It’s a Healing Process

Now that we are nearing the end of the year it is time for us to assess how the year has gone. Have you done everything you said you wanted to accomplish? Did you get rid of those bad habits that were hindering you and your Christian walk? Have you seen a change in your life overall? If you consciously answered yes to any of these questions, congratulations! You are on the right path to effectively bolstering your spiritual life. However, if you answered no to any of these questions, we are going to dissect why this may be: and don’t worry…it is common for individuals to say no to these questions.

In my church, our theme for the year was to, in short, build up the spiritual capacity for recovery. Now, in the beginning, I received this theme just as anyone would at first. “This is great, but why recovery,” I asked. It seemed odd that as a church we would focus on spiritual recovery, as it was never a topic that we had dealt with in the past. Therefore, I constructed my new year's resolution like I had done in the past: without considering the spirituality behind it, and what it really meant. Until recently, my new year's resolution had not changed due to the fact that It simply never was completed during the year. I then realized that there had to be a reason why I wasn’t getting such a simple task done; I had not taken time to spiritually recover from any hardships and trials that had injured me during the year.

Imagine this: You are playing in a football game and all of a sudden, a defensive player on the offensive team trucks into you, knocking all of the air in your lungs out. You realize that you have landed on your hand and it is now broken. However, despite your gruesome injury, your coach still forces you to play, ignoring the fact that you are in immense pain and your hand is misshapen and out of place. Equating this to our new year's resolutions, there are times when the year has been tough, for many reasons. However, have your resolutions for the upcoming year been to help you in said recovery process, or to force you to keep on going, even though you are not at your best. Now I am not saying that pushing through hard times is never the move, and in fact, there are some instances where pushing through the pain is the most optimal decision. However, there are also times where we need to allow ourselves to spiritually recover, making sure that we come back stronger and healthier the next year.

Ephesians 5:15-18 reads, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is….” We must take the time to understand the will of the Lord for our lives, allowing ourselves to spiritually grow into the blessings he has for us. However, we cannot do this while injured! Therefore, let us construct resolutions that are to aid us in our seasons of recovery. It is ok to recover, so make it a means to come back even stronger than you were when you fell!