Stand erect before the Lord...

Remember that Christ heals us specifically to free us, but that we can always refuse him.  However, sometimes when we haven't refused Him, the healing still takes time to come to us. After years and years of waiting we might still be wounded.  Like the woman in this next story (Luke 13:10-14), we must keep the doors of our hearts open for that moment, and we must accept it in His Time in His Place for Our Salvation/Freedom. In these cases the healing begins so slowly that we don't even see that it has begun, but the number one sign that indeed it has: Hope. Expectant waiting. Peace and anticipation.

            “There was a woman there (in the synagogue) who for eighteen years had been crippled…” 

18years! She was not ignoring the Lord or crying out in anger, nor was she wandering helplessly like the hemorrhaging woman. She was there, in the synagogue, waiting. 

            “When Jesus saw her, he called to her and said, ‘Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.’ He laid his hands on her, and she at once stood up straight and glorified God.” 

The woman was blessed because Jesus saw her, and when he called, she allowed his hands to be placed upon her.  We sometimes look in the wrong places, we look at the wrong times, when in fact Christ is right there with us….watching. In silence and prayer, in this case in the synagogue, we can hear his voice.  His voice then can reverberate and echo within ourselves as He frees us from our countless infirmities. 

            Then, of course, we must allow ourselves to be touched. After 18 years of sickness and likely of derision, this woman was not hardened to the healing touch of God. What if she had gotten her hopes up, and Jesus had turned out to be a fake? What if being healed wasn’t all it was thought to be?  What if she was still disappointed, eyes to the earth, after the healing? No, it could not be this way, although most of us fear these very things. We fear to be healed of those things that drag us down and stoop us over, so that we cannot stand erect before God, and so we do not allow the Good Lord to place his hands on us.

            Let it not be so! Like the woman in this story, we must first hear and believe “You are Set Free from Your Infirmity!”  Then, accept this gift, and do not fear to stand erect in the presence of the Lord.  Simply, GLORIFY HIM.  We are indebted, we are weak, we are little, but we are loved infinitely and our lives are treasured just the same. 

He asks only that we love Him back.