There is Biblical counterpart to last day's secular recovery saying “We will not change, until the pain of being stuck becomes greater than the pain and fear of change”. The Biblical counterpart is “We will not change until we are hurt enough we have to, learn enough we want to, and receive enough to be able to”. Healing and change and freedom are linked realities. We become more and more free when we change to the direction to which He moves us, and we able change as we become more and more healed.
Concerning receiving enough to be able to change, it is in His embrace that we are healed. It is in fellowship with Him that our broken hearts are meanded, as we find our value and meaning in our connection with Him. It is in Him we find out who we truly are, and where we can even start to feel good about ourselves. What we are talking about here, is intimacy with God. This intimacy is key to our healing, recovery and freedom. But there are many things that can keep us from it . Perhaps the biggest block of all is our sin.
I came to know the Lord out of an ungodly lifestyle, and in a lot of pain. I did not immediately connect my pain to my lifestyle (it is easy to blame everybody else), but I was desperate, and I found in His embrace a Love and comfort that allowed me to survive, and ultimately to start to live. I knew some of the things that displeased Him, and with His help made some early significant adjustments. However, when you have spent a lifetime feeding your various appetites, the desire for those things does not immediately die. It was my pain that God used to teach me what was pleasing to Him, the very same things that bring life. When the old desires got strong enough, and I would start to move towards them, He would as it were, open His arms saying “Phil, you can go there if you want to, but I cannot come with you”. As I continued along my chosen path the pain and the confusion and darkness would start to return and I would run back to His arms saying “Whatever it is Lord show me, I cannot live without You”. And He did show me, and I would choose His way over my sin. In this way, I became very teachable. I was learning that our becoming free, becoming oaks of righteousness and being healed are interrelated. I was starting to learn enough to want to change, to really change and stay changed!
I was encouraged to read the Bible regularly. It was His Word that first alerted me to the connection of my pain and my former lifestyle. I read “Behold, the Lord’s hand is not shortened, that it cannot save; nor His ear heavy, that it cannot hear. But your iniquities have separated you from your God; And your sins have hidden His face from you, so that He will not hear” (Isaiah 59:1,2). He was using His Word to confirm what He was teaching me, that I could not have my sin and Him too. I must choose. It was not that He could not hear when I chose other than His ways, He would not hear. I was learning that the nature of reality is that the good things are to be found only in following Him. Oh there is pleasure in sin, but it is only for a season (Hebrews 11:25). Moreover our sin does not really satisfy, but rather as time goes by, we need more and more to get less and less high! In this way we are drawn deeper and deeper into destructive addictions.
Starting to see and understand that sin is destructive is part of learning enough to want to change. Jesus tells us that “He who sins is the slave of sin”. The cornerstone of recovery we are dealing with here is about “freedom to the captives”. Jesus tells us “If the Son shall set you free, you will be free indeed”. Freedom and healing and God's willingness to intervene in our lives are linked to our response to Him. The Lord uses His promises to draw us to Himself and to wholeness. One such promise is to be found in 2 Chronicles 7:14:
If my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.
The context of this verse is about the “desolations” in which we find ourselves when we and/or our culture insists on going our own way. The truth of the matter, the nature of reality if you like, is that sin always has negative consequences. If we will allow Him to, God will use our pain to help us to rethink the direction of our lives. The Bible puts it this way “Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap" (Galatians 6:7).
The problem is we are so easily deceived, but when we come to our senses and are willing to see that a large part of our pain is because of our poor choices, then we find that God is waiting for us to take us back and to heal us. It is our sins that separate us from Him, but our God is gracious, and when we return to Him, He will abundantly pardon, for He is full of compassion. There are three things the above verse tells us that He will do, He will hear us, He will forgive us and He will heal our land. That is God will change the whole course of History in response to the obedience of those who are “called by My name”. He has promised, but it's not automatic. The promise has conditions that must be fulfilled. In fact in this verse from 2nd Chronicles, there are three. Lets take them one at a time
Firstly “If my people …. will humble themselves and pray....” We are a proud people here in the West! That rugged North American independence, the self made man (or woman) attitude, the “I don't need anyone” syndrome, has left us wounded and isolated and lonely. To admit that we need another or even God is humbling. “Christianity is a crutch” I was told. 'No my friend Christianity is a brand new pair of legs, and at some level we all limp without Him'. I don't pretend that it is not humbling to come to the end of ourselves, but we need to go further and humble ourselves and cry out to Him (“humble ourselves and pray'). It is the start of (or the return to) our relationship with Him. When we cry out to Him like this, we will find Him to be gracious and compassionate and He will abundantly pardon.
Secondly “If my people …. will seek my Face ..” As I said above it is in His embrace that we are healed, that we become more and more free. Christianity is not first and foremost about rules and regulations, it is not about ritual, not about church, it is all about Him. I am not saying that these things are not important, but we do need to realize that religion can keep us from Him. His purpose in sending Jesus was not so that we would become religious – after all it was the religious types that crucified Him. His purpose in sending Jesus to die for our sins is so that He could bridge the yawning gulf that our sin caused between you and I and Him. Seeking His face is about prayer too, but it is more than a grocery list of our requests. He wants to pour out His love into our hearts (Romans 5:5), it is through sitting before Him in prayer that we experience this.
One of the problems of seeking His face, is that He is Holy and pure and we are not. What this can mean is that we feel guilty in His presence, and we can allow that to keep us from Him. This is perhaps, the main reason we need to fulfill the third condition: “If my people … will turn from their wicked ways”. When we come to God because we are in pain and trouble, more often than not, He will point out something in our lives that He wants to deal with. It is these very same things that keep in bondage. These things may even keep us from seeking His face, but the confession and forsaking sin (turning from our wicked way), and healing and being set free are closely related. James tell us “Confess your faults one to another, that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
When we do our part, then He does His. He will hear from heaven. In fact “When we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to not only to forgive us our sin, but to cleans us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9), and He will heal our land starting with us, and we will increasingly walk in true freedom.
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