God Heals

There are miracles of modern medicine. There are plain ol' miracles. And then, there are nights lying awake in bed, pleading with God just to hear you, just to acknowledge that He knows you're still here, just to give you a glimpse of some kind of hope of healing. 

For all that science has given us, for all that we've come to understand about our human condition - and even our human condition as persons of faith - there is still not a thing in this world that we can do about our soul sickness. 

Only God can heal that. 

We spend our whole lives wrestling with it. We do. We stay up late, we moan, we groan in our spirit, we cry our tears, we let our emotions drip down our faces, we bow our heads, we fold our hands, we cry out...and we still don't really know what we're doing. We feel the tension in our souls, this tearing, this torn-between. Torn between infinite love and...whatever this is. Whatever this broken, messed-up, falling apart, can't sleep, knocked down, worn out life we're living is. 

The more broken we are, the more we feel so deeply in our souls that it wasn't supposed to be this way. The closer we hear God's footsteps, the more our hearts just start to beat in sync with His. The more we dream about the garden, the more real it becomes. This is what we were made for. 

Then, what is all this mess?

Isaiah says that those who dwell in God's land won't be able to say any more that they are sick - that they are soul-sick, that they are sin-laden, that they are beaten down, broken up, downtrodden, hurting. The people of God won't be able to say any of that because the Lord their God, the only One who can, has heard them and will heal them and will take away all of their sickness. All of it. 

Even the sin-sick, messed up, twisted around, broken down, fallen over, can't sleep sickness that plagues our existence in the fallen creation, in the already-but-not-yet, in the shadow of the Cross. 

It won't be a pill. It won't be a transfusion. It won't be a transplant or a gene splice or a miracle of modern medicine. Hey, it won't even be a miracle. 

It will be simple grace, born out of steadfast love. The mercy of God poured out on us, crying out from the side of the road, crying, simply, in our beds, in the darkness, in the angst, in the hurt, in the sorrow. 

God heals all the sickness with one breath of His incredible love and we, the people of God, will no longer get to say that we're broken. 

Rather, we will shout the glory of God and rejoice that we are healed.