Do you want to be healed?

When Jesus saw him lying by the pool, He asked:

Do you want to be healed or “made whole?” 

The man at the pool had suffered from chronic illness and disability…

for 38 years… 

desperately seeking to feel better…

likely fighting daily with self-pity and hopeless angst.

In such compassion, Jesus singled him out from the others who were also crying for physical healing.

“Do you want to be healed?”

What a question, right? 

But what is healing? What is the “made whole” work that only God can do? What was Jesus offering to the sick man? To us?

He asks us if we want His perfect healing of the whole of who we are, every broken part of us. It will involve change, acceptance of His way, and openness to whatever He knows will produce His glorious “made perfect” completion. 

Soul-healed: Made right with God through Jesus’ suffering

Made perfect. It brings me much comfort to remember that God is perfecting or completing us, just as He made Jesus “perfect through suffering” (Hebrews 2:10 ESV). For a believer, the stripes afflicted on Jesus, our beloved and sinless Savior, have already permanently healed us. 1 Peter 2:24 explains what this means…it concerns our sin. Our sinful selves were healed the moment the Lord saved and rescued us from our just punishment of death, justified us, and made us right with Him, becoming new creations in Jesus Christ. God’s works of salvation were completed through Jesus’ suffering…for you and me.

And because of him you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God, righteousness and sanctification and redemption (1 Cor. 1:30 ESV)!

There is a balm in Gilead

to make the wounded whole,

there is a balm in Gilead

to heal the sin-sick soul.

(African-American spiritual)

So, we are healed or “made whole,” now and forever…even if our bodies aren’t. Although sickness, an effect of sin in this fallen world, feels like miserable suffering, He has already healed a believer’s soul now and forever. Past tense! 

Body-healed

How we long for the future day when God restores all things in the new heaven and earth, don’t we? 

Even as we wait for that day, we know that God often brings His beloved children home through sickness and resulting death. His healing of our bodies might happen when “the righteous man is taken away from calamity; he enters into peace” (Isaiah 57:1-2 ESV).

Our bodies will be perfectly restored! It’s His promise! By His stripes, we are healed! I need to remember all of this in every moment of my chronic illness and pain when I long for relief.

But I had to face Jesus’ more profound question before this latest brain surgery…seriously. Was I ready for His “made whole” healing, however it might look?

Was I prepared if being “made whole” would mean further disability and loss? Death?

Or was I open if further physical healing might mean losing the world’s identity as a “chronic illness warrior”? 

Or what if Christ would call me to follow Him into new and deeper adventures of loving others because my body would now allow it? 

Jesus asked me, “Do you want to be healed?”

Thought and emotion healed

For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit (Rom. 8:5 ESV).

Sometimes I feel discouraged

and think my work’s in vain,

but then the Holy Spirit

revives my soul again.

What does He offer? Healing of my broken heart when I’m discouraged and grieving losses, healing through forgiving others whose sins have wounded me, healing as He transforms me to want to obey and trust Him, healing through His creating a deepened desire to love Him and others. 

This is God’s perfecting, sanctifying healing of His deep love, grace, and power within us! A new mindset!

Praying for complete healing, made whole in Christ

He who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ (Phil. 1:6 ESV, emphasis added)!

As we both pray for relief and comfort, let’s cling to the “made whole” healing God’s already given us through the person and work of Jesus Christ. 

For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison (2 Cor. 4:17 ESV).

Let’s rest in His perfect healing work and grace-filled timing in our lives, knowing that any suffering is bringing about His complete and “made whole” healing. Until the day we see our beloved Savior! 

Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, © 2022

Singing is God’s healing gift to us!

I’m in awe of how our Lord has woven my career, research, suffering, and Scripture together. As a retired music therapist, and forever music educator/ church musician, I’m delighted to share one of the principal healing ways He has sustained me through over thirty years of chronic illness and pain…by singing to Him. 

Researchers have discovered that our body and brain’s autonomic nervous system primarily synchronizes to music through the dimension of rhythm, even though we holistically process and experience music in its simultaneously multidimensional beauty. The “almost irresistible power of rhythm…serves both to entrain and coordinate movement.”¹ God designed us to automatically entrain or sync up² to rhythm, tapping beats, feeling the pulse, unconsciously breathing in time to what we hear. Our heart rates respond, and cascades of calming neurochemical reactions, God’s healing pain-reducers, fill our whole being.

So, this week’s playlist gift is crafted for us to sing to our Lord, keeping this dimension of rhythm in mind, so our bodies might calm and experience less pain and anxiety as we sing-pray. I’m praying it helps you too! Sign up below for this or perhaps you might be blessed by the other gifts offered by our ministry.

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1. Sacks, O. (2007). Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, pp. 267-268. ↩︎
2. Norton, K. (2016). Singing and wellbeing: Ancient wisdom, modern proof. Routledge. ↩︎