This precious tiny boy needs a new heart.
And yet, how many souls do I know who also need new hearts? So many. Too many.
The story of the paralytic whom Jesus healed keeps coming back to mind:
When Jesus returned to Capernaum several days later, the news spread quickly that he was back home. Soon the house where he was staying was so packed with visitors that there was no more room, even outside the door.
While he was preaching God's word to them, four men arrived, carrying a paralyzed man on a mat. They couldn't bring him to Jesus because of the crowd, so they dug a hole through the roof above [Jesus'] head. Then they lowered the man on his mat, right down in front of Jesus.
Seeing their faith, Jesus said to the paralyzed man, "My child, your sins are forgiven."
But some of the teachers of religious law who were sitting there thought to themselves, "What is he saying? This is blasphemy! Only God can forgive sins!"
Jesus knew immediately what they were thinking, so He asked them, "Why do you question this in your hearts? Is it easier to say to the paralyzed man 'Your sins are forgiven,' or 'Stand up and walk'? So I will prove to you that the Son of Man has the authority on earth to forgive sins."
Then Jesus turned to the paralyzed man and said, "Stand up, pick up your mat, and go home!" And the man jumped up, grabbed his mat, and walked out through the stunned onlookers. They were all amazed and praised God, exclaiming, "We've never seen anything like this before!"
~Mark 2:1-12, NLT [my paragraph divisions]
Clearly, Jesus was saying that it is easier for him to heal a lame man than to forgive someone's sins. Perhaps I am beginning to understand why.
Right now, I am praying for a number of people to have their spiritual hearts healed. In some cases, I have been praying this prayer for quite a few years. Meanwhile, I began praying for this baby's heart thirteen months ago, when the defect was first detected on his twenty week ultrasound.
I know beyond the shadow of a doubt that Jesus can heal this baby's heart. Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead after he had been buried in a tomb for four days. Jesus took the hand of a little twelve-year-old girl who lay dead in her bed and gently told her, "Little girl, get up!" She immediately got up and walked around. Jesus absolutely has the ability and power to heal this baby. Jesus knit him together in the womb.
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother's womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous--how well I know it. You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion, as I was woven together in the dark of the womb. You saw me before I was born. Every day of my life was recorded in your book. Every moment was laid out before a single day had passed.
~Psalm 139:13-16, NLT
Jesus made this baby, and his very unusual heart, and Jesus has a purpose for him.
The Lord will work out his plans for my life--for your faithful love, O Lord, endures forever. Don't abandon me, for you made me.
~Psalm 138:8, NLT
Life flows from the Lord. He is the Giver of life and health and healing. He can heal physical issues. He doesn't always, and perhaps this is because he knows how much better the next life--the redeemed, restored life--will be for us, and sometimes he chooses to allow some people into heaven early. When you look at the tragic state of the world, you have to realize that early entrance into heaven is certainly not a punishment or a curse, but actually a blessing. What could be better than to escape the pain and suffering of this fallen world, to be ushered into the loving arms of Jesus himself who compassionately gathers his treasured ones home?
And yet, Jesus has created us with an incredibly strong will to live, and this, too, is a good thing. We plead for this baby to live, and grow, and declare the glory of the Lord here on earth, before he goes to heaven!
And yet, when I look at the dear souls for whom I pray spiritual healing, I have to wonder. What if they had died as sweet babies who did not live long enough to reject the love of Jesus? What anguish might this baby's mama's heart be spared if he never lives to be draw away into the dark alleys of sin and rebellion? Is it more tragic to lose a beautiful, pristine baby to heaven, or to keep him until he is an adult and then watch him choose hell?
O dear, sweet Lord Jesus, please save them all. Please, please save them all. Please heal the physical and the spiritual hearts. O Jesus, please heal and save, for you are the Healer and the Savior, the only one.
I know Jesus can heal the physical, but I think it is trickier for Him to heal the spiritual because he is gentle and loving and will not coerce. How many times have I longed for him to coerce? I long for him to grab hold of some of these dear ones' faces and breathe the power of truth right into their nostrils, like CPR. I long for him to overcome their resistance with force. But he will not.
Jesus will not force. Jesus is infinitely patient and I am not. Jesus waits and woos, while I wallow in worry. Jesus orchestrates circumstances. His planning and implementation are flawless, and his purposes never fail. He has been completely aware of everything that is happening to us, forever since all eternity. He has already set in motion events that began years, even centuries and millennia ago, strands in the web of life that will fill us with awestruck wonder some day when we are granted the privilege of looking into all that he has done, and how he has worked all things for the good of those who love him (Romans 8:28).
I do not understand in what way our stubborn wills have the capacity to limit the salvation of God. I wish it were not so. I hope that in the end, God will not leave us to our tragic folly, those of us who are too blind to see his beauty, too deaf to hear his call, and to paralyzed to move towards him in any way. O, Lord God, we need you to heal us. We need you to heal the children of the world.
Fulfill your promise of old, Lord God. Fulfill it in us and in our children, even today:
And I will give you a new heart, and I will put a new spirit in you. I will take out your stony, stubborn heart and give you a tender, responsive heart. And I will put my Spirit in you so that you will [live a life of obedience and love, which will enable you to flourish in the most beautiful way imaginable].
~Ezekiel 36:26-27, NLT, and I paraphrased the end of verse 27, the bracketed part.
O Lord God, please touch all these twisted up hearts--the physical and the spiritual--with the loving, healing fingers of your life-giving Spirit. Transform our hearts to beat together with yours, for your glory, by your power alone. Amen.
