We Are Healed On The Way

I've got a number of issues in my character that I want God to fix. Control freak is one of those. Generally, I want them to be fixed through some sort of a waving of a magic wand. Lord, can't you just say a few words or do a mysterious inner thing inside me to change me?

Jesus bumped into ten lepers one day. As lepers are wont to do, they cried out for healing. When he saw them, he said, "Go, show yourselves to the priests." And as they went, they were cleansed. (Luke 17:14).

So when I read that passage the other day, it was the "as they went" that struck me. Jesus tells a bunch of lepers to go to the priests. This would have been the necessary step of re-instatement into the community for lepers who had been already healed. But they weren't yet healed when they left. And so they had to trust, believe, that they would be healed on the way.

I think God works out most of our issues in the context of the activities and work and play of our lives. We are seldom healed or transformed or changed in a vacuum. We are very often healed on the way. In fact, God ordains many of the circumstances of our lives to surface the issues of our souls in order that they might be brought into the light, uprooted, healed. Very often the trials or struggles or just the simple events of our lives are the venue of therapy for our brokenness.

God is a good doctor, calling us to go through often grueling or sometimes surprising exercises, in order that we might be whole once again.

Marriage has been and continues to be the primary station in my life where God is exorcising my demons of control, performance, and conflict avoidance. But the news that I announced this past week here on the blog is probably my latest experience.

The chaos associated with two kids can sometimes drive me a little crazy, I wasn't sure that I wanted three. But here's this new life that God's given to us, completely unexpectedly, and for very good reason. I need to give up my attempts at managing my life. It is not mine to manage to begin with. And so part of what God is doing with this new life (it is by no means the sum total of what He's doing) is freeing me from my illusion of control. I need strong medicine, and kids are nothing if not that. Baby #3 on the way is an invitation to continue to repent of my control-freak nature that will kill me if I allow it to run unchecked. It is an invitation that I gladly accept.

And so I embrace this little one to come, can't wait to meet her or him for the first time. And I look forward to the ways that God will heal me "on the way" of hard nights, sweet smiles, and dirty diapers. I pray that when I'm old, I'll be more and more a man of peace. More settled, less anxious. More relaxed, less grasping. And I'll have my kids (given to me by my God) to thank for that.