Wow. I'm going through a bible study by Havilah Cunnington. What drew me to purchase the study was not because Havilah wrote it or that it was associated with Bethel or all of the other wonderful things that it is, but it was the name: I Do Hard Things. I knew it would challenge me, but, boy, I didn't think it would expose so much in me, personally.
I got the study four days late so I quickly caught up on the good content of days one through three, but then I hit day four, entitled, "What Is Stopping Me?" from getting out of the spiritual, mental, physical pit of pain, from living a Spirit-empowered life, etc.. I've read the story of the Pool of Bethesda several times as a YL kid and leader, so I wasn't't expecting anything life-altering to come about. But then Havilah focused on the mentally-victimized, spiritually disempowered man who couldn't walk for 38 years. Jesus saw him (Jesus sees you). He knew how long the man had been in that condition. After approaching the man, he asked, "'Do you wish to get well?'" or, as the Passion Translation puts it, "'Do you truly long to be healed?' (John 5:6)." The infinitive verbs translated as "to wish" and "to long" come from the Greek word "thelo" having a connotation and extension of being resolved or determined with intention to do or have something. The man answers with the excuse that, "...'I have no man to put me into the pool [that was believed to have supernatural healing powers; hence, the gathered invalids] when the water is stirred up [by an angel], but while I am coming, another steps down before me' (John 5:7)." A victim mentality, waiting on others to change his circumstance when he was a child of Abraham (most likely) and had the agency and love of Yahweh.
At this point, Havilah had us write down things that were stopping our growth in God and progression in life. I immediately put: mood disorder (Bipolar I) and side-effects of cancer surgery.
When we wrote the inhibiting factors of our lives, she responded after the blank space with: "Look at your response. If you wrote down anything other than taking personal responsibility, you may be struggling with a serious victim mentality" (p. 54). Ouch. She got me (lovingly, of course).
I say I want to be healed, to live with a sound mind and body, but I am apathetic when the thought of another failed attempt at healing comes up. Do I really want to be healed? It's much easier to be the invalid than to do the hard work of healing that, yes, could fail for the 50th time. For seven years (since 2013 when I was 18 years old), I had identified myself as the girl who had cancer or the girl with the mental illness or both, in the right company. I did this under the guise of what I thought was advocacy for awareness and ministering to people out of my pain (mostly on this blog), but I realized that it was just easier to be in pain than to live powerfully.
The study built in time for us to listen for God's voice in the midst of this hard lesson. I heard, "Do you want to be whole?" Being the linguistics-freak that I am, I immediately had to look up the etymology of the word "whole."
Origin: before 900; Middle English hole, hool (adj, and noun), Old English hal (adj,); cognate with Dutch heel, German heil, Old Norse heill; see hale, heal.
Wholeness finds its linguistic roots in healing, and the Bible is not quiet about Jesus' desire and efficacy to heal.
But is wholeness, is healing what I really want? What I "thelo?" It's easy to be the sick girl. It's easy to let others take care of you. But "greater is He who is in me than he who is in the world" (1 John 4:4)."
God didn't call me to the shadow-of-a-life that I'm living right now. He called me to live a bold, Spirit-empowered life. Where I am currently a slave to illness and fear, he desires for there to be wholeness and healing.
There was another space for listening to the voice of God and I felt informed of the small, first steps I was to take to walk out this wholeness-healing life, that, with the Holy Spirit I can definitely take. Every day I must wake up and "thelo" healing, "thelo" wholeness.
Finally, a few quotes from Day Four of the study by Havilah Cunnington:
"Acknowledgment of our condition is the first step of healing."
"God didn't send his son to die on the cross for you so you would live bound to a circumstance or a person."
"God wants to move and act in our lives in such a way that anything that is holding you or I back will be rendered powerless next to the power of Jesus."
"Once we understand that we are not powerless to receive a miracle, WE GET A MIRACLE." p. 59
I am no victim. And neither are you.
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