Psalm 30:2
“O LORD my God, I cried out to You, and You healed me.”
This verse. Wow. This verse changed my life. It drew me to Jesus in a way I never had been before. It changed my perspective on how to deal with addictions and it served as the foundation for what is the One Step Ministry.
The Bible describes Psalm 30 as a “song of joy”. Bible scholars theorize that David wrote this psalm to celebrate the completion of a new palatial home that he’d built for himself. Charles Spurgeon believed that the psalm was more of a prophecy, celebrating the temple of the LORD that would be built by David’s son, Solomon.
If you read psalm 30, all 12 verses of it, David never mentions a house or a temple. In fact, all David does in this psalm is give thanks to the LORD for His protection, His grace, His provision, His mercy, and His willingness to redeem. In fairness to the scholars though, date wise it does seem to correlate with a passage from 2 Samuel 5:11-12. It’s noted there that David did in fact build himself a nice new home. That’s cool, but let’s talk about verse 2 of this psalm.
Back in 2009 Jesus led a man named Jeff Rudd into my life. Jeff was a pastor who led a thriving prison ministry. For the prison inmates he ministered to, Jeff created a curriculum called Beyond Addictions that helped inmates overcome the pain of the sins brought about by their addictions and embrace the joy of salvation through Jesus Christ. At this same time, I’d been leading a Celebrate Recovery group, so it only took a minute for Jeff and me to realize that we had a shared passion for this sort of outreach. In no time we set out to create a ministry that was 100% scripture based, did not rely on the 12 steps, and offered a degree of hope to the addict looking to win back their life that excluded secular limitations. For example, we wanted to overcome the “addiction is an incurable disease” model.
To do that, we needed a Bible verse that could encapsulate that hope and Psalm 30:2 fit the bill. Look at what we can derive from this one simple verse. A promise to be healed when we cry out to Jesus. For the addict, the prospect of being “healed” versus a lifetime of recovery and identifying as an addict should look very appealing. With this healing, scripture tells us that those who choose to live under the lordship of Jesus Christ are new creations. Everything about us is reborn and the bondage of sin is broken for good. Not that we won’t still sin, we will. But through Jesus we now have a way to confess those sins and seek His help in turning away from the powerful allure of sin.
To live with the belief that Jesus is incapable of setting us free from bondage while claiming to have faith in His grace speaks to the kind of double mindedness that James warns about in his epistle, “…the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.”
For me, ten years into my sobriety, Jesus changed everything. I had spent those years submitted to therapists and ant-depressants and rehab and AA meetings…all of it. What really rocked my world was the prospect of Jesus being ready, willing, and able to heal the wounds caused by my alcoholism. When I went into rehab that was what I thought I was paying for, a cure. Being told that wasn’t a reasonable outcome was a huge blow.
But God…
And there have been many days since then when I’ve had cause to cry out. Sometimes audibly, sometimes in the quiet of my heart. But every single time I’ve cried out to Jesus He’s been faithful, and I’ve experienced His healing power. Time and time again.
The key is to keep seeking Jesus. The healing you’re looking for may not come in the moment that you ask for it, but in His perfect timing Jesus will bless your faithfulness. He’ll allow you to find rest. He’ll break those chains and lead you to a better place. And one day you’ll realize that the addict who once stared back at you every time you looked in a mirror has been replaced by a disciple of Jesus Christ. And the cravings and the deceptions and the infidelities brought about by that sinful lifestyle will have been replaced by a hunger to know Jesus better and to share His goodness to the world around you.
Live that life and one day Jesus will heal you again, when He calls you home to Him in Heaven.
And that’s the best of kind of healing there is.