students of jesus

You know you’re really sick when the doctor does for you what you cannot do for yourself: you receive anesthetic, they cut you open and fish around inside your body, and later you wake up a changed man. That’s one kind of “healing.” It’s the kind none of us want, but sometimes need.

The other kind of healing comes when we visit the doctor’s office, receive advice or medicine, and go home to apply the remedy to ourselves. “Change your diet and lose some weight,” says the healer. Or: “Have this prescription filled and take the medicine until your condition goes away.”

In the first example our need is critical and we are powerless to effect the remedy ourselves. In the second, our need may be just as great, but we are able to participate in the change. A good doctor has the skill to heal the first way, but prefers to use the second. He knows change runs deep when we participate in the cure. Of course, God is a good doctor. Consider these instructions:

His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature and escape the corruption in the world caused by evil desires. For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. But if anyone does not have them, he is nearsighted and blind, and has forgotten that he has been cleansed from his past sins. (2 Peter 1: 3-9)

Can you see the interplay between the two types of healing? There is a dynamic difference between what God alone can do and what we can do in cooperation with him. Both bring healing, and both are critical. A week of meditation on the difference between the two could transform our lives.