“Which is easier: to say, ‘Your sins are forgiven,’ or to say, ‘Get up and walk’?” Luke 5:23
Sometimes, my patients come for psychotherapy wanting an instant solution to their problems. They would like me to say something miraculous that will allow them to psychologically “get up and walk” instantaneously. The truth is, when we have been wounded at our deepest level, we are in need of a process that requires our active participation. We need to do the work of identifying the brokenness in our hearts and relationships and following through with the process of forgiveness. This is usually not easy, and rarely instantaneous. But,in the long run the type of healing that comes through the process of forgiveness and making peace with the past is the most profound pathway to spiritual and psychological wholeness.
People were interested in instant solutions at the time of Jesus as well. They wanted miracles rather than hard work. But Jesus wasn’t interested in simply helping people feel better—he wanted them to get better. To him, that meant dealing with the wounds in our hearts and relationships that required the hard work of forgiveness and reconciliation. He knew that sometimes it was actually easier to tell someone physically debilitated to “get up and walk” than it was to say, “Your sins are forgiven.” Physically healing the body was easy compared to the repentance and forgiveness that was needed in human hearts.
Spiritual Principle: Excusing people is easier than forgiving them—but not better.
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