precision

I was born with what doctors call ventricular septal defect, or a hole in my heart over the wall separating the lower chambers.  By the time I was diagnosed, 4 months after my birth, I was not holding food down, which caused delayed growth, I was very pale from blood loss, and becoming increasingly inactive.  I was in danger of not making it to my first birthday.

Doctor John Oshner, then, president of the Heart Foundation, read my symptoms and devised a plan of healing to fix my problem.  It would take four years, two open-heart surgeries, and years of follow-up to fix my problem.  The first operation, when I was five months old, involved the highly delicate procedure of placing a band on the artery that returned blood from my lungs to the lower chambers, reducing blood loss significantly.  Five month old infants have small hearts and arteries, and I was under size for a five month old--yes, it was an extremely delicate procedure.  The second surgery occurred when I was four.  It involved cutting the band and placing a patch over the hole made of a new material that would allow the heart muscle to grow over it, becoming the "patch" itself.  The incredible precision it took to achieve this was coupled with a quarter of a lifetime of education, experience, and wise planning.  The result could be called a success, as I am 43 years old now, writing this account.

Humanity was damaged, sick, pale, and stunted from separation of the life-giving force that shaped and purposed its creation-relationship with God.  God the Father had diagnosed the problem and contrived the Solution from before the foundations of the world He laid.  Much like Dr. Oshner took pain-staking steps to correct the physiological defect on the heart of a little boy through the early 1970s, God, in His patience and wisdom worked out the plan of healing the defect in humanity-sin, thereby restoring humankind to relationship with Life, Himself.  Jesus came to the earth around 4,000 years after the diagnosis, and finished the work of Salvation by His death and resurrection.

The Word of God, which is sharper than any two-edged sword, was never forged to be wielded against humanity as in battle; we battle not against flesh and blood.  Looking back on some of my early Christian education, I saw Christians trying to heal the spiritual defects in "sinners" by swinging the Sword of the Spirit like a Scottish Claymore, lunging, stabbing, chopping, striking as if in battle against them.  This is clearly NOT the model God gave us!  Surgeons do not heal with Scottish Claymores, or the Roman Gladius.  They use scalpels, but only after accurately diagnosing the problem, then, devising an intricate process and plan of surgery.  They take small steps, conversing at length with their patients, monitoring the results from each small step of treatment.  At its core this kind of healing involves developing a relationship with the patient built upon trust, worked out with tender diligence and care.

People do not come to Christ because they have been stabbed with the Sword of the Spirit.  Rather, as Christ came to seek and save the lost, humbly, lovingly, carefully, Christians help souls to healing in the same way.  The very first step is to make a connection, begin building a relationship.  Whether physical or spiritual healing is needed, people do not care what you know until they are absolutely convinced your concern for them is authentic.  This, alone, is a process.  Until they see how you have been healed by the Great Physician, they will not be open to the patient diligence and precision it will take to cut away their deadness.  We must act as God did towards us.  We must handle the spiritual defects in others as Dr. John Oshner did my plan of healing.

Jesus is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and no one can return to that healthy spiritual life and fellowship with God the Father except through Him.  I say that no one can come to that point of trusting Christ until they have seen His unmistakable healing in others, first.  Its all a process that God gives us part in.  He deeply desires everyone to get the heart operation they need so they can live in that perpetual state of healing, comfort, and love there is in Him, alone.  God uses the testimony of the saved to convince others of the higher purpose we can feel and fulfill by allowing the Holy Spirit to use the scalpel of the Word of God (when used to heal) to do its work with love, persistence, and precision.