They Did Not Know I was Their Healer

One of my favorite passages in the Bible is from Hosea and it reads like this:

I drew them with human cords,
   with bands of love;
I fostered them like one
   who raises an infant to his cheeks;
Yet, though I stooped to feed my child,
   they did not know I was their healer.
                                    Hosea 11:4

Do you know that God is your healer? As I look around the world we live in today I see so much suffering in people's eyes. Many don't seem to realize that God is their healer in a very real and personal way. I believe that this is an aspect of God's nature that people don't think about often in this day and age where being self-sufficient is praised and looked upon as a great virtue. I think we forget that we are not a world unto ourselves and that the very self-sufficiency we so praise can at times be our greatest downfall. When we forget that we need others we tend to grow very selfish and overly focused on our own lives and well-being. We lose the greater picture that is reality and sit on our little thrones in the little false worlds we create for ourselves.

Pretenders, the whole lot of us. Imagine if God were to show each and every one of us the truth about ourselves all at once?

Ouch.

Like a universal "divine adjustment". (Hey, never say never.)

Thankfully, we usually get this "divine adjustment" over a period of time.

The truth is that we need others and we need God. Those who believe they can "do it all myself" can, if it goes too far, shut themselves off from God and others. When we close ourselves off in this way we also close ourselves off from the deep interior healing each of us needs. Healing that we need so very much in order to grow spiritually.

Many people aren't even aware that they do need healing. They walk around joylessly, believing that this is a normal state of existence.

It's not.

There's a strange ideology in this age (and an odd one it is if you really think about it): that God doesn't  step into our lives in an extraordinary fashion anymore. I think this manner of thinking is more a byproduct of the age we live in rather than a "truth" we should hold onto. As a matter of fact, if you ask me:

It's ALL extraordinary.

Every darn bit of it.

Every single moment of it.

Every last particle of it.

                                                             God with us

At least...it should be.