I am afraid many of us have succumbed to what I call Christian phobias. We’ve developed unnatural fears about things that are meant to characterize the Christian life. I’m thinking of things like prayer, evangelism, and healing. Yes, we know prayer is important, but many of us are afraid of the empty space between God and us. Even if we manage to carve out the time to pray, how will we fill up that space? So we read books about prayer rather than actually spending time in prayer. And when it comes to sharing our faith, many of us run for the hills. We’re too afraid of offending someone. And then there’s the problem of healing, which we would much rather leave to the professionals.
Pastor Jim Cymbala speaks of the church as being a “Holy Ghost Hospital.” I like that metaphor because it reminds us that "God’s Spirit, living within us, is in the business of healing and restoration." As God’s people, we are to be a healing community, a place where sick people get well.
Larry Crabb, a Christian psychologist, poses an important question: “Could it be that training in counseling has become so necessary and valued because few Christians know what it means to release the energy of Christ from within them into the souls of others?” He goes on to ask, “If the battle is against soul disease, and if the real disease is disconnection caused by sin that leaves the person starving for life, isn’t it our calling to supply life to one another, at least a taste of it that drives us to run to the source?”(1)
I am not knocking professional therapists and psychiatrists. I have great respect for what they do, and some situations call for professional intervention. But we also, as Crabb says, “need folks who can talk to us wisely and sensitively and meaningfully about our deepest battles, our most painful memories, and our secret sins.” Let’s ask Christ to fill us with his energy so we can continue to touch others with his healing presence.
(1). Larry Crabb, Connecting (Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1997), 175.
