Heal

“Return, O faithless sons, I will heal your faithlessness.”   Jeremiah 3:22 

Heal – The Hebrew word rapa appears over 60 times in the Old Testament.  It means restoring or making healthy is almost every case.  It is most often used of human subjects but can sometimes be used for the restoration of an object (for example, restoring salt water to fresh in II Kings 2:22).  It is used of healing and forgiveness in combination, often indicating that it is God who causes our healing in a way that no other can. 

Here God promises that our inability to trust Him and our rebelliousness from practicing His way of holiness can be repaired and restored.  He will do it, if we only surrender ourselves to Him.  We are not asked to repair ourselves, only to return to Him as a prodigal child.  God does not ask for success, only for obedience.  We do not need to come to Him after we have fixed everything.  He only wants a broken heart.  He asks only one thing of us – Return!  The rest is up to Him. 

What a relief to find that God is ready and willing to take over the life that I could not take care of, and that He doesn’t expect me to make it right before I come to Him for help.  I already knew that it was too much for me.  In my clearest moments, I knew that no matter how hard I tried, I could never make things right.  The water has already passed under the bridge.  The damage was already done.  But God says, “Just come back.”  That’s all.  Just return, and I will start the repair work.  God doesn’t even ask me to have “faith”.  He will heal my unfaithfulness.  All I need to do is come back, willing to let Him go to work on me.

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