Healed from the Inside Out

“He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds, you have been healed.” – 1 Peter 2:24

Going to Guatemala with Wesley last year, our team really wanted to press into healing for the week. We believed that God’s heart was to heal Guatemala from the inside out, particularly in the small, rural town where we would be spending our spring break. For someone who grew up in a Southern Baptist church, this was a wild expectation, and I was honestly hesitant to believe that we would see incredible healings. I was afraid to get my hopes up in case God didn’t work according to our expectations. I was terrified of disappointment in a time of discovering what his heart for his people is truly like.

While we didn’t experience blind men regaining sight or lame men walking, I can say with confidence that healing was – and still is – God’s intention for Guatemala and for us, too. That was what changed my experience of healing. It doesn’t have to be this massive physical transformation, but a transformation of mindsets, of facets of mental health, of our heart condition. One of the most glaring examples of this was when our team walked through an old bus terminal lined with people selling fruits, vegetables, and other goods in hopes to make ends meet for just one more day. We had split up into smaller groups and our guide, Rony, was taking us off the beaten path (literally) to a friend’s home. While we met with this man, the joy of the Lord was evident on his face and he literally wept as we prayed over him and his family. He seemed like your typical Guatemalan believer, nothing out of the ordinary about his life as he laughed and worshipped God through his words and hospitality. However, upon leaving his home, Rony explained to us that this friend was once a police officer and had a history of anger and violence. He would physically abuse the people in his life with no remorse and lived a life marked by intense brutality.

This description of his friend was a severe contrast from the man we had just encountered, and as my team was thinking upon this truth, Rony spoke those thoughts into the open. He looked at us and said, “since Juan has found the Lord, he is a completely different person.” It took a miracle for this friend to have undergone a complete 180-degree transformation from violent ex-cop, to a man full of joy and grace. And, y’all, if that’s not healing, I don’t know what is.

Healing means bringing what’s broken back into wholeness and alignment with God. That can be healing a broken bone, healing from an illness, or believing that one day my skin won’t be marked by the eczema I’ve lived with all my life. But in this moment, I discovered that healing goes so much deeper. God literally healed this man’s broken soul and brought him into a place of spiritual wholeness that he had never experienced before and that’s his heart for all of us. The intention behind healing is to bring us to the feet of the Lord, into deeper intimacy with him. His heart is for us and the fact that he will do anything to bring us closer to him is one of the most beautiful, deeply kind and trust-inducing thoughts that could ever cross our mind. And through our experience of healing within ourselves, he has granted us the authority to pray for, believe for, and even bring forth the same healing around the world. And maybe he’ll even let you see physical healings while he’s at it.

Author | Emma Whitmer