WE MUST COOPERATE WITH GRACE. All the good is from Christ. Yet, in the deep mystery of synergy, we have a strategic part to play.
I am reminded of the story of the six-year-old boy who went to the department store with his dad to buy a Christmas present for his mother. The dad said, “I think Mom would like slippers for Christmas. What do you think? Let’s go to the slipper department. Mom likes pink, Huffy slippers. What do you think? Mom takes size six. What size do you want to get?” The boy kept repeating, “Yes.” So the boy pointed to a pair of women’s pink, Huffy slippers, size six. The dad paid the sales clerk, and they went home.
Dad got out the wrapping paper, Scotch tape, and scissors. The boy put tape on the paper that Dad cut and folded. And on Christmas, the boy rightly told his mother that he got her the Christmas present of his choice. The mother was thrilled that her son was so thoughtful and had picked out the perfect Christmas gift for her.
It was the boy who chose the slippers and gave them to his mother. And the boy was guided and empowered by his father. We might say the father was the prime mover in the Christmas present choice. In a sense, so it is with us. We know we have strengthened another human, and we know that Christ did it within us.
So, a healing presence is, in a sense, a conduit of fire. The fire of the Godhead, hotter than the sun, goes through the clay conduit, us, and out the other side as fire to another human. We simply allow the fire to go through us. But it is a healing fire nonetheless. Fire goes into us and out from us to heal the wounds of someone else. Of course, the conduit is put aside afterward, empty and hollow, but it was and can again be very useful to Christ to do His loving work for others. We, the conduit, must accept the place of Christ’s healing power through us.
Here is a story that is difficult for me to relate but may be helpful in understanding our part in this synergy. Poachers in Africa catch monkeys by hollowing out a coconut shell and making a small hole in the front of the shell, just large enough for the monkey to scrunch its hand through. In the back of the coconut shell, the poachers bore a small hole, tighten an eye bolt into it, put a chain through the hole in the bolt, and lock the chain around the bottom of a tree. They fill the shell with a mixture of pineapple and rice-delectable morsels for monkeys. Then the poachers go home.
A monkey comes, forces its hand through the opening in the coconut, and grabs a fistful of pineapple and rice. Now, however, it can’t pull its hand back out because of its large fist. But the monkey will simply not let go of the food. It stubbornly retains its grip. The poachers return the next morning, put a bag over the monkey, chop off its hand, and return home to make monkey soup. The story, though true, is grim for the monkey. And, in a sense, we are all monkeys, not letting go of our resistance to stillness and more life. We refuse to be still.
We can learn from the monkey story and learn to let go to be still. When we are still, we walk through the semi-permeable membrane separating us from the inner universe within us. We can almost walk through that membrane and ” be there”—be in faith with the Lord Jesus.
~Albert S. Rossi, Becoming a Healing Presence
