Healing and Forgiveness
I am in a 12 step group and I am a Christian. To me, there is no need to apologize for either thing. If you have a problem with it, well, it is YOUR problem.
But there are people who believe that 12 step groups are unnecessary for Christians. Who are we to tell Jesus how to heal someone?
I mean, think about it, some people Jesus healed by spitting on them. Some He just told to go home and somewhere along the way they realized a miracle had taken place. For others He proclaimed their sins to be forgiven. Jesus didn't treat everyone the same, tho the end result- forgiveness and wholeness thru humility, surrender, repentance, and faith was the same.
But, let's be honest, I can be guilty of the same bigotry. I can't understand how so and so could go to that church which is so "anything goes" as long as it is the "spirit" doing it. Baptists make me a little nervous, sorry Bill, since that was the first church I experienced as a child, before I knew Grace. People who sacrifice everything for their beliefs only to be murdered are either very holy or egomaniacs.
Perhaps my bigotry is my perception of all the things that couldn't, wouldn't work for me and since I am self centered, those things wouldn't work for you either.
Lately tho, I have been thinking about God's sense of humor, how He turns our black and white perceptions upside down so that we now see robin's egg blue, how it was His creative Spirit that spoke the world into being...SPOKE....mere words, so powerful on the lips (does He have lips?) of our God.
Why would such a creative, diverse, relational God think up only one solution? Why do we ever think we have the market on the right way to view God, to seek forgiveness, to live? Jesus healed because He loved...not because the wound was the problem...medicine would've fixed that. The sin, the distance, the darkness, the desperate plea for Someone to care...that is what Jesus healed.
Father, help me to see with Your eyes. Help me to love as You love. Amen.
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