Hold my faith for me! I cannot grasp it right now.
~ An African mother in travail of childbirth, to her attendants.
Whenever Moses held up his hand, Israel prevailed, and whenever he lowered his hand, Amalek prevailed. But Moses’ hands grew weary, so they took a stone and put it under him, and he sat on it, while Aaron and Hur held up his hands, one on one side, and the other on the other side. So his hands were steady until the going down of the sun. And Joshua overwhelmed Amalek and his people with the sword.
~ Exodus 17:12-13
If we are faithless, He remains faithful, for He cannot deny Himself.
~ 2 Timothy 2:13
Some of us have been saved from some pretty dark places. This writer, not so long ago that he cannot remember it, could not feel anything for anybody. And the only feelings he felt for himself were desperate attempts to not feel the panic and aloneness that yawned out before him.
And then the One from whom Life flows said, “Arise child.” His breath breathed a new life into me that i never thought would be possible. It was impossible.
But G_d!
He heals us. He imbues us with strength. Why? Are we made strong just so we can be strong like some weightlifter at the YMCA, pumping our muscles against the cables and pivots and iron in the room?
No. He makes us strong with His strength because we are in a pitched battle on the spiritual plane. There are people all around us – oceans of them – that need the touch of Jesus in their lives. We don’t just get wounded and healed to go off the battle field and go home to be with Him (oh yeah, that is gonna happen AND that is going to be a VERY good day!), He has applied miraculous healing powers in our lives that we might charge right back into the battle and participate in the process of healing those others who have been wounded.
How?
He gives us His very heart.
As we despair of any hope that our own hearts can do any good thing; as we come to know that our own hearts are desperately wicked, and deceitful above all else – He exchanges that old heart of stone for a heart of flesh made new of Himself. Almost immediately, we wonder: OH! What was that?
That, beloved, is empathy. That, beloved, is Love for the brethren.
OH! It is wonderful! OWWW! What was that?!??!!
Their pain.
Why do i care so much about their pain?!?!
And He says simply, you and I are one. you have My heart now. I Love you, though, with a Love that crushes the laws of physics. I Love you in a way that – if you felt all of it right now – would simply consume you into a consummate union with Myself. That Day is coming. This is just a preview. I AM letting you sense in the temporal, what I feel for you in the eternal. Go Love that one, this way – right now.
And we do. Abandoning the old fears that the wounded soldiers we are approaching might reject the healing we are bringing (they might), or that they might lash out in their pain and injure us (they might) – we rush headlong into the battle, driven by a simple driving force. Love. His Love. His Love in us and through us.
We become filled with His strength-yielding Joy. We begin to desperately Love those around us, and simply desire that they might experience the healing and Joy we have been given. And all of this was given to us by simply surrendering fully to the belief that Jesus was able to heal.
Would that we might, even tonight, reach out to our hurting friends and share the faith that He has given us in such a way that it might become their own.
With infinite love and compassion our Lord understood the human predicament. He had deep empathy with people; he saw their needs, their weaknesses, their desires, and their hurts. He understood and was concerned for people. Every word he spoke was uttered because he saw a need for that word in some human life. His concern was always to uplift and never to tear down, to heal and never hurt, to save and not condemn.
~Charles L. Allen (1913- )
