Faith Stretching Questions
I’ve been working in deliverance ministry for several years now. Over that time God has been so gracious to work in peoples’ lives in powerful and liberating ways. Most of the people I’ve worked with, however, are fairly high functioning people who simply need to be freed from demonic strongholds such as anger, fear, lust, etc. They need the the liberating power of Jesus so that they can live the life of freedom and holiness that Christ has for them.
The other day, however, I was reading through the account of Jesus setting the demoniac free in Luke 8. I believe in both demonization and in mental illness. While I believe there can be some overlap, I also know they are different issues on a fundamental level.
The demoniac in Luke 8 was clearly someone who would be characterized as mentally-ill by modern standards. In light of the lack of mental institutions, they tried to chain him and keep him under guard. When that didn’t work the text says he became homeless and relegated to living in tombs. It also says he had not worn clothes for a long time. So it doesn’t seem to be a stretch to say by the standards of modernity he would have been diagnosed with a debilitating mental illness. Yet the text makes it clear that he had a legion of demons and once he was free he was “dressed and in his right mind.”
I regularly work with both the suburban middle and working classes as well as with those who are struggling with pronounced mental illness and poverty. Healing and deliverance are some of the main ways that God has gifted me for ministry. In complete candor, my expectations for spiritual and emotional progress has a lot to do with people’s starting point. While I expect to see suburbanites make an outward sense of progress, I struggle to have the same hope for those with pronounced mental illness. In the past I have even let myself off the hook by believing that these suffering souls are simply what Jesus was referencing when he said, “You will always have the poor among you…”
So now to my faith stretching questions. I have found myself content with ministering to people “in their need” rather than helping them to a place of healing and wholeness. Do you see the difference? One is making sure that peoples’ basic needs are met while the other is wanting to see them walk in soundness of mind and life. Are they both important? Yes, of course. The latter, however, is clearly superior.
So where does this leave me? It leaves me with a holy discontent. Although Jesus was and is God, I live under the firm conviction that Jesus showed us what is possible when human beings live in perfect communion with God. So His ministry is meant to call me higher in my ministry. While I am rightfully grateful to minister to people in their need, I must seek the power and authority necessary to lead them into a place of healing and wholeness. I must become comfortable with the discomfort of living in the question of “how am I to grow in the power and authority that Jesus has given the church?” So, dear reader, the challenge I present to both me and you, is let’s allow God to stretch our faith. To stretch our faith from simply gratitude for the ability to help those who are suffering to the faith necessary to heal and deliver those who are suffering, regardless of the severity of that suffering. Talk to you soon!