“…gifts of healing…working of miracles…”
These words come from 1 Corinthians 12, found in the list of spiritual gifts that can be released through our relationship with the Holy Spirit.
Miracles are those instantaneous happenings of health or supernatural occurrences we can ask for, but most of the time don’t see coming until they happen. Gifts of Healings come more through process.
Process is not a word any one of us like, but it is essential to understanding healing, especially in the emotional or spiritual realm of healing.
It takes us awhile to get into the situations that produce pain and wound in our lives, either because they are a product of choices that we have made the brought us to this place of pain, due to relationships that have gone sour which we expected to last longer than they did, or people who we trusted and believed in failed to follow through on who they promised to be in our lives…or a mix of these and more. It doesn’t really matter how the wound came, but the fact is that we’ve been wounded and it’s not going to be overnight getting healed.
It’s a process.
One of my favorite illustrations is the story of Peter’s deliverance from jail in the book of Acts. (You can read it in Acts 12.) Here he is, jailed for preaching the truth of Jesus’ resurrection, and the church is praying for him. As a result of their prayers, instead of going to trial the next morning, an angel comes in the night, slapped Peter awake (talk about faith…he was asleep!) and tells him he can leave. Note that Peter had to walk out of his cell, walk past the other cells and sleeping guards, out of the prison itself, clear out of the city.
My point is this, deliverance comes when we forgive, and ask God to heal us. It’s one of those instantaneous miracles. But the process of walking out of the wound that binds us takes some time. God doesn’t just transport us from one condition of woundedness and pain into one of wholeness, without us walking through a process. What takes us a while to get into, takes us a while to get out of, but we’re never alone on this journey. Notice in the story of Peter, the angel guided him all the way out! God’s grace will be our companion on the journey if we will only allow him to take us through the process.
More on this next time…
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