One-Day-At-A-Time Healing

My good friend, writer and blogger Vicki Gaines wrote the following post that appeared recently on her blog Windows to My Soul. She echoes my feelings exactly. Thank you for sharing from your heart Vicki! God bless! - David

Even though I'm freed in Christ from self and sin, and rejoice in my new identity in Him, my healing hasn't come easily or instantly. Maybe because I've been a bit of an artful dodger instead of living out of my union with Him.

If we're only able to trust to the extent we intimately know someone, I'm afraid for many years I didn't know Jesus very well. I belonged to Him, and my salvation was secure. But I had only begun the knowing.

Funny, but the more I know Him, the more I sense my need. To my relief, the only thing grace requires is a need. "The bigger the hole, the more grace there is to fill it," someone once said. True. And so this same grace reveals through pain and troubles, just how broken I really am.

This is not something the unwounded life, the self-sufficient life, can relate to. Only the broken heart cries for healing, not ashamed to admit sheer need of the One who loves and gives, protects and heals.

Yet we're slow to wait on Him, distracted by many things. I, for one, have turned to others for remedies before I ever let Him feed me the mystery of His hidden manna.

But in turning back, I find that He works in quiet, little by little, revealing Himself, dissolving self-focus, increasing His vision; healing and satisfying need where the heart is surrendered. This is my one-day-at-a-time healing, where I'm conscious of His presence, His Spirit drawing me to the written Word, to worship and offer up my need. There in the quiet, I'm nourished. There too, I'm baffled at any prior resistance, knowing full well the need is too great to ignore Him.

All these years I collected quite a library of truths in my head from the Bible, desiring to change; eager not only to escape any trifle or pain - but to cover it up, and appear oh-so-spiritual and do for others. I certainly believed (and still do) that "You shall know the truth, and the truth shall set you free," but a cerebral study of truths couldn't heal me, only Jesus.

My healing comes the more I know and experience Him as my life. No shortcuts. The regurgitated spiritual food of others can't sustain me, only His manna will do. And in my brokenness, powerlessness, and weakness... Jesus rises up strong in me.

Through the Lord, I'm learning to stop 'jerking' from crisis to crisis, and rest in radical trust. Underneath are the Everlasting Arms. Amen!