Where does this idea come from? What does it mean to be well? Healed? At what point in ones existence would they, could they have such a stamp of wellness on their life?
Last night my wife and I were watching a television program about a young lady and her swimming. She called herself disabled and I asked my wife to tell me why she thought such a thing. Why is she using that word? Was she different then me? Certainly. She was different than what we might call the average or norm, but why is being different from the average or norm disabled? I thought that just made you different?
Now I have no problem with a person getting special privileges to make their life more manageable because they are different but why must it be disabled? What about us tell us this is disabled? Is this to hide that we are all disabled in some way?
Do you strive to be normal? As a Christian do you have some normal, right upstanding picture in your head of what the ideal normal average Christian looks like? Why do you think we have that? Is there really such a thing? Should we strive for this image or is it something our culture teaches us, not God?
I don’t know, that is why I ask. Paul says look at his example but I’m not sure he is talking about wellness. I think he is talking about a way of life. You see I think somewhere we crossed from a healthy believer being one who is working to bring glory to God to a healthy believer is one who has all of life together. I don’t know if that is really true though.
What if David is the normal everyday average follower of our God? What if Abraham in all his attempts to help God with the promise is right down average lane? What if Peter is the prototypical Christ-follower? What if the church in Corinth is more normal than any could imagine? What would that do to our measuring stick? Our expectations?
What if their willingness to follow marked average? What if their willingness to seek in spite of their failings and foibles is what marked them in their lives?
I don’t know, what If we became the people we think we want to be, I wonder if we would end up very vanilla, very boring and very unable to relate to others? Everyone would look and act the same because they had all made it to the same place. Wouldn’t that be true? Isn’t the idea presented that we as Christians are suppose to be striving for some Christian ideal of behavior, excising the problems of our past?
What if the problems make us more valuable in the kingdom? What if healing is less about fixing us, getting us past these problems, and instead is about showing how even with them we can live and function and are held together and have a place where we will finally be restored?
If Jesus came to give us hope, a home where we truly will be without defect, why is it that we become frustrated when we discover we are not home yet? I don’t know, these are in the end just the thoughts that run through my brain, that keep me up at night, that make me think.
