Come Holy Spirit and Make Me Whole
Come Holy Spirit, and fill my soul.
Come, Holy Spirit and make me whole.
There's the second line in this little poem of mine. Make me whole.
You remember that old hymn? “What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus.” God is in the business of making broken things whole. Jesus, especially in the Gospels, is seen reaching out to people who are broken in some way and making them whole. A lot of the time it was physical healing and other times it was spiritual healing.
I think of Paul, who, it seems, had some sort of sickness or illness which he begged God to take away from him, but God didn't. And yet he was a spiritually whole man. The grace that he had found in Jesus and the faith that came out of that healed his brokenness.
God Makes Broken People Whole
Now, while I was on this retreat where I wrote this prayer, I read a book called He Touched Me by John Powell, and he was sharing his own experience of being changed by God. He tells about an experience of his where he was counselling a lady for many years and she just didn't seem to get any better. All the techniques and things that they tried to help her cope worked and failed and worked and failed, and he thought this was going to be her story for the rest of her life.
Then he said a few years later, she found him. And he said the voice he heard on the phone was somehow the same, yet different. She said she didn't want an appointment, but she just wanted to thank him for his patience with her over the years. And he said to her, “You're different, aren't you?”
And she said, “Ohh, yes.” “What happened?” he asked. “I met Jesus Christ,” she said. “What?” he replied. And she said, “I met Jesus Christ. I knew about Him for my whole life, but I never knew Him.”
Meeting Jesus Brings True Healing
And so she came to the office and Powell writes this: “My eye confirmed what my ear had led me to suspect. This was a healed person.”
And then he says this: “I don't mean to detract one iota from the contribution that they make to the lives of human beings, but clinical psychology and psychiatry must not be allowed to pose as saviours or redeemers. Therapy can never be a substitute for a life of faith.”
And he himself was trained in psychology, and he said through supportive psychotherapy we can be comforted. Through reconstructive psychotherapy, we can be readjusted with new coping mechanisms. But he said we cannot be healed or cured. It takes meeting Jesus Christ to be healed. And looking at this lady, he says, I knew it.
And you know, there are countless stories of this happening throughout history. People troubled, broken in some way, meet God, and in meeting Him they are made whole. In fact, in the New Testament we often see that phrase. In our newer Bibles the word healed is often used, but in some of the old translations you see made whole as the phrase they use when people are touched by Jesus.
The Healing Touch of Christ Today
In John 5, Jesus heals a man in a miraculous way, but He asks him first, “Do you want to be well?” The King James says, “Do you desire to be made whole?” Made whole — when we come with our great desire to be made whole and Jesus touches us, fills our soul as we learn yesterday, we can be truly made whole.
And so yes, friends, psychology and psychiatry are wonderful tools to help us in different areas of life, but don't ever substitute them for the need to be saved and touched by Jesus. The healing touch from Him alone can make us whole.
And so I pray that you listening to this now will surrender to Him. Ask Him for His healing touch, and in this moment surrender to Him. May His Spirit fill you, and may His Spirit truly make you whole, changing you as you live your life for Him.
Modern medical technology saved my life, but I never forgot that God deserves the ultimate glory for my healing. Today, remember to thank God for every good gift in your life.