June 23, 2022
The Almost Daily will be on Summer Vacation until August 8th. But fear not! You will receive a devotional each Monday through Friday from the excellent Mockingbird Devotional entitled Daily Grace. Enjoy! - Paul Walker
For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable, your wound is grievous. There is no one to uphold your cause, no medicine for your wound, no healing for you... For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal, says the LORD... (Jeremiah 30:12-13, 17)
One thing has become abundantly clear to me as I’ve gotten older: left to my own devices, my “hurt” really is incurable. I don’t know about you, but I’ve looked to all manner of things in an attempt to self-medicate amid the gaping brokenness of a fallen world. I’ve turned to wine, to Mexican food, to television, to gossip, and when I was younger, to boys. Escape, escape, escape. Feel better, feel better, feel better. Some of us are so skilled at avoiding this pain that we’ve convinced ourselves we’re fine. Others of us are more manic about the whole thing, gripping, searching, clawing for anything at all that might bring light to this cavernous darkness. We are yet disbelieving that, like Jeremiah says, there really is no earthly medicine for our wounds. But if you let go of your rickety guardrails for a minute, can’t you see he’s right? That none of your attempts at self-fulfillment have satisfied your unrelenting need? Can’t you see that your wounds are just too grievous?
In the above passage, God tells the Israelites that he himself will be the medicine for their otherwise incurable hurts: “For I will restore health to you, and your wounds I will heal.”
Like the African-American spiritual goes:
There is a balm in Gilead
To make the wounded whole;
There is a balm in Gilead
To heal the sin-sick soul.
God sent Jesus as the utmost Balm of Gilead. What does this mean for our hurts on an average day? In Jesus, we have a friend whose name is Love, whose name is Comfort, whose name is Hope, and he is always with us. His is a hand to hold, a lap on which to lay our heads. He graciously walks alongside us through the minutes and years of suffering, improbably crafting that suffering into something beautiful, something new, something altogether redeemed. In the arms of Jesus, we are ultimately carried home, welcomed back like beloved children. There will be no more hurt, there will be nothing left to grieve. And we will feast alongside our Maker and our Savior, finally and fully healed, finally and fully whole.
[Charlotte Getz, Daily Grace - Mockingbird Devotional Vol. 2]
