The Great Healing

The Great Healing...it's coming.  The time where healing and restoration arrives.  Come, Sons and Daughters, your Father is closing wounds, mending hearts, and bringing the pieces back together again.  He is doing a new thing.  Do you not perceive it?  He is making a way.  He is bringing streams of Living Water to a dry and weary land. 

The Great Healing...it's coming.  A coming out of the dessert; the manna will no longer be needed.  It will be a time to eat and flourish off the land.  A time to eat the produce, be fruitful and multiply. I can see it.  I can already taste it.  Can you see it?  Can you taste it?

 "Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the one who takes refuge in Him." 
Psalm 34:8

I've been thinking about failure recently, and what that looks like to the world.  I've also been thinking about failure and what that looks like to the Kingdom of God.  In our world, failure is the death of something.  In God's Kingdom, the death of something actually brings life.  

When Jesus died on the Cross, it appeared as the end.  As Jesus took His final breath, onlookers stood by and were happy that the One they looked upon as their enemy was finally dead, as others who called Him Savior mourned the loss of their teacher and friend.  To them, it could seem like a failure.  How can their Beloved Jesus be gone?  How could they make sense of this?  What was it all for?

But, oh, what a glorious plan, and little did they know that Redemption was just around the corner.  

In three days, it became clear.  The tomb was empty.  Jesus was alive. What appeared to the world to be a failure was actually a victory!!  Jesus' death brought life!  Abundant life.  What looked to be a failure, was actually a Triumph!      

"Death has been swallowed up in victory.  Where, O death, is your victory?  Where, O death, is your sting?"  1 Corinthians 15:54-55 

In the Kingdom of God, death is just the beginning of something far greater.  Whether in this life or as we enter the next life, death, in the Kingdom, is always about Resurrection.  It's always about Life.  Whether we die and leave this world and go to our home in Eternity, or whether we die to our plans, our dreams, our desires, we can always expect Life to come when we live in the Kingdom of God.  His plans for us are always far better than anything we can ever imagine.  And just when we think we are trudging through a heap of mistakes and failures, we realize it has just been part of His redemptive story all along.  Life from brokenness!!  We think there's death and decay coming, we think something is irretrievably broken, but then we see Jesus and redemption coming around the corner again saying, You, my Beloved Children, are standing in Victory.  In healing.  In reconciliation.  In restoration.  In Me.  This was all part of My triumphant story for you!  

Death. Repentance. Forgiveness. Healing. Reconciliation. Restoration. Unity. Love. Family.  

Death brings Life.  The Great Healing comes.  He is doing something new.  God is good.  Amen.   

"Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past.  See, I am doing a new thing!  Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?  I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland."  Isaiah 43:18-19