We can more easily cooperate with the process of healing when we realize that God takes extreme care when dealing with our broken hearts. We usually want to rush healing and growth to get rid of the pain and fix the problem. In our desperate attempts to ‘get better quick’, we often cause more damage as we frantically scramble for shortcuts and quick fixes to our hurts and pains. In some cases, we might reach for a pill, or a bottle, or some other short term vice just to take the edge off and escape the pain, even if just for a few moments. Or in a more Christian context, we want an instant miracle or the prayer that is going to deliver us from all of our problems.
But in most cases, God’s healing process is gradual and steady. It is a daily process of sanctification and life change. We may experience some notable miracles along the way. But those miraculous changes happen at his discretion and in his timing. Sometimes healing happens ‘as they went’ in the bible. Jesus proclaimed their healing, and ‘as they went’ they were gradually made well. This is often how healing happens in daily life as we walk and move forward with God. He orchestrates different people and events along the way to change and heal different parts of our heart. He may bring a song, a biblical truth, a sermon that speaks to our need, a phone call from a friend, or some other seemingly ‘random’ life circumstance to slowly rebuild our broken hearts into the design he has for our lives. And while the healing process often looks messy and random, it is actually much more intentional than we realize as he ‘works all things together for good’ in us.
My son is currently trying out for a position with Rolex as a technician for their luxury watches. The watch pieces he is working with are tiny and delicate. Some of the pieces are fragile and easy to break. The work requires extreme care as the nearly microscopic pieces need to be moved into specific positions. It requires time and patience to put things back into working order.
After his evaluation, Rolex revealed that they are not looking for the fastest workers. In the history of the company, they determined that the best people for the role are dedicated workers who can show great patience and take the necessary time to do the work. People who keep going day after day with patient perseverance, without giving up or rushing the work.
With God, he is not only putting the pieces of our hearts back together, but he is also growing and transforming us at the same time. He might be taking some pieces out and putting new pieces in. We might feel the pain and sense of loss as old worn out pieces are removed, and feel uncomfortable for a period of time as he puts new and upgraded pieces in.
Sometimes he works fast and sudden. But if we look throughout the stories of scripture, we see that he usually does not rush. But he is persistent and faithful. He is willing to take as long as it takes. And he doesn’t give up.
He is also working around our own stubbornness against the very things he is working on. He works with great intention and in his own cadence, but also in great love. And much like a skilled surgeon or technician, the work requires great precision and skill beyond the changes that ‘we’ think need to happen. We might think we just need a small problem fixed. But God sees and knows it all, and his intentions are much greater than our plans for ourselves. After all, he is developing us into sons and daughters of God, after his own image and likeness, people after his own heart. That takes a lot of transformative work.
So while we often want the ‘microwave miracle’, we can better cooperate with the process of healing by being more willing and agreeable to the process, and to understand that sometimes restoration takes time. God loves you too much to do a ‘cut rate’ job on you. And in the end, we will find that his work was done with great care and love. Someday we may be able to look back and say that we didn’t enjoy the process at the time, but it was all necessary and worthwhile. And that we wouldn’t want it any other way.