More and more i'm thinking of the healing paradigm we have in the church and why it is a bit on the wrong side
When we go to God for healing we ask him for a "touch" and we point out the area we want Him to heal.
But more and more it seems to me that when one is full of God or near God, one gets engulfed in His glory and the more normal thing would be that the entire body would be touched and changed and healed by God.
That healing is a wholistic thing. When we ask for a touch, we are saying to God to fine-tune his healing power and touch a particular part but to not let other aspects of the person's body feel it. But I really feel that God comes in like a flood more often than not. Except that we are unable to get the full benefits of the river of life. There are waters to swim in. but we have been so trained to stint where God is concerned, or we are so trained to stint
that we only go into the waters ankle-deep spiritually speaking so the glory of God can't take us and utterly heal us.
When I think of being healed of A, B, C, D, E etc I start to think, "But can God handle ALL this healing ALL at once?" That's the kind of thing we've been trained to think. That God sees things in parts. But when I realize that if I can attain to this spiritual thought and freedom, if I can ascribe to God power and greatness, and really ascribe to him the ability to enter wholeheartedly into a situation, then ALL will be healed ALL at once. I know this sounds very heretical to some who feel as if God heals in parts and in stages, but I keep thinking of the Passover where all God's people were led out and no one was sick and where their clothes and their shoes didn't rot on them. I keep thinking of the Tower of Babel where everyone's mind was altered at once. I keep thinking of the ten plagues where so much happened to so many in so many little things and so many big things. And I see more and more that God is a complete God who does things individually and yet completely.
I keep seeing folks in church waiting for "a touch" from God. They do little bargaining things. They want to be healed of arthritis, diabetes, cancer, allergies, money problems, a pain in the right ear, a pain in the left eye, blindness, etc. etc. So this one person has all these things wrong with her body...And so she does this little accounting strategy... and says to herself, "Which of these things should I tell the minister about?"
I just don't think that is what God wants.
Yet, the paradigm of God touching a particular part of the body is too compartmentalizing. I just want to stop going up to ministers and doing an accounting check and deciding which thing i should tell the minister to pray for and I want to be able to have a great God who just comes in and because of His nearness to totally envelop me. To be near Him, how can our entire body not be filled and touched by Him? But because we don't believe it can be, we don't receive it.
As my friend Jessica says, "It's like what Jesus said 'Is it harder for a man to say your sins are forgiven or take up your mat and walk?' and then boom he does both."
And the removing of the sin sometimes is the bringing in of healing. And when ministers say things like "the salvation of a soul is better than healing" I'm like... "why do people who generally do not always show the gift of healing have these elaborate theologies about healing which basicaly stops your faith before you begin?"
The more I think about the Tower of Babel (Blog reposted below if you can't click there) the more I see how full of fullness God is.
THE TOWER OF BABEL
Okay, so here is the story as told in Genesis, chapter 11:
1And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech. 2And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there. 3And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them throughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for morter. 4And they said, Go to, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reachunto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5And the LORD came down to see the city and the tower, which the children of men builded. 6And the LORD said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. 8So the LORD scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city. 9Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the LORD did there confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the LORD scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth.
I love this story. And what gets me is the confounding of the languages. Language nut that I am. Am not sure who the "us" refers to. It might be spoken by Father God to the other members of the godhead, or it might be spoken by God to the angels. But the operation is set, accomplished.
Now, everyone who spoke thought they were speaking THE language but they weren't.
A) Instantly, a B) series of instant languages were created C) and downloaded into the minds/tongues of D) groups of people E) as the lesser choice against a future evil.
That's five different miracles all at once.
A) The choreography of the Divine assault, the timing, the instantaneous direction.
B) The creativity of our great Lordm the God of order and rules. He creates these languages with all their rules. I'm not talking about languages that have branched off from others since then, just these FIRST primary languages. Grammatical rules for each language are different. Some cultures start sentences with the object, some with the subject. Pronounciation rules, syntactical rules, also vary. Some cultures have no "L" sound, some have no "R" sound. Some rules are made up of tongue clicks. Yet, at the same time there are certain rules that all languages follow. People must have names, for instance. Or, interestingly, the word for "take" can be used to mean "to understand." (Weird, but that "take" idiom seems to be in so many languages. . .probably connected with the idea of "taking an idea and digesting it.")
C) The great communal mind change. ALL minds are similarly affected at the same time. Through what agency? The language centers of the brain? Suddenly the language centers of all the brains of all these people are changed? What a great God!
D) They had to be different enough so folks couldn't understand each other. The languages had to be numerous enough so that all these people could not easily find someone to speak with. The languages had to be shared by families, husbands and wives, sons and daughters, so when the big departure happened, people would be able to converse with their own households.
E) And why is this done? In order to prevent humans from destroying themselves by unity. God alone knows what this human created tower to honor humanity would do, but it was obviously gonna cause trouble if humans pooled all their knowledge. Note, at first God thought it was all very interesting and only came down to look. But when he saw the dangers... well, one shudders to think what God saw! But what does he do? He doesn't destroy the tower Himself. He makes them leave off building it. He simply causes language confusion.
That amazes the heck out of me. Communication was the problem that was pushing humanity toward a fix and communication was what was challenged. The thing they feared and were working against (dispersion and alienation from each other) came upon them. And yet, it seems, the end result God chose was the lesser of two evils.
Okay, so why is God making me ponder and think about this today? Is it about me ascribing glory and power and strength to Him? Is it about a group download into the Christian mind? Is it about the United Nations? Is it about me understanding He can heal Gabe and me? How we need to see the strength and power of God and His angels! What is it about????
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