Healing

After his encounter with God, it was a time for healing for Job.  But to God, it wasn’t just about the healing of his body, or the healing of all his personal hurts from the tragedies he had suffered.

It was about the healing of relationships.  God told Job’s friends, “You were wrong about Job.  More than that, you were wrong about me and my purposes for Job.”

That must have been sweet music to Job’s ears, to be vindicated like that.  But then God told them,

So now take seven bulls and seven rams and go to my servant Job and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves.

My servant Job will pray for you, and I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly.  (Job 42:8)

One wonders how Job felt when he heard that.  Did he readily pray for his friends?  Or was there still hurt there that made it difficult for him to do so?

I tend to think there was still a lot of hurt there.  They had spent the better part of the day, or possibly weeks (how long did this conversation last, anyway?) ripping on him and his integrity.  And now God was saying to pray for them?

But it was only when he forgave his friends and prayed for them that the healing began, not just in his relationships with his friends, but in every other area of his life.

I think there’s a very important principal to learn from that.  When we’ve been wounded by others, it can be very easy to get bitter and to hold on to that bitterness.

But God calls us to forgive them.  And not only to forgive them, but to pray for God’s forgiveness in their lives for what they did to you.

“But Bruce, you don’t know what they’ve done to me.  You don’t know how much they hurt me.”

No I don’t.  But God does.  And though they were wrong, God calls you to forgive.  Why?

Because you will never know healing in your own life otherwise.

Bitterness not only affects your relationship with the person who hurt you.  It affects every other part of your life.

Bitter, unforgiving people are affected not only emotionally, but often times physically as well.  Unforgiveness has been linked with higher blood pressure, ulcers, and heart disease, among other things.

One of my favorite quotes is this:  “To forgive is to set a prisoner free and discover that the prisoner was you.”

Do you want healing in your life?  Learn to forgive.

Is it easy?  No.

You may need help from your pastor.  Or a counselor.  But most of all, you’ll probably need help from God.

But when you forgive, that’s when the healing in your life begins.