Now and Not Yet

 

Today I heard a great sermon in church, one that resonated with my soul and gave understanding into some verses in Matthew 9.  

That whole chapter is about miracle healings, from healing a child who was dead and, a women who had an issue of blood for 12 years, another child who had died, healing two blind men, and healing a man tormented with demons.  Verse 35-36 says Jesus was going through the villages, cities proclaiming the gospel and healing every kind of disease and sickness.  Jesus was filled with compassion for the people and their needs.  

Healings have never been the same as they were when Jesus walked this earth.  In the early years of my salvation I begin to seek out the why.   In the Matthew 9 account of healings Jesus says nothing about any doctors or did He use any medicine to heal.  He touch, spoke few and miraculous healing happened. Do I believe He could heal with just a word from heaven?  Yes, yes, yes  but I don't question the why not for the now.  

Understanding these few scriptures put it in to context and gives hope for the future.  Jesus was establishing His ministry on earth in these verses.  You might think it was the ministry of healing but it was His ministry of who He is. In verse 35 tells us He was about His Father business and it was not healing.  He was proclaiming the gospel which is who He is, what will happen to Him and what His death and resurrection will bring to all who believe in Him and not the healing.  He was establishing His authority.  

If His main ministry was healing everyone would have gotten healed to this day. Would be no need for doctors, hospital,  nursing homes and funeral homes.  Ever since the fall of mankind in the garden it was appointed for man to die once, so first we all are going to die.  Also it was appointed for all to  have trouble here on earth before we die.

 God operates in the Now and Not Yet.

The model of healing Jesus used in Matthew will operate again in its fullness in heaven.  He wants us to focus on Him, here and now in this trouble world.  There is a bigger picture in all this and it became clearer to me when I spent some quality time with the Lord in the hospital with covid.  I cannot tell you how many chances I had to witness to all who came into my room about Jesus.  Nurses would send other nurses to talk to me, not because I was miraculously getting healed but because I was not.  It was not one touch, or one word from any one that got me released from the hospital. It was God using doctors and nurses and medicine that got me to where I was well enough to leave the hospital.  And my part was to give God the glory through it all.  There was no way you were going to leave my room without hearing the name of Jesus probably more then once.  

I am always humbled when God uses me to witness for Him and nothing brings me more joy then to do so.  To see Him in the big picture takes my eyes off me and others and puts my trust exactly where it should be. God waste nothing is one of my favorite quotes and I use it a lot. I have to because He has shown me this truth over and over and over.  

One more quote from the sermon, one I have mentioned in this post already, but deserves to be used over and over.  Christ is the focus in any healing,  not the healing itself.  If we focus in the now, our hardships,  we become hard and will not have compassion on others.  Lets focus on the not yet on a daily bases.  It can bring contentment for the now.  

Direction

 

Since last year I have been looking for direction on finishing my book which I started about 10 years ago. In 2017 I had open heart surgery and the urgency to write my memoir was resurrected and I finally got started on it. Then came the covid and a year of medical issue resulting in 3 stays in hospital last year. Finally I am feeling on top of it again, health wise, not out of the woods yet but I have direction as to some of my why's, and what to do with the why and a boast from the Lord that He has given me more time here on earth.

Recently I have been doing lots of research on writing a memoir and discovered that I really have my whole first book written. For a memoir is not a bio of my whole life but its about a particular incident or experience of an individual and attempts to highlight a point of view. Where a biography presents chronological event from the life of a particular person without specifically focusing on a particular experience.

Here is the reason why the book is already written. I have used the experience of growing up with an abusive father who called me and my two brother pitiful along with other cruel words and actions that took whatever love one could have for their father and ground it to dirt. I have use that as a platform to help others through counseling, speaking to women gathering So now with a clearer picture of my book I can draw from all the material and focus on that one part of my life.

Forgiveness is the center of my book, the core, the guts as they say. Forgiveness is the key to a healthy life, a life of freedom that is not bound up with bitterness, resentment and all those kinds of emotions that steal a free life.

Now, is there more life to write about, yes, yes, yes? But I had never before thought about writing more then one book which is why I was trying to piece together it all and have been totally overwhelmed. One incident that spanned about four years concerning my Dad would unlock the floodgates of forgiveness, a book, a memoir that I pray I can finish soon, and that it's contents will help others find forgiveness for what ails their hearts. That is what I have to finish, those four years. Pray for me as I set my sites on that and my health stay good so I can do what God told me 10 years ago to do.

Oh, one more thing. I have an enemy that does not want me to write this book. He uses mind games all the time to get me to put aside a God driven goal. He will tell me, there are so many books just like what you are writing , why one more? You are so inadequate to do this, no training to write. He plays these thoughts and others over and over in my head until I do exactly what I am doing right now, writing and exposing him. He hates anything that will lift up the Lord and put a stop to any glory that would go to Him. He has absolutely no love for me or any of God's creation, most of all he hates God.

Let me just close with this: it is important to know your enemy as it is to know your Savior. We spend all our time sometimes fighting the physically things such as another person and the enemy of our soul loves it. Two things I know for sure, in whom I have placed my trust in for my soul and life here on earth and my eternity. The other is who my enemy is, the devil, or satan, which ever one you prefer to call him and I will call him out when given the chance and that frees me to hear the direction the Lord wants to give me when I ask.