"12 In one of the villages, Jesus met a man with an advanced case of leprosy. When the man saw Jesus, he bowed with his face to the ground, begging to be healed. “Lord,” he said, “if you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.”
13 Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” And instantly the leprosy disappeared."
Faith, the Biblical definition of faith is found in Hebrews 11:1 "1 Faith is the confidence that what we hope for will actually happen; it gives us assurance about things we cannot see." But today I want to talk about practical faith. The verse in Luke shows a huge leap of faith for the man with leprosy. He said the scariest phrase known to me. He said to Jesus "if YOU are willing..." Those words scare me. I've been on this journey for a few months now; and I've been gobbling up every word of healing I can find thus far. I read this verse today and was a little floored. I'm learning another aspect of my healing. After reading this verse it dawned on me that I've been awful demanding on God. I've been praying for healing, demanding that my pain and issues go away; now I've been demanding in a nice and polite way; but demanding none the less. This man, whom was considered unclean in his time, looks the Son of God in the face and acknowledges that it's HIS choice if we are healed or not. Notice what Jesus responds with, an immediate “I am willing,” as if He is ALWAYS ready and just waiting for us to acknowledge His power. I don't feel like this is a power trip for Jesus, just that He is patiently waiting for me to acknowledge His healing power and stop demanding I be instantly healed.
I have been trying to read my Bible with an eye towards what I might write about in my blog, meaning that I've started looking at the Bible as a teaching opportunity in my life; this approach is helping me see a lot of the little things I was missing before and even see new joys and lessons in favorite verses of the past. So while I read today, I started thinking to myself, what can I get from these passages? My Bible is a "read it in a year Bible" that has a passage from the old testament, a passage from the new testament, a psalm and a couple of verses of Proverbs every day, so I get a wide variety of reading. My old testament passage was about the Cities of Refuge that the Israelites were to build for people who had accidentally murdered someone. The concept was that if a murder occurred by accident; the person could run to a City of Refuge and be safe from the kin of the murdered person. This "murderer" had to stay IN that city until the High Priest died, then he could return to his property. I had ideas about this and my blog; something about how Jesus is our city of refuge now, but I kept reading. Then I read this verse and tried my hardest to skim over it. Next came the passage where the friends of the crippled man lowered him from a roof in front of Jesus so he could heal the man. I wanted to write about the loyalty of the friends and their determination in seeing their friend healed. But when I got done reading I was praying, and I prayed what the man with leprosy said to Jesus...if you want to, you can heal me...and instantly thought "WOW, that's a scary prayer!" and my next thought was; OK God, I'll write about my fear!
Why is that scary to me? It's scary because it acknowledges the fact that God may NOT want to heal me. It points it out in a way that says to me, Julie this maybe something God isn't going to take away from you. WOW. After reading and praying that, I realized that my faith was going to have to grow again. Now it had to cover my fear of not being healed as part of God's plan for me. Now I have to expand again and remember that Jeremiah 29:11 says "11 For I know the plans I have for you,” says the Lord. “They are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future and a hope." The Lord is on MY side, but that doesn't mean that healing me of my TMJ is a part of that GOOD He has planned for me. So now I have to see if my faith is big enough to include this new revelation; that God has good planned for me that might also cause me pain. I know that my faith can handle that, it already has; but still, it's hard to admit to myself that I may never be healed and that if I'm NOT healed, it's still a part of God's planned good for my life.
I hope my revelation isn't scaring anyone to much today, because the last part, the part from Jeremiah is the hope here. God's plans ARE for our good and not our disaster. Plans that; even if they do cause us pain, will give us a FUTURE and a HOPE. Thank you Jesus for opening my eyes yet again. I love You and I know that "if You want to, You can heal me" but I also acknowledge that if You DON'T want to heal me that it is a part of Your planned good in my life! Thank you Jesus; Amen!
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