Who are you? It’s a complicated question, isn’t it? On one hand, your self-concept is rooted in your “Healing prayer,” said Leanne Payne, “is not the ‘instant fix,’ nor the bypassing of slow and steady growth. It is that which clears the path and makes such progress possible.” This type of prayer is beautiful and indispensable in our journey toward maturity, toward holiness, toward wholeness. But the journey requires other things as well—often counseling, certainly discipleship, and, to borrow Eugene Peterson’s phrase, “a long obedience in the same direction.” There is no “zap” that suddenly makes a person as whole and beautiful as Jesus Christ. Wholeness is something we grow into as we walk with Jesus through the years of our lives. Knowing this actually takes a great deal of pressure off—that pressure to find the instant fix or have the One Defining Moment. It releases us to walk with God and allow him to personalize our healing journey.
And that’s the memo.
By John Eldredge in Moving Mountains
