About a week ago I spend my entire blog on a single passage of the Bible, which is one of three that really blew me away when I read them as a teenager. Today I’m going to focus on another one:
“Daughter, your faith has made you well”
Gospel of Mark 5:34
Jesus almost always said that after his healings. He didn’t say “by your faith in me you have been saved.” He didn’t say “I have saved you because I’m rewarding you for having faith” or even “I have saved you.” He said “Your faith has made you well.” When I read that, I knew that my thoughts created the world I lived in; if I could change my mind, I could change my life.
Jesus was able to heal people because they believed he could. He was a strong presence who saw them as whole even when they felt broken. Their belief that he had healing powers facilitated a situation in which they could align themselves with their own healing powers while they were in his presence. But the healing was always theirs and it came about because of their faith.
Last week I wrote about the Kingdom of Heaven being present here on Earth. I’m sure most of you can find examples that I’m dead wrong on that one. But I want to challenge that for a bit, and maybe a story will help. When I was in medical school I had to look at slide after slide of tissue samples to identify structures. At first all I saw was pink and purple blobs. However, after I studied the textbook carefully and knew what to look for I had a much easier time finding it. Sometimes, we can’t see what we aren’t looking for even if it’s right there in front of us!
I’m hearing a lot of talk lately about how broken the world is. When I turn on the news, it’s always bad, and almost overwhelmingly so. They never cover the good stuff. Sometimes I think a step toward world peace might be to outlaw newscasts. But nonetheless, I’m inviting you to see the world as already whole, already well…to look for the evidence that this is so. And maybe be by our faith in its wellness, the world will begin to look more like the Kingdom of Heaven.
