Will You Be Made Whole? Finding Healing Through Jesus in Life’s Pain

Although life’s pains ultimately affect our soul, Jesus offers healing through His mercy, asking us the pivotal question: “Will you be made whole?”

Life has pain points. They can be physical, mental, emotional, financial, or relational. Yet, they are ultimately spiritual. As human beings, we are spirit, have a soul, and live in a body. If we lack any of these, we fail to be human. Our spirit gives us God-consciousness. Our soul gives us self-consciousness. Our body gives us world-consciousness. Consequently, our soul is the central processing unit that governs how we think, feel, and make choices in the world in which we live. It sits as the modem between the spirit world and the visible world, simultaneously regulating how we engage both. So, when we experience spiritual or worldly pain, it impacts our soul.

Christians Hurt, Too

I recently conducted a series of focus groups about church perceptions and narratives. What bubbled to the surface and became the ground for this month’s blog was people searching for something more, something different, because of the pain they feel. One person observed how the church is a spiritual hospital where saved and unsaved people seek care because they are hurting.

Now, for an emotional Neanderthal like me, hurt is just something you learn to deal with and get over, but for normal people, hurt hurts. As the saying goes, “Hurt people, hurt people.” But the church is a place of healing—at least it’s supposed to be. I recognize that the hashtag “#churchhurt” is real, and the spiritual hospital sometimes becomes a hotel of hurters, but we continue to press our way to God’s house because we know that Bethesda is still “the house of mercy.”

Jesus Can Heal Our Hurts

There is much talk about the rise of the Nones (non-religious), the increase in people seeking spirituality (seekers), and the drift towards cafeteria Christianity (nominal Christians). Yet, Jesus remains as merciful today as He was over two thousand years ago, when He left heaven to come to earth. His mission included healing the brokenhearted (Luke 4:18), and He did that: healing spirit, soul, and body (Matthew 4:23-24). As a result, born-again believers have been healed in their spirit through regeneration, are being healed in their souls through sanctification, and will be healed in their bodies through glorification.

With a firm grasp of this primary but profound truth, only one question needs to be asked once again: “Will thou be made whole” (John 5:6). This was the inquiry Jesus made of a disabled man who had spent thirty-eight years in spiritual, psychological (soul, from the Greek word psuche), and physical pain. His hopes and aspirations for healing and deliverance were repeatedly dashed as he watched person after person leave him in his pain as they were made well: sick people, blind, lame, and paralyzed.

For thirty-eight years, he watched in agony. For thirty-eight years, he cried out for mercy. For thirty-eight years, he lay in his pain. The pain of being unable to feel God’s presence because he was prohibited from approaching the sanctuary. The pain of being unable to experience God’s joy because of his broken heart. The pain of not being able to feel his legs because of his disability. As he lay there hopeless and helpless, he found mercy from the Master Himself. For Jesus came and saw him, and asked him the question He is asking us today: “Will thou be made whole?”

Do You Want to Be Healed?

What Jesus teaches us in His question to this man is that healing is something we must desire. He had heard the man’s dilemma—how long he was disabled, how someone always beat him to his miracle, and why he was incapable of being made whole—but Jesus didn’t ask him about all of that. He wanted to know what the man desired. Based on his response, we could presume he did not want to be made whole, but Jesus’s actions would challenge our assumption. The fact is, the disabled man never said he did not want to be made whole. He explained to Jesus that he had no help. Yet, help was standing right before him and speaking directly to him. He may not have answered the question in the way we would prefer, but his words moved Jesus to mercy, and He told him to “Rise, take up thy bed, and walk” (John 5:8). The man obeyed, and he was healed.

If only our story could be as simple. We know that the same Jesus who visited him has visited us. He asks us the same question, but will He receive the same response? Our hurts and pains are real and, in some instances, linger. We have waited poolside for a Healer to remove our shame and make us whole. “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement for our peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5). Jesus has already carried our pain on His cross. He extends to us His deliverance through His resurrection. You don’t need someone to put you in; Jesus wants to bring you out. This requires trusting in His person and power to heal our soul, spirit, and body.

Dr. Isaac Hayes is an Assistant Pastor at the Apostolic Church of God in Chicago, Illinois, and author of Men After God’s Heart: 10 Principles of Brotherly Love. He also has a Doctor of Ministry degree from Trinity Evangelical Divinity School. Follow Dr. Hayes on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube at @RevIsaacHayes.