What all goes on at a hospital? Healing and binding, remedy, surgery, delivery, study and research, correction. Uncovering what symptoms are trying to reveal. Isolation at times, if needed. These are just a few that came to my mind while jotting down notes.
Over the last year or two, I've had several dreams, with different scenarios regarding hospitals. Some offered protection and safety, direction, sometimes there'd be healing and remedies. Other times though, there'd been deception, betrayal, lackluster care. I often wonder what these might signify. There still may be some revealing yet. Maybe significant to my own journey. I'll let Spirit say.
But I think maybe for as long as I can remember, I've heard some form of the phrasing to the likeness of, "The church should be like a hospital, binding up the broken." I fully confess that's where I thought those dreams might be going. I even had that mindset, as thoughts began to gather for this very blog. But it wasn't quite hitting and I did a little more digging, and with what I had originally written along with some new insight, I'm not sure that's completely accurate.
A fellow believer wrote, that the church isn't a hospital for the sick, but rather a morgue for the dead. But an unusual morgue, in which you come in dead, but leave alive. This gave me pause. I saw where he was going. And a hospital does indeed include a morgue! He went on to talk about the actions of the church, and after prayer and review, that's where I felt led to go with this. I don't know that we're quite meant to be a hospital, but instead the beat up, broken and bound, wounded, slain and revived, scarred body of the Savior, with Him as the head.
I'll start with myself. That I can remember, I never had that story. The one where people say, "I found Jesus, or rather Jesus found me." Then they go on to tell about their coming back to life moment. I don't think it feels right to say, I've always known, I've had too many times in my life where I didn't act like I knew. But I'll say over the last, at least four or five years, if not longer, I've signed in for a checkup. A thorough examination. It is not always painless. I've had to bring every action, every way of thinking, every ache and concern, what I assumed was my identity, my whole life, into the meeting place. And there were (are) some festering wounds. I want that process to speak. The safest place to address those issues is with the Great Physician. I don't think I qualify as being the doctor! Maybe the doctor's assistant? I make too many allowances. "Healthy" up the fast food and bad habits, cover up the limp (or use the wrong crutch), Band-Aids on broken arms.
I think... when you start to wake up, when you decide you want to walk in that belief and trust, letting go of self-reliance is the toughest part. Our own understanding. That has to die. Only the Spirit can revive and cure. We need to remember that. And when He does, let us remember how we looked, licking our own wounds. Let us wait on His leading.
We want to call ourselves a hospital, because Yeshua referred to Himself as a physician. Certainly we should be comforters and encouragers, shouldering and strengthening. He knows where to send us in and when. What words to speak. But I fear, some confuse walking in given authority, means throwing our weight and opinion around every which way, administering cold and flu medicine to symptoms of what is actually a deadly, bloodborne illness. A venomous snake bite, tainted blood. An infection that we all start with. This does nothing to bring dead men back to life.
There are genuine lost and wounded souls. This should never be taken lightly. And I'm preaching to myself.