. One of the ways we can discover the heart of God is through the Bible. There are many passages in the Bible about God or Jesus healing people from their pain- physical, spiritual and emotional pain. One of my favorite passages of Jesus healing someone is found in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke. Below is a section of the passage and then a few points that I wanted to highlight below.
Jesus Heals On the Sabbath
One Sabbath day as Jesus was teaching in a synagogue, he saw a woman who had been crippled by an evil spirit. She had been bent double for eighteen years and was unable to stand up straight. When Jesus saw her, he called her over and said, “Dear woman, you are healed of your sickness!” Then he touched her, and instantly she could stand straight. How she praised God!
-Luke 13:10-13
God Sees You
Sometimes I think we can fall into the lie that God is removed and disinterested in our lives. I know that as a little girl I use to believe that God was this this big being in the sky and He was too busy for me. I use to believe that He had more important people to work with and pay attention too than just little me. But this couldn’t be further from the truth. I want to explain the context of who this woman was culturally during this time because this will give you a better picture of God’s heart and interest in your life. Now this crippled women would not be perceived as your average person in this day. In fact she would actually be considered the lowest of lows in this society because of a number of reasons. First being that she was a woman. Women during this time are considered lower on the social scale than men. They were treated more as property rather than contributing members of society. On top of that she was crippled with an infirmity which considered her “unclean”. Now anyone with an infirmity, sickness or anything that labeled them as unclean were outcasted from society because people thought that they were cursed, punished and impure spiritually. So not only was she low on the social class level, but her spiritual status was a considered corrupt.
The beautiful thing about this passage is that Jesus was teaching in a crowd filled with influential and important people, people of high religious and social status. But even during his teaching He noticed this crippled woman in the crowd. Not only did He see her, but He had the audacity to interrupt His teaching to call her forward regardless of the social norms of that time (being that she is a woman and unclean). And that’s the amazing thing about God- He doesn’t care about whether you’re “important enough” in political or social eyes because you’re important to Him always. He cares about you and He sees the pain you’re under. You might think you’re a nobody, but to God you’re a somebody- a very important somebody.
God Wants To Heal You
Not only does God see and notice the pain in your life, but He wants to heal you from it— that is His heart. What I love about this passage in the Bible is that it doesn’t seem like this woman tried to reach out for Jesus’s attention. In fact, I wonder if this woman even thought that healing would be an option for her at this point in her life. It said that she had been under this infirmity for eighteen years of her life. That’s such a long time to be under pain! I can think of so many times in my life that I feel like I’m under pain or hurt from somebody or something to where it just starts to feel like a new normal. When I was younger I went through a pretty traumatic experienced that opened the door to depression in my life. I really struggled with sadness and self-hatred during that season, but it had become so normal in a sense for me to feel that way that I found myself just accepting that life for me was going to be like that forever. But I want you to know that this isn’t God’s heart for you!
Sometimes we can get into the mentality that our struggle and the pain we’re under is going to be our new normal. Prolonged pain can sometimes drain hope that there could be a chance for healing in our life in the areas that we have been hurt. However just like the woman in this passage, Jesus doesn’t need this woman to believe or hope for healing. Jesus didn’t need this woman to reach out to Him for Him to reach out to her and restore her. Jesus simply called her forward and healed her.
I want you to know that God wants healing for your life. In every problem there is a Heavenly provision set aside for you to conquer though it. With pain comes a Heavenly promise. God desires to bring our struggles and our pain back to completion, but sometimes we abort the process in the middle of it before He’s finished. Sometimes we get discouraged because of repeated pain. But I want to encourage to keep pushing for hope, keep pursuing the promises of God because His heart for you isn’t to struggle forever. Below is my video for this message, feel free to comment, share & subscribe!