HEALING WHEN SOMETHING'S MISSING . . .
GOT THAT FEELING OF BROKENNESS? INCOMPLETENESS? It could be you are missing something. LIKE MAYBE A JOB!! That means you need healing . . . .
You thought it would be fun
saying you were all done;
then sitting on your hands
like a squatter on his lands.
But you found out real hard
there's nothing in your yard
and your empty palms
ain't gaining any alms.
What you want is work!
Deny it, you're a jerk!
So go ahead apply
or else you just might die.
But ask the Man upstairs
For which job He cares
and ask Him what to do
Get a good prayer through.
Then comes the hard part
When the job He gives will start.
(from "The Big Book of Best Loved 'Pomes' for Fambly and Friends")
I went to the healing service this evening at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. I went for a couple of good reasons. I was asked to help for one thing. And I felt a need for healing for myself, for the other thing. They have a healing service at St. Paul's once a month, usually on the third Sunday of each month.
I could also say rightly that I wanted to go because I have gotten to know the people who participate, and I like them. They are good people of God. It is usually a small crowd, so we meet in the chapel. I was asked to participate tonight by one of the leaders, and I enjoyed doing it. I shared a brief testimony of Christ's witness to me through two young friends. I told them about an event which happened years ago when I was in high school. I also assisted in serving the Lord's Holy Communion. That was something I hadn't done in six months or so.
I had not really participated in any pastoral opportunities since my leave of absence went into effect last July, so this was a weird experience in a way. It felt good to be serving as a pastor again, but also sort of strange. But I mentioned that the other main reason I wanted to go to this was because I was seeking healing myself in a certain area. You might think of it as a questionable area; one in which traditional healing isn't needed or called for. It was the area of gaining employment. Literally, looking for and obtaining a job. I don't think it is questionable at all!
You see my current job is just days away from coming to an end, and I have been needing to find something else to take its place. I have come close with a couple of opportunities, but I must have done something to screw it up. I don't know precisely what, but it might have been something I said or did in the interview. Maybe I didn't seem interested enough in the work they were offering. Or maybe I offered too much information about my personal life or obligations outside of work. Such things have been known to discourage human resource directors.
But what kind of healings did Jesus perform when He walked this earth? He repaired broken or sick lives. He would drive out fever and disease with a word, repair broken or crippled bones, heal deafness, dumbness, and blindness, or cast out demons. Thus he was either transforming human lives back to normal (like the model of his own normal life) so that they could function in the way that God His Father intended. He was restoring them to wholeness by adding His own word or touch, or both. Or, in the case of casting out demons, Jesus taking away from humans the foul, foreign element which stole their personality, their f
reedom, and their proper and intended life before God. The devils would become obstacles to humans' true and authentic worship of God. Jesus came to remove those obstacles from peoples' lives so they could relate to and respond to God freely.
But just consider this: maybe healing also is needed in humans who are Christian, but who feel or know that something is missing in their lives. Something is missing that they believe is very important -- and maybe it is! This assumes that ordinary humans are able to know when they are complete or not. We know that even non-Christian human beings can do this, because they did it in biblical times: the people who came to Jesus asking for help were for the most part Jews. Probably some of them were nominal in their faith; but they knew when they were sick, and many of them believed Jesus had power for healing. They knew that what was lacking in their lives was the ability to do what 
they needed to do to live each day and supply their own needs with their own hands. (This of course assumes that many of them knew that their general, everyday abilities came from God. In the words of the great book of Deuteronomy, they all knew that it was God who gave them the power to generate wealth and blessing; so one who was unable to do that because of illness would naturally want to have that repaired. Deuteronomy 8:18, by the way.)
The reason I bring this up is the reason I went to the healing service tonight. The thing I am lacking at this point in my life is a job, as I indicated above. I am about to be jobless in a mere few days. I found out a few weeks ago that I do not qualify for unemployment benefits (for some oddball reason). But that doesn't matter as much as something else does. I think God made all men with a built-in need to work and a desire to work. We have many lazy bums today who have gotten used to being doled out a gift for doing nothing. They have gotten used to doing nothing for awhile, and used to being treated as victims who deserve nothing but hand-outs. They have stifled the inner drive to work. They let o
ur evil government shove them into an attitude of indolence and entitlement. They are thus no longer near the center of God's will for all men. I knew God did not want me becoming anything like that.
For most normal men, this drive, this need to work and be active and productive is very deep-seated. It is a need that can only rightly be filled by God. When a man allows God to fill that need with His specific plan for the specific man, then you have not just God giving the man a job. You have God leading the man into a vocation -- a calling of and for life.
Well, the thing that seems to be lacking most in my life now is a job. Not necessarily a vocation, though that would be nice, but just a job that I could do. I need the money to pay for basic necessities in life (such as rent, food, and utilities), so that I don't keep spending all of our family savings and living on that. I feel the need to work, and I want to work (God knows this is the truth). I left the pastorate in part to work in a regular job like other lay people. I feel the need to stay busy and productive just like any other normal man. And because I am about to be without employment I feel apprehensive. I am about to have something taken away from me or depart from my life which to me is very central and important.
It is not really being taken away from me in one large sense, because I am not being fired. I took the job I have now, knowing it was temporary and that it would end in December. So that is fine. I enjoyed the work that I had, but always knew it was going to end. So when Christmas comes, barring a miracle from God, I will have the "gift" of unemployment.
So what's next? As per the healing service, I seek this kind of healing from God: the healing of adding a word or a touch from Jesus which leads to employment. I mean the kind of employment I will find at least as fulfilling as I have right now, and which enables me to earn money. In short my life needs healing because it lacks a job. I am asking Jesus to supply that. I am asking Him to do this because He is the One who created me with a desire to serve and work and enjoy the experience of making a co
ntribution to something or someone else, and earning something in exchange. The men of the Bible do this because God designed them to do such things. And today I want to be that kind of "Man of the Bible".
So what I am now writing is not just a devotional on a man's God-designed needs; it is a prayer to Jesus Christ asking Him for healing in this way. In other words, "Lord, I need a job. I want to work. I need the money that comes from work. Please help me gain that. Thank you. Help my faith be in you be sufficient. Amen."
LBC
saying you were all done;
then sitting on your hands
like a squatter on his lands.
But you found out real hard
there's nothing in your yard
and your empty palms
ain't gaining any alms.
What you want is work!
Deny it, you're a jerk!
So go ahead apply
or else you just might die.
But ask the Man upstairs
For which job He cares
and ask Him what to do
Get a good prayer through.
Then comes the hard part
When the job He gives will start.
(from "The Big Book of Best Loved 'Pomes' for Fambly and Friends")
I went to the healing service this evening at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. I went for a couple of good reasons. I was asked to help for one thing. And I felt a need for healing for myself, for the other thing. They have a healing service at St. Paul's once a month, usually on the third Sunday of each month.
You see my current job is just days away from coming to an end, and I have been needing to find something else to take its place. I have come close with a couple of opportunities, but I must have done something to screw it up. I don't know precisely what, but it might have been something I said or did in the interview. Maybe I didn't seem interested enough in the work they were offering. Or maybe I offered too much information about my personal life or obligations outside of work. Such things have been known to discourage human resource directors.
But what kind of healings did Jesus perform when He walked this earth? He repaired broken or sick lives. He would drive out fever and disease with a word, repair broken or crippled bones, heal deafness, dumbness, and blindness, or cast out demons. Thus he was either transforming human lives back to normal (like the model of his own normal life) so that they could function in the way that God His Father intended. He was restoring them to wholeness by adding His own word or touch, or both. Or, in the case of casting out demons, Jesus taking away from humans the foul, foreign element which stole their personality, their f
reedom, and their proper and intended life before God. The devils would become obstacles to humans' true and authentic worship of God. Jesus came to remove those obstacles from peoples' lives so they could relate to and respond to God freely.
But just consider this: maybe healing also is needed in humans who are Christian, but who feel or know that something is missing in their lives. Something is missing that they believe is very important -- and maybe it is! This assumes that ordinary humans are able to know when they are complete or not. We know that even non-Christian human beings can do this, because they did it in biblical times: the people who came to Jesus asking for help were for the most part Jews. Probably some of them were nominal in their faith; but they knew when they were sick, and many of them believed Jesus had power for healing. They knew that what was lacking in their lives was the ability to do what 
they needed to do to live each day and supply their own needs with their own hands. (This of course assumes that many of them knew that their general, everyday abilities came from God. In the words of the great book of Deuteronomy, they all knew that it was God who gave them the power to generate wealth and blessing; so one who was unable to do that because of illness would naturally want to have that repaired. Deuteronomy 8:18, by the way.)
The reason I bring this up is the reason I went to the healing service tonight. The thing I am lacking at this point in my life is a job, as I indicated above. I am about to be jobless in a mere few days. I found out a few weeks ago that I do not qualify for unemployment benefits (for some oddball reason). But that doesn't matter as much as something else does. I think God made all men with a built-in need to work and a desire to work. We have many lazy bums today who have gotten used to being doled out a gift for doing nothing. They have gotten used to doing nothing for awhile, and used to being treated as victims who deserve nothing but hand-outs. They have stifled the inner drive to work. They let o
ur evil government shove them into an attitude of indolence and entitlement. They are thus no longer near the center of God's will for all men. I knew God did not want me becoming anything like that.
For most normal men, this drive, this need to work and be active and productive is very deep-seated. It is a need that can only rightly be filled by God. When a man allows God to fill that need with His specific plan for the specific man, then you have not just God giving the man a job. You have God leading the man into a vocation -- a calling of and for life.
Well, the thing that seems to be lacking most in my life now is a job. Not necessarily a vocation, though that would be nice, but just a job that I could do. I need the money to pay for basic necessities in life (such as rent, food, and utilities), so that I don't keep spending all of our family savings and living on that. I feel the need to work, and I want to work (God knows this is the truth). I left the pastorate in part to work in a regular job like other lay people. I feel the need to stay busy and productive just like any other normal man. And because I am about to be without employment I feel apprehensive. I am about to have something taken away from me or depart from my life which to me is very central and important.
ntribution to something or someone else, and earning something in exchange. The men of the Bible do this because God designed them to do such things. And today I want to be that kind of "Man of the Bible".
So what I am now writing is not just a devotional on a man's God-designed needs; it is a prayer to Jesus Christ asking Him for healing in this way. In other words, "Lord, I need a job. I want to work. I need the money that comes from work. Please help me gain that. Thank you. Help my faith be in you be sufficient. Amen."
LBC
