In my daily devotional, Streams in the Desert, there’s a story about a little flower that blooms from the Soldanelle plant. This plant grows on the snow-covered Alpine mountains. Following is an excerpt from Streams.
When spring came, life stirred even beneath its shroud of snow, and as the plant sprouted, it amazingly produced enough warmth to thaw a small dome-shaped pocket of snow above its head. It grew higher and higher, and as it did, the small dome of air continued to rise just above its head until its flower bud was safely formed. At last, the icy covering of the air compartment gave way and the blossom burst into the sunshine. The crystalline texture of its mauve-colored petals sparkled like the snow itself as if it still bore the marks of the journey it had endured.
This fragile flower sounds an echo in our hearts that none of the nestled flowers in the warm grass of the lower slopes could ever awaken. Oh, how we love to see impossible things accomplished. And so does God.
During this time in our lives, this resonated deep within our spirits. Brett and I have felt as if we’ve been in a winter season for a while. You know, that time in life where you know where you want to be but it’s not your time to bloom? The time has come for us to bloom! We are now pushing against the snow. We are in that time that lots of people call impossible.
Sell your house during the holidays?!
Impossible!
Raise monthly support to live in South Africa?
Impossible!
Get everything done in the next 30 days?
Impossible!
But I’m here to remind those same people that I serve the God of the impossible! I serve the God of selling homes in the holiday season! I serve the God of provision! I serve the God of getting things done! I serve the God of the impossible!!!
…another word that is bigger than we give it credit for.
Psalm 103:3 who forgives ALL (emphasis added) your iniquity, who heals ALL (emphasis added) your diseases.
ESV
In today’s blog, I will break down the first part of this verse. However, I think it is important to get a firm grip on that little three-letter word ALL. For if we do not grasp how much all is, we will hang onto things God forgives us for and heals us from.
Strongs: all H3605 kōl: 1. all, the whole. (A) all, the whole of (B) all, the whole of (C) any, each, every, anything (D) totally, everything. Websters all: the whole number. Whole: (1) all; total (2) complete; entire; not defective or imperfect (3) unimpaired, unbroken; uninjured (4) sound; not hurt or sick (5) restored to health and soundness; sound; well. Totally: wholly; entirely, fully, completely.
I’m going to say this really loud for the people in the back…
ALL IS ALL!
If, as we are looking at the rest of this verse, we start thinking about all the things we’ve done or said and you start falling into the “There is no way God could ever forgive me for that,” trap, stop immediately and reread the definition. Now, let’s move on.
Strongs who forgives (who pardons KJV) H5545 sālah: forgive, pardon. Websters forgive: To pardon; to remit, as an offense or debt; to overlook an offense, and treat the offender as not guilty. The original and proper phrase is to forgive the offense, to send it away, to reject it, that is, not to impute it, [put it to] the offender. But by an easy transition, we also use the phrase, to forgive the person offending.
Strongs your iniquities H5771 āôn: 1. perversity; depravity; iniquity; guilt or punishment of iniquity (A) iniquity (B) guilt, guilt (as great), guilt (of condition) (C) consequence of or punishment for iniquity. Websters iniquity: (1) injustice; unrighteousness (3) A particular deviation from rectitude; a sin or crime; wickedness; any act of injustice. (4) Original want of holiness or depravity. Guilt: Criminality; that state of a moral agent which results from his actual commission of a crime or offense, knowing it to be a crime, or violation of law. To constitute guilt there must be a moral agent enjoying freedom of will, and capable of distinguishing between right and wrong, and a wilful or intentional violation of a known law, or rule of duty. The guilt of a person exists, as soon as the crime is committed; but to evince it to others, it must be proved by confession, or conviction in due course of law. guilt renders a person a debtor to the law, as it binds him to pay a penalty in money or suffering. guilt therefore implies both criminality and liableness to punishment. guilt may proceed either from a positive act or breach of law, or from voluntary neglect of known duty.
“Guilt renders a person a debtor to the law, as it binds him to pay a penalty in money or suffering,” hit me hard, especially the words it binds him. I have heard people say, “But if I hold onto the guilt it will remind me to never do fill in the blank again. Which is, in essence, saying, “I would rather bind up my heart with guilt than allow Jesus to heal it. Why?!
I mean think about it…how many of us want someone to bind our hands and feet to a chair? I don’t believe any of us would! We would struggle and do everything we could get out of it and if we couldn’t, we would pray that someone would come and untie us. Even our favorite movie heros will fight to get free…
Indiana Jones and Dr. Henry Jones didn’t sit and allow the fire to consume them, thinking, “I’m not going to try and get free because this will teach me not to search for ancient artifacts.” No! They fought to get free.
Here’s the absolute amazing thing, our freedom is not dependent on us frantically trying to figure out how to get free. Our freedom comes in the form of surrender. Surrendering that thing that wants to keep us bound. Surrendering that shame, guilt, sin, heartache, etc. that we think will keep us from doing whatever it is we did again. Because the only way we will not do it again, is to allow Jesus to set us free from it. And how do we allow Jesus to set us free from it? We remember that Jesus forgives ALL and all we have to do is surrender it.
Father thank you that you forgive ALL our iniquities! Thank you Jesus for going to the cross on our behalf and forgiving ALL our iniquities! Thank you Holy Spirit for speaking to our hearts concerning the things that bind us and helping us to surrender them ALL. You have forgiven ALL, I will surrender ALL and I will accept the freedom offered in Jesus. In Jesus name, Amen.
A few weeks ago I posted a picture of these three notebooks…
These notebook are filled with over 100 scriptures that tell us of God’s healing power, and it took me a little over a year to complete. Using Blue Letter Bible, Bible Gateway, and Webster’s 1828, I took a deeper look into what the key words of the passage meant. Sometimes, we may think we know what a word means, like Vizzini in The Princess Bride, when in reality, we are way off base…
Working on this word study, I thought my eyes were the only eyes that would see it…I was wrong. At church the following Sunday, some friends at church were sharing a diagnosis with Brett and me. As soon as they told us what was happening, I knew the Lord was speaking to me about giving them my journals. Have you ever heard the Lord speak to you about giving someone your own personal journal? It is a very vulnerable moment. Why? I didn’t just write what the words of the verse meant in Greek, Hebrew, or Webster’s 1828; I wrote out what it was saying to me at that moment. Vulnerable! The moment I saw this couple the following Sunday, they shared how they were using them and how grateful they were for them…and they were even able to follow my rabbit trails! With all that said, I thought I would move into a different word study…wrong again! I tried to start a different word study but kept returning to healing. I knew I was to start again. In the last study, I focused only on the cross-reference that pertained to healing; this time, it feels like I’m to focus on all the cross-references…I’m pretty sure it will take longer than a year this time!
James 5:16 Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray FOR (emphasis added) one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
NKJV
We will be focusing on the first part of this verse: confess your trespasses to one another, and pray FOR (emphasis added) one another, that you may be healed.
Strongs: confess G1843 exomologeō: to confess. Websters 1828: confess: to own or acknowledge. Own: in general, to acknowledge; to confess; to avow; to admit to be true; not to deny; as, to own our weakness and frailty.
Strongs: your sins G266 hamartia: that which is done wrong, sin, an offense, a violation of the divine law in thought or in act.
Strongs: to one another G240 allēlōn: one another, reciprocally, mutually. Websters: mutually: in the manner of giving and receiving.
Let’s stop and clarify who we are confessing to. We are not confessing to our hundreds of Facebook, Instagram, X, or any other social media platform you can think of. We are not confessing to the person we know will share our confession as a “prayer request,” (please don’t be that person!) We are confessing to the people who are actually in our lives, those we do life with: spouse, trusted friend, small group, etc. This is a two-way street, we do it for one another. We confess to the people we know will take the next part of the verse seriously.
Strongs: and G2532 kai: and, also, even, indeed. Websters: and: is a conjunction, connective or conjoining word. It signifies that a word or part of a sentence is to be added to what precedes.
Strongs: pray G2172 euchomai: to pray to God. Websters: pray: to supplicate; to entreat; to urge. Supplicate: to entreat for; to seek by earnest prayer. Entreat: to make an earnest petition or request.
Strongs: for G5228 hyper: in behalf of, for the sake of. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon: for, i.e. for one’s safety, for one’s advantage or benefit (one who does a thing for another, is conceived of as standing or bending ‘over’ the one he would shield or defend).
Normally, because I know what the words mean, I ignore the little words like and, as, in, for, etc., but on this particular day, I felt the nudge of the Holy Spirit to look a little deeper into the word for. When I read that for is conceived as standing or bending ‘over’ the one he would shield or defend, I was stopped in my tracks. Do we realize when we pray for one another, it’s like we are forming a shield of protection around them? When we pray for one another, we are using our shield to cover them. I picture it like this…
You can watch the entire clip, but my focus is on what happens between the beginning of the clip and the 1:46 mark. “Whatever comes out of these gates, we’ve got a better chance of survival if we work together.” As you will notice in the clip, those who panicked and separated themselves from the group, were quickly picked off. They had no protection from the enemy that was coming out of the gate. Sound familiar?
1 Peter 5:8 Be sober minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour.
ESV
They needed one another to survive the arena. We need one another to survive the arena of life! Jesus, the Son of God, shared his joys, frustrations, and sorrows with twelve men. If Jesus, the Son of God, shared his life with people, what makes us think “all we need is Jesus” and nobody else?” Hear me…Jesus is our all in all. He should be the person we call on first. But! I firmly believe that Jesus knows we need others in our life to form a shield of prayer around us when life gets too much, we’re making dumb decisions, we’re facing a sickness, or any other reason you can think of.
Why are we confessing and praying for one another? Healing!
Strongs: that (so that) G3704 opōs: how, that. Thayer’s Greek Lexicon: Used after verbs praying, entreating, asking, exhorting, to denote what one wishes to be done.
Strongs: you may be healed G2390 iaomai: 1. to cure, heal. 2. to make whole. a. to free from errors and sins, to bring about (one’s) salvation.
I don’t know about you, but I want everyone in my life to be healed! Healed from whatever would hold them back from receiving God’s best for them. I want my prayer to form a shield of protection around them so that the enemy does not devour them. And! I want others to do the same for me! But guess what? In order for that to happen, we have to go back to the beginniing of the verse and remember that it says to confess to one another. Tell others what we’re struggling with and allow them the opportunity to pray.
No, we are not going to talk about the song Kanye wrote. We are, however, going to talk about something my neighbor Vikkie and I talked about yesterday.
When Brett and I were looking for an apartment closer to his work, we never imagined what God had in store for us, but God knew and he gave us Vikkie and Zoe. Zoe is a young woman who is not so wrapped up in herself that she doesn’t see the ones around her and she will do anything she can for her neighbors. Zoe checked on me many times after I had my ankle surgery. When I was finally able to get around, I took my books and went to have breakfast and study. When I got home, she happened to be outside and she would not let me carry my backpack up the steps. To Zoe’s mom, you raised an incredible young lady and her neighbors are glad she lives in our building!
And now to Vikkie! God knew I would need Vikkie and she would need me. It was not long after Vikkie moved in that I saw a bougainvillea plant on her patio. When I stopped to introduce myself, I learned she had lived and taught art in Kenya. Our friendship was quickly forged with talks about our beloved Africa. Vikkie currently has her hands full taking care of her beautiful mom, Ms. Addie. As Brett and I have walked this road, we have assured her that if she needs us, we are here. As many of you will know, Brett can put anything together, and most of the time he does it in less time than the instructions say and he doesn’t read the instructions! We all laughed when Vikkie realized I wasn’t lying about his ability! She and I both said it would have taken us all day to put something together that took him 30 minutes! At this point you’re probably asking, what does this have to do with Jesus walking? Let me tell you!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, I went down to help Vikkie with Ms. Addie. We sang songs as we scooted her up in the bed and then Vikkie and I sat down to chat a bit. She had a National Geographic magazine opened to a map showing the areas where Jesus walked…see, I told you I’d get there! Anyway! According to the map, there were times when Jesus walked nearly eight miles to get where he needed to be. Vikkie and I took a moment to try and figure out how far eight miles would be for us. Eight miles would be from our apartment to Friendly Center…not something I would want to walk, but Jesus did it to fulfill the purpose God had given him for the day. In his walking, Jesus would have left footprints wherever he went. Vikkie said while she was looking at the map she began to wonder, “What kind of footprint am I leaving?” I have asked that question many times since 2020. Since coming home, I have often asked the Lord, “Am I making a difference?” And then it happened! The Lord used Vikkie to confirm that I am exactly where I am supposed to be, doing what I am supposed to be doing.
As often happens when we chat, our conversation spiderwebs and today it spiderwebbed to the picture above her mantel.
Remember I told you Vikkie is an artist? Y’all she is an incredible artist and although she didn’t paint this one, she did say she wanted to. I laughed and said, “Can you make baby Jesus a little darker?” And her reply brought tears to my eyes. She looked me straight in the eyes and said, “No. Because when I look at that picture I don’t see the color of the skin that Jesus is wrapped in. Just like I don’t see the color of skin you’re wrapped in. What I see when I look at that picture is you, wrapped in Jesus, making a difference in our lives. You are leaving a footprint and it is beautiful.” Cue waterworks!
As I’ve heard many a minister say, “I’m not bragging on me but on what God has done.” Well, I’m not bragging about me, but about what God has done. God has taken a group of people who are as different as night and day and brought them together as neighbors. Every single one of us looks past the skin that we are wrapped in and sees the beautiful person we are on the inside. And each of us is leaving our footprint on those around us and those in our community. We may not walk eight miles like Jesus, but we walk up and down stairs to take care of one another.
Wendy Roseman 