Dear Diary,
John 5 1-9
The art of Healing
We all are exhaustively searching for healing of some sort in our lives. But I would like to pose a question that I think bears weight to the battle to find healing in the sense of struggles and mindsets, not particularly physical. The events that John is describing in John 5, concerns a man who had been sitting at a pool where an angel would come down and stir the waters. The first person into the stirred waters would be healed. This man had been at this pool for YEARS…..not days or hours, YEARS. John tells how Jesus saw the man and already knew he had been there for a long time but still asked “Do you want to be healed”. My first thought is, really? Are you really asking me that? I have sat here for years but no one can get me to the pool before another enters and receives healing. I imagine, Jesus looked at him with great compassion and simply motioned, you say yes, so, get up and take your mat and leave this place. Be healed. Astonished, think about the comfort this man placed in being in turmoil all this time and this man comes to me and says, Get up and go. But wait, don’t I need to do…..but how can this be. Where will I go, what will I do? I have been here so long, I don’t know what to do. Then I think of myself…..Do you really want to be healed of “________________”? (Depression, shame, weight issues, , pride, fear…You fill in the blank) Lay it down and follow MY lead, He says. As any human being may reluctantly say, I don’t have anything I need to lay down and walk away from. I call us out! We all struggle with inner voices and disbelief but God knows this about us and offers HIS IDENTITY to us! He tells us in 2 Corinthians 10:5, to take EVERY THOUGHT CAPTIVE unto the Obedience of Christ. If it was not going to be an issue we need to address, why would HE provide an opportunity to captivate the minds lethal conversations against our very own habits and tendencies?
How do we learn and live in His Identity? To KNOW HIM and spend time in HIS presence is the only course of action that we can take to understand that HE laid HIS identity on the CROSS and told me to pick up my cross and follow Him. To take up our crosses has always been described as our struggles and sin. But I would like to offer this too, His identity was placed on the cross for me to take up and cover my struggles and secret sins. His identity flows through me only by getting to know HIM and HIS power that WILL CHANGE my mindset. All the things we read of others telling….He is MY Strength, He is MY Refuge, He is the one who protects me and provides a way for me to lay down my struggle and love through the fear, complacency, despondent weariness DAILY, Hourly and forever on this side of eternity. My stubborn pride doesn’t want to relinquish the hold that has become comfortable. YES, misery can bring comfort, especially if that is what you have believed is as good as it gets.
My sweet sisters, this is not the way God intended us to live and breathe. He alone will walk in the valleys that are too deep for others to share and will bring you up into the mountain top. My identity in Christ is, that above all fear and doubt, He is the guide in my life that knows me better than I know myself and the joy unleashed in my spirit when I realize the unconditional blessings He showers on me through the ashes of pain, is truly for my benefit to realize His hand of covering that is on my life.
Remember, MY (YOUR) identity is:
I am a Daughter of the most High God (2 Corinthians 6:18)
I am chosen (I Thess 1:4)
I am enabled with all I need to walk through the muck and mire to tread on streets of gold in my heart until I am in His presence. (Phil 4:19) (Hebrews 4:16)
I am His Beloved and He is mine (Song of Solomon 6:3)
I am His Friend for He calls me friend. (John 15:14-15)
He is my Father (2 Corinthians 6:18)
He is my hiding place (Psalm 90)
I am at REST in His arms (Deuteronomy 33:12)
I am a beautiful masterpiece with potential to change the world (Psalm 139:13-17)
I am called (Eph 4:1)
I am considered Worthy (2 Thess 1:5)
I am justified by Him and through Him, I am HIS (Rom 3:23-24)
I am HIS Beloved (Col 3:12)
I am Blessed (Psalm 1)
I am Dearly Loved (John 3:16; Eph 2:4, I Thess 1:4)
I am Redeemed (Psalm 31:5; Gal 3:13)
I am no longer an alien or prisoner to the world and its hold on me. (Eph 2:19)
I am strong and courageous (Ps 31:24; Prov 14:26; 2 Corin 12:10)
I am beautiful (Isaiah 52:7)
I am free (Rom 8:1 John 8:36)