If My People - The Cure

‘When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command locusts to devour the land or send a plague among my people, if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. 2 Chronicles 7:13‭-‬14 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/2ch.7.13-14.NIVUK A few years ago, I suffered from issues with my back that proved to be quite debilitating. It was the third or fourth time that I'd had a major breakdown in my lower back and the third time I'd had physiotherapy. I turned up at the physiotherapist thinking that I'd just get a course of the same old exercises, but this time it was different. He asked me to touch my toes. I was a bit confused. I had always relied in my brains in life and not my muscles. I had never been able to touch my toes. Not even with a PE teacher yelling what for him would pass as encouragement. I'd thought nothing of it then. So why would it have anything to do with my problems now? Anyway, I humoured him. It didn't work. Of course. But then he saw it. My problems with my back were being aggravated by my short hamstrings. They were too tight, which meant that extra strain was being put on the disk at the base of my spine that had become prolapsed several years previously. He gave me a course of exercises that I still do now which have fixed the problem. After months of stretching and exercises, I was finally able to touch my toes, something that had once seemed as impossible as walking on the moon. More to the point, his exercises greatly reduced the severity of breakdowns in my lower back and have practically eliminated them. Why am I mentioning this tale of lower back pain? Because God in these verses puts His finger on the cure for our ailment. And it involves bending down. To some people it might sound as bizarre and irrelevant as that physiotherapist asking me to touch my toes, but believe me, it works. The first step is to humble ourselves. The Hebrew word carries the sense of bowing the knee in submittal to a conqueror to become their subject. In modern terms, we can see this as surrendering. That is, surrendering our 'right' to rule and make decisions; to admit that God is right and we are wrong. This is the complete antidote to the sin that is the root of all others: the sin of pride. It's why the first step to recovering from addiction is to recognise that you are an addict and need help. This first step is one that our culture has tremendous problems carrying out. We have built a highly litigious culture where no-one takes responsibility for anything in case they get sued and can't afford to pay the price. I remember a rather comical example of this when I was in Romania. A couple of guys were caught fishing without a permit - poaching - in a private lake. Despite the fact that they were in rubber waders and carried nets full of fish, they still maintained their innocence. When confronted with the evidence, do you know what one of them said? "We weren't fishing. We were walking by the side of the lake in our waders, and the fish just jumped out of the lake into our nets!" Laughable, right? We need to understand something: if God places His finger on a part of our life we need to change, it will do us no good if we try and pass the blame to avoid responsibility. The story is told of a pastor who preached a sermon against gossip. As he stood at the door, every church member shaking his hand said to him, "Pastor, I'm so glad you preached that sermon, because there's someone in this church who is such a gossip. I really hope they got the message." Hello! We will never move forward with God if we are not brave enough to admit our faults, admit we are wrong and submit to God. In fact, we will never, ever grow as human beings if we are unable to admit when we've got things wrong. David realised this. He even realised that his religious observance was not enough. He needed to humble himself, to recognise his sin, to recognise his failings, and to admit them to God (Psalms 51:16‭-‬17). John has an even more stark message for us: If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word is not in us. 1 John 1:8‭-‬10 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/1jn.1.8-10.NIVUK We find this verse in Romans: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Romans 3:23 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/rom.3.23.NIVUK So we either humble ourselves and admit where we went wrong, or believe God is a liar. As well as humbling ourselves, we also need to pray to God. We need to talk to Him. We need to stop hiding, to stop excusing ourselves, to stop looking for ways out and come to Him. This requires us to abandon other solutions, to abandon other explanations, to stop arguing and to start talking to Him. We need to realise that He is the answer. We also need to seek His face. This is the exact opposite of what happened in the Garden of Eden (Genesis 3:8). And the phrase carries with it a sense of urgency. This is not calmly searching for a lost pencil. No, this is like a nurse being sent to locate life-saving medicine or equipment during an operation. We are to urgently seek the face of the One we have hurt most of all. This is difficult. Think about it: when you knew you had done wrong as a child, where was the last place you wanted to be? Yet in order to move on, we must have the courage to seek God out, and urgently. We need to realise how desperately critical it is to get our lives back on track. If Coronavirus had taught us anything, it's that our lives are utterly fragile and could be taken from us in an instant: As God’s fellow workers we urge you not to receive God’s grace in vain. For he says, ‘In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you.’ I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation. 2 Corinthians 6:1‭-‬2 NIVUK https://bible.com/bible/113/2co.6.1-2.NIVUK Today can be the day of salvation if we seek God's face urgently and fervently right now We also see that we must turn from our wicked ways. Let me give you a rather simple example of this. After I hurt my back, a physiotherapist asked me how I get out of bed in the morning. I showed him: I put one foot on the floor and let it take the weight. He told me this was a problem, that I was placing too much weight on one side of my body, I was twisting in an unhealthy way, and this was causing me problems. Since then I always put both feet on the floor when I get up out of bed. When someone or something makes it obvious that we are getting something wrong, how do we react? If our first reaction is to defend or justify ourselves then we will never grow. If we examine ourselves, recognise our mistake and turn from it then we will always be better for it. This principle in these verses is also hard-wired into the communion service billions of Christians attend regularly (1 Corinthians 11:28). This turning from sin - this repentance - is a core part of our faith. It had this prime position even before Jesus began His ministry (Mark 1:1‭-‬4). Jesus Himself taught the same message (Luke 5:29‭-‬32). If this is the Gospel we preach and believe, then how should we react when our sins and shortcomings are made obvious by suffering? I hope the answer is obvious. Having seen the problem, the cause and the cure, lastly we turn to THE RESULT. That is, what happens when we carry out the actions prescribed in these verses; what happens when we do things God's way.