The Work of Healing

With this post, we’re starting a new series: The Work of Healing.

In the past, we’ve put out posts about how we can deal with stressful situations at work as followers of Jesus, whether it’s a micromanaging boss, an overwhelming schedule, or the pressures of gossip. These posts have been pragmatic, focusing on how to cope with the issue in an emotionally and spiritually healthy way. I’ve also written briefly about how we can be ministers of healing in our workplaces.

This new series takes a different approach. Rather than looking simply at how to cope with difficult situations or how we can minister to others on mission, we’ll be exploring the path of healing that Jesus invites each of us into—and what walking down that path means for our life at work.

[Thanks for reading. This post kicks off our new series The Work of Healing. Check out our other posts on faith and work and emotional health for more resources on living an integrated Christian life. Subscribe to get the next post in the series in your inbox.]

Side-Stepping Healing

To be honest, I’ve hesitated to dig into a series like this. In my own journey with Jesus, a constant temptation I face is to use pondering ideas as a substitute for genuine communion with God and others.

I often find it’s easier for me to think about God than to talk with God or listen to God. Even when the subject is healing, I tend to settle for thinking about healing in the right way, rather than welcoming the healing God might want to extend to me.

It’s easier for me to project an image of myself as an expert in the way I speak and write about the things of God, than to come alongside others as a fellow human being in need of healing. My tendency to over-intellectualize while side-stepping healthy self-disclosure comes out in this blog as much as anywhere else.

But to write this series with honesty, I’ll need to be forthcoming about my current walk with Jesus. In my own life at work, I see the grace of the healing he is bringing to certain wounds, and still feel the sting of others that are, so far, unhealed.

Depression and Healing

Up front among these wounds is my longtime winter companion, seasonal depression. As I write this post in early January, we’re heading into what is usually the hardest part of the year for me. The holidays are over. A long stretch of uninterrupted work responsibilities lies before me. And I feel the energy and gusto of a sloth on Benadryl.

For me, walking the path of healing with Jesus means learning how to face my depression with him, rather than trying to intellectualize it away. Most days of the week and most weeks of the winter, that means learning how to face my depression at work with him, as well.

My temptation is to ignore my internal life—to white knuckle it through the work day and “get by” until I can distract myself with a movie or a novel and then go to sleep.

But Jesus invites me into something better: Letting him walk with me into the long stretches of the day that can feel so bleak. On days when depression is at my side every hour, Jesus is, too. Welcoming his presence is part of the process of healing itself, even if I still feel glum.

Healing and Redemption

Your need for healing may not look like mine. But all of us carry loads that Jesus wants to bear with us.

Once, when Jesus healed a woman “who had been subject to bleeding for twelve years,” he told her, “Daughter, your faith has healed you. Go in peace” (Luke 8:43, 48 NIV). The word translated “healed” here can also be rendered as “saved” or “rescued.” It appears in the New Testament over one hundred times to describe the saving action of God. 

Passages like this show us that there is a close connection between healing and salvation. When God redeemed us in Christ’s death and resurrection, he granted us “the forgiveness of sins” (Colossians 1:14 NIV), but not only that. He also vouchsafed the ultimate restoration of every aspect of our being that has been hurt and wounded by sin and evil. The future Jesus leads us into is one where “​​there will no longer be any mourning, or crying, or pain” (Revelation 21:4 NASB).

So, whenever we experience healing in this stage of our life with God, it is our heavenly future taking hold of us, drawing us forward into more of what God has in store for us.

Jesus said, “your faith has healed you.” This turn of phrase reminds us that at the heart of the healing journey is our faith in Jesus. Christian healing is not ultimately about self-realization or even freedom from suffering; it is about drawing close to Jesus. It is in him that we find who we were truly meant to be. The path of healing is the path of becoming more who we are in Christ.

Can Work Be a Place for Healing? 

It might seem odd to situate an extended discussion about healing in the context of our lives at work. When we think about our emotional wounds in particular, our mind rightly turns toward our relationships and “personal life.” Whether it’s our family of origin, close friends, or romantic partners, the people whose lives are closely linked with ours profoundly affect our emotional development. The work of healing is often no more and no less than unpacking what we have (and haven’t) experienced in these relationships, allowing God to minister his love which transcends all broken human loves.

But hour for hour, most of our waking life on most days is spent at work. If the experience of healing is our heavenly future taking hold of us in the present, it needs to take hold of us at work as much as anywhere else. The way we relate to other people and our work responsibilities is always bound up with our inner life, including our emotions, our anxieties, and our wounds. As God ministers his healing to us in those hidden places of our soul, it can change our relationships at work and our relationship with work.

Not only that, but God can also minister his healing to us through our work. Paul writes of feeling “all [Christ’s] energy that he powerfully works within me” as he “toil[s]” in his work as an apostle (Colossians 1:29 ESV). When we collaborate with Christ in this way, feeling his power in our efforts, we realize the fruit of healing. The way he has worked a change in us allows him to do his work through us. And that work itself reinforces the change he has made.

Our work itself can be a place for healing. We just have to let Jesus in. If we let him, he will do the work of healing as only he can.

Reflect and Practice

Take a moment to consider your own heart.

• What are the patterns of your own inward life that affect how you try to love and serve others at work every day?
• What could it look like for Jesus to influence those patterns, bringing change from the inside out?

Photo by RDNE Stock project on Pexels.
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