Psalm 147:3

AMP – He heals the brokenhearted And binds up their wounds [healing their pain and sorrow].

NRSVUE – He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.

VOICE – He binds their wounds, heals the sorrows of their heart.

God the Healer

God has much compassion towards us and can restore us from being emotionally and spiritually crushed. The heart was understood to be the center of our emotions and will. Those that are brokenhearted have experience deep sorrow and loss often due to sin, oppression, or personal tragedy. The healing God can provide is not just physical, but also emotional and spiritual, showing that God cares for and can heal all parts of our being.

God binding our wounds suggests a careful and attentive process of healing. This was a common practice in ancient times, to prevent infection and promote healing. It can also suggest God’s ability to handle the consequences of sin and suffering that show in our lives. This healing is not just about immediate relief, but complete restoration.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: How do you understand stories from people that have found healing through Christ? What do those stories mean to you in your journey with Christ?

Restoration Takes Work

We’re called to turn to God when we are in need. We’re called to trust in God’s promises to heal and restore us. This can feel difficult and fruitless, though. We go to the doctor, seeking answers for the long-term symptoms and issues we’ve been wrestling with for years, only to be told all the tests are clear, and that there’s nothing wrong us. We go to our therapist, seeking clarity about the trauma we’ve gone through, to be told to just “pray more” and “be grateful.” We go to our pastor seeking comfort about hardships that we’ve experienced, just to be turned into an example during Sunday’s sermon. This list goes on. The world makes it hard to trust God, but his images, us, are hard to trust.

However, and this will sound cliché, not all people are like that. The reason I say that is to encourage to still fight for your right to receive peace. The peace of Jesus is not an abandonment of our stress and chaos, but the strength to walk through our stress by faith, leaning on God to guide us to the right resources, right people, and the right path to victory. With doctors, it’s the strength to stand up for ourselves. It’s finding the courage to seek a second opinion, to fight for more tests, to talk through the struggles that these symptoms feel. It’s finding the strength to be vulnerable to our psychologist, sharing deep-seated hard-fought pain that we’ve suppressed for years. It’s finding the courage to walk away and seek another psychologist if we are not finding the healing that we’re looking for. It’s walking away from a church that doesn’t treat you with respect, love, and compassion. These are all healthy and respectful acts that allows you to find what you need to receive healing and restoration.

Now, I would be an unhealthy leader, if I didn’t say that we had to work to do as well. No leader, no doctor, no psychologist are going to do all the work for us and we get magically healed. There will be things that we will have to do alongside us. We will have to eat healthier. We may have to cut out the things we’re comfortable with and replace them with healthier options. We may have to work through our emotions through journaling and other type of expressive exercises. We may have to open our Bibles and slowly read through it, pausing and reflecting and praying over what it means and how we find ourselves in the story. These things will be more specific to you and your journey, and I am confident that something came to your mind as you’re reading this. (I know there things that came to my mind.) God has the power to heal and restore us, and through His Spirit, we have the ability to become the healthiest representation of God to the world that it needs. You are not alone in your fight for restoration. God is there, and will plant people along your journey to encourage you, to comfort you, and to guide you as well. We’re not meant to do this alone.

REFLECTION CHECKPOINT: What is one thing you can do to make yourself healthier either physically, mentally, or spiritually? How easy or difficult will that be for you?

Next slice of manna: Prayer Struggles || Manna for the Mind #401

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