What "religious healing" can look like.

Steven Martin made a movie called "Leap of Faith" back in the early 90's putting the spotlight on religious healing, fake healers that make money at the expense of the gullible, and yet showing the possibility of hope and faith having real and powerful results.

It was really good, even if a little cheesy.  It brought up a lot of good discussions about what it means to be healed and what we're possibly healed of or healed from.  And whether God has anything to do with it.

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then and the meaning of healing has changed a lot for me. 

A lot.

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A lot of times, healing doesn't look or appear or feel like you think it's going to look or feel. 

Most healing is not external and physical - most of it is internal and spiritual or emotional.

It isn't a lot of emotion and fantastic moments of revelation.  

That's what a lot of people try to sell, but it's not real and it's not what works.

Most of the time, healing looks like learning to think differently about your life and the world...

...and then making boring choices that fit in that new picture, and moving on with the moment.

It's choosing not to react to everything.  Or maybe learning to be discerning about responses.  

It's choosing to stay in the moment and feel your feelings while thinking about them differently and discerning a new, better way to respond to your feelings about anything and everything.

It is choosing to set a boundary so you don't go back to those places - mentally, emotionally, socially, etc - but instead know when to say "no" to old habits of thought, feeling, and action.

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Not everyone who goes through deconstruction and rebuilding work through healing.  Sometimes it's because they just haven't got to that part of it yet.  Sometimes it's because they don't see the need for it.

For me, it was and is an important part of taking apart where I came from and what I believed and lived so that when time came to rebuild, I'd not have an unnecessarily weak foundation.

A lot of my beliefs about God, church, scripture, and other "big" topics were wrapped up in emotions and reactions that take a while to separate out and understand.

For example, growing up with an "invitation song" or altar call a couple of times per week set me up to constantly think about all those "big" topics from a point of view of fear, uncertainty, and hopelessness.

Deeper still were the people/groups I grew up with that reflected the same dynamic, sometimes with words, looks, etc - that if I wasn't good enough, I was rejected - possibly permanently and with great shame.

They reflected God's view toward me and everyone in the world, or so I thought.

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Now, after a lot of reflecting, re-learning, and rebuilding, I don't think about God and life that way.  Through Jesus, we have peace.  Through Jesus we have been reconciled to God 100%.

God isn't constantly looking at me with the stink eye, making sure I'm feeling an appropriate amount of shame, guilt, and burden so that I "walk the straight and narrow".

It's not because I've rejected the Bible or "church".  It's not because I've made up my own way of seeing things.  It's not because I've decided to "go back into the world" and live a sinful life.  As if...

It's more along the lines of having taken several steps back from all of it and starting fresh.  Starting from a birds eye view of the whole of the story of scripture and seeing the big moves God was making and has made.

It's a pretty big message.  It's full of grace, forgiveness, and mercy.  It's a picture of God working in time and through history to do big things to bring us to himself by coming to us in Jesus.

After making a pretty big statement in Jesus, he sent his Spirit to us to guide us through life as his children.  It's a message we can accept or reject.  

Accepting it brings life and brings good things out of everything, including the bad.  Rejecting it means we're on our own and will live with the consequences of whatever we come up with.  Usually more pain.

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Having that as a base or starting point, I had to go back through my emotional, social, and mental reactions to everything.

I had to think about how I interacted with church, church people, God, invitation songs, religious arguments, etc - and see if my reactions were to God and truth or my human interactions with people.

Most all of the negative things were based on flawed, painful, fear-filled, fear-shaped interactions with people.  Some of those things were flavored with God, church, etc - but through misinformed people.

So a lot of general interactions with people in life, flavored by my tribal religious background, brought about a lot of unhealthy things.  

Not blaming anyone for it because everyone else is the same way - they had their own backgrounds and they have their own journey.  Most aren't trying to hurt other people, they're just living out their story.

We bump into each other.  We assume a lot.  We pressure each other and ourselves without knowing, at a deep level, why we're doing that.

So now, relearning and rebuilding means practicing having a non-reaction to some people and situations.  It's practicing divesting a lot of meaning and emotion into once meaningful, emotional dynamics.

It's letting feelings and memories of betrayal (by others and self) and conflicts over differences rise up, float through, and go on by.

It's even letting feelings and memories that were full of powerful, emotional and even "good" moments rise up, float through, and go on by - not chasing them anymore.

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Now it's a lot of listening to God and being okay with boredom, daily basics, and everyday beauty.  

It's not looking forward to a "powerful church service" or "great sermon" or "great singing/worship" or deep, insider-language conversations about churchy things or religious things.

It's a lot of letting God re-draw the map, re-create meaning, re-shape emotions, and re-play all the good things he wants me/us to hear over and over again.

It's learning to live without the buzz of a room telling me whether or not "God is here" or "God is faithful".

It's learning to know he is here and he is faithful, even if it doesn't "feel like" anything.

Peace and goodwill.