a long healing
July 9, 2009
On each side of the river grew a tree of life . . . . The leaves were used for medicine to heal the nations (v.2).
READ: Revelation 22:1-6
In September of last year, natural disaster hit the Gulf Coast in the US yet again. Hurricane Ike ripped across Galveston Island and into Houston, Texas, the fourth-largest city in the nation. One survivor, Bobby Anderson, recounted the horrific experience of holding on to a building while the storm lashed away at him. To his horror, he watched as a woman lost her grip and was swept out to sea.
Another witness, Aaron Reed, spoke of one section of the city, saying it was “almost completely gone. Like somebody took a razor and went pffft.” Friends, homes, communities—ripped apart.
These tragedies are distressing, and they are also vivid images of the truth we face every day—the sad reality that Scripture narrates in its opening chapters. Our world (governments, social structures, economies, environment, neighborhoods, relationships) has deep, painful scars. We have been mortally wounded by sin and rebellion and every ill that results from such utter destruction.
And the only remedy for this rack and ruin is a deep healing. We need a Savior.
In light of our dire need, the apostle John’s vision of where all this calamity is heading offers immense hope. We are heading toward a joyful conclusion where “no longer will there be a curse upon anything” and where “there will be no night” (Revelation 22:3,5). We are moving toward a day—can you imagine it?—when God will “heal the nations,” every single one (v.2).
No more evil. No more pain. The healing will have come. More precisely, the Healer will have come. As John says, this restoration emanates from “the Lord God [who] will shine on them” (v.5). —Winn Collier
Where does your heart need to be healed? Where do you need to trust God for the healing of your world?
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