Healing & RestorationSample

The great physician

When you’re recovering from an operation, as I am now, it’s clear that the process of healing is painful. I voluntarily submitted to the surgeon, and I trust he’s done the work needed to heal the issue, but the result is pain, discomfort, and exhaustion as my body mends and recovers. It takes time, but the process leads to healing.

Sometimes, our hurts are emotional, mental, or spiritual. We have many unseen wounds caused by others, and by our own sin damaging our relationships with God and others. Healing is needed both within us and in our relationships. But healing can hurt. It takes the hard work of being honest with ourselves, asking God and others for forgiveness, and choosing to give our wounds to God to be healed. We are all sinful. We are all hurt and have caused hurt to others. But we can’t begin the healing until we realise we’re sinful, sick, and need a doctor.

Jesus is described as the great physician for the physical healings He performed countless times in the Gospels, but also for the spiritual and emotional healing He offers. In Mark 2, Jesus was questioned by the Pharisees about why He was eating with ‘unworthy’ tax collectors and sinners. His response was, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.' The great physician was showing compassion on those who knew they were sinners, those who didn’t pretend they had it all together, but took their sin and their pain to Jesus for healing. He’s able to heal us! His treatment may feel painful at first as He shows us our wounds, but His forgiveness brings healing and allows restoration in our relationship with God and others.

Written by JODIE WILLIAMS