7 R’s of Healing

I have finally reasoned, from a spiritual prompting, that not all pilgrimages to healing lead to that place. Indeed, many of the methods that are purported today, whilst they sound good, I am sure will lead to further emptiness. They have led to further emptiness.

Having enjoyed the first fruits of healing, having tasted the abundance of produce ripe for picking and eating, I feel God urgently calling me forward in a new season: “Come… take… eat of this! Partake of this spiritual food.”

Gradually over the preceding months and perhaps two years God has been giving me ‘R’ words to ruminate over. As I rapidly approach and arrive at my fifty-second birthday I am aware of two things: no longer am I bothered about getting old, it is more my concern to get more years under my belt; and, more to the point, I am morbidly concerned that I am not healing fast enough—that I am plateauing, because we all tend to plateau in our spiritual journey, finding ways to spin around the desert for 40 more years. I don’t have the time for it! I have to press on.

These ‘R’ words are coming to symbolise for me the very genesis of my challenge to the next round of healing. These ‘R’ words are a general formula anyone can apply in any life situation. These ‘R’ words are the most important avenues of life in taking us from death to life so we can live more of the abundant life.

I must repent by finding the directions I’m making in life that are unworthy of the higher calling and, through awareness, make the choice to turn back to God’s wise way. Repentance is the key to most if not all of these that follow.

I must seek to restore myself to the picture God long placed in my mind of myself as my Lord sees me. Nothing perfect by all means! He has placed in my spiritual mind’s eye a definite vision I want he sees for me and how I am to operate. This is the place of peace; to have ascended to the place where I covet nothing but worship.

I must recover. I can, so I simply must. I can do what I can do to recover from the sins that continue to characterise me in my season and stage of life. The fact that I must impels me forward in hope. That God’s not finished with me yet. I’m so glad about that!

I must reconcile all matters that are, at this time, out of whack with God’s will. My health, the way I think, many of my relationships, the work I do and the way I do it, the love I give and the love I withhold, and the regrets I have, all stir me to reconcile that which can be brought to peace.

I must restitute every matter that currently weighs incongruously. The older I get the more I realise I could drop dead of a heart attack and therefore forever miss what I can now do. There are matters that require restitution; so many matters. In seeking to put things right, I am asking God for more time, or at least time enough to do what I’m appointed to do while I live and breathe.

I must redeem what Christ has ordained for me to realise; the golden prize that he has won for me. This is the hope that he set forth from my spiritual mind’s eye. It’s mine to take, and nobody can take it from me, just as nobody can take yours from you. It is ours for the taking and it not only costs us nothing, it will cost us if we do not take it.

I must reclaim what it means to be ‘in Christ’. The term ‘in Christ’ is so significant as a New Testament concept. To be one such one it’s important to accept that there is no need of perfection; it is perfectly okay to have weaknesses, faults, brokenness, and even to make mistakes. To be ‘in Christ’ simply means I take the Father at his word; Christ has become my perfection and so there is now no need for me to be what Jesus already is in my life. This means there is nothing left to prove and there is nothing left to gain. This is not about making the faith-life easier; indeed, it is harder to accept by faith that I can do nothing to improve on what Christ has already done. My job is simply acceptance. To accept that my ‘work’ for God adds nothing and can only take away from the work of the cross compels me to humility.

All these ‘R’s’ and many more lead to, and mean, the same thing: healing. God is calling us to heal. God is calling me to heal. It is all that matters.