Healing is Holistic

II Kings 4 : 1-7

Key Verse:
So she came to the man of God and gave him word of what she had done. And he said, Go and get money for the oil and make payment of your debt, and let the rest be for the needs of yourself and your sons. (Verse 7)

“We cover you at every step of your life”, “you insure your faith in us, we assure your security”, are captions of the leading insurance companies in India today. The prophet, whose widow comes to prophet Elisha for help, in our reading for today unfortunately did not and could not insure his life, rather spent everything in the service of the Lord, except saving a jar of oil. As we read through this particular passage, we are reminded of two particular invisible ailments that have been bothering the widow, the mental agony of economic inability to pay back the debts made by his husband and the psychological stress she is undergoing because of the fear of forced child labour or slavery that is to come to her children as a result of it.

One is struck with awe for the prophet Elisha’s response and reaction to the situation. 1. His presence of mind, 2. His presentation of the miracle, and 3. His preparedness to heal the invisible hurts of the widow. Unlike today’s Christians and the church who romanticize the needy, and assures a mere prayer support with out addressing the need, Elisha was prompt to act and performed a miracle that healed the widow to become economically self sustained and saved her children from becoming child labourers. Elisha could have very well said a prayer, and would have sent the widow back, or would have asked the widow to support his ministry first by giving half of the oil, or with his stature would have assured her a compromise with the creditor, but Elisha responded differently. He revealed the mind of God, to be on the side of the helpless suffering from chronic ailments in the society and performed a miracle with the help of ordinary means available from within the community and healed the ailments the widow was undergoing.

The Churches today, which boasts of its healing crusades and meetings, needs to rise above it and strive to exercise such a presence of God’s mind, and be prepared to perform healing by addressing the needs of the people, particularly the ones pushed down in the society in all dimensions. Let the Church as part of their healing ministry cover the lives of the ones suffering from physical and mental ailments at every step of their life, and assure them health and happiness. Unless the churches today insure and assure health and healing from the societal evils, our mission of healing will not have any meaning and direction. Come true such a mission of healing.

Prayer: God of healing, make us as a Church to insure health and healing at every step of the lives of our people in the society.

Reflection: “When life is holistic, so should be the Churches’ mission of healing.”