So you’ve prayed to God that He will take your pain away, but it just seems as if He wants you to carry that cross forever. Have you ever thought that perhaps God really does want to heal you, but you’re actually standing in the way?
Do You Want to Be Healed? Allowing God to Heal Brokenness in Your Life shares a little-known truth about Jesus’ healing ministry – you have to be ready for healing before Jesus will heal you. That means you can’t keep one foot in your dysfunction while crying out to God for help. You have to go all in before Jesus can perform that healing miracle in your life. If you’re ready for that kind of commitment—ready for Jesus to wipe away your tears and heal the brokenness in your soul—take a chance and say, yes, I want to be healed.
Book Review by Seattle Examiner –
Tom Mann, former editor and news reporter, penned Do You Want to be Healed for the emotionally broken and spiritually wounded. It was his own search for inner healing, his personal
need for relief from the “why” questions caused by the pain and torment of early child abuse that taught him: “You have to be ready for healing before Jesus will heal you.”
He cites the story of a man healed at the pool of Bethesda found in John 5: 1-18. When the angels stirred the waters “at a certain time” the first one in the pool was healed. For thirty-eight years the man was pushed aside until the day Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be made well?”
When he said, “yes,” Jesus replied, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.”
Tom interpreted the story to mean “healing has a cost” and if he wanted to be healed “he had to be willing to pay the price.” He realized his prayers for healing had subtle conditions attached and he wasn’t willing to let go of what he calls “his stuff” because he would no longer be “in control” of his life.
His sense of control enabled “drinking…anger… manipulation and defense mechanisms…blaming and emotional abusing,” he writes, while the “cost” of healing was honesty, “vulnerability and transparency.”
Tom’s shares his poignant journey with Jesus to encourage others who feel emotionally wounded. It’s only when we give up, accept Christ and form a close, personal relationship with Him that we can say, like Tom did, “I can’t do this anymore.” That’s when Tom learned what faith looks like and why faith requires surrender, trust, obedience and humility–a process that began when Christ became “his personal therapist in 1988.”
And that’s why he wrote, “Do You Want to be Healed?” to encourage others to assume the risk and “partner with God,” in his easy-to-read, thought-provoking book. I recommend it for anyone who suffers from a sense of “brokenness.”
‘Do You Want to be Healed,’ by Tom Mann, Zulon Press, 2013, 190 Pages, 978-1625099693, $14.99
Midwest Book Reviews—”Gail’s Bookshelf:” July 2014
Twitter: @GailWelborn
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