“Healing = Courage + Action + Grace”, Jonathan G.
Sandberg, BYU Devotional, Jan 21, 2014
“My hope
today is to encourage you that healing is possible if you apply the principles
that lead to healing. I will try to explain clearly—and I ask for your prayers
that we can understand one another by the Spirit—three principles that can lead
to healing and to knowing that all healing is a gift from Jesus Christ, for, as
Isaiah said, “with his stripes we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
“My talk is
entitled “Healing = Courage + Action + Grace.” And in honor of Martin Luther
King Jr., who was recently listed in Ted Stewart’s The Mark of a Giant2 as one of
seven people who changed the world, I start with an example from his life that
so clearly highlights these principles. Look for courage, action, and grace as
I read his words:
Almost
immediately after the [bus boycott] started we had begun to receive
threatening telephone calls and letters. They increased as time went on. . . .
One night . . . I couldn’t sleep. It seemed that all of my
fears had come down on me at once. . . .
. . . I
had heard these things before, but for some reason that night it got to me. . .
. I went to the kitchen and . . . I sat there and thought about a beautiful
little daughter who had just been born. . . . I started thinking about a
dedicated and loyal wife, who was over there asleep. And she could be taken
from me, or I could be taken from her. And I got to the point that I couldn’t
take it any longer. . . . With my head in my hands, I bowed over the kitchen
table and prayed aloud . . . : “Lord, I’m down here trying to do what’s right.
I think I’m right. I am here taking a stand for what I believe is right. But
Lord, I must confess that I’m weak now, I’m faltering. I’m losing my courage.
Now, I am afraid. . . . I have nothing left. I’ve come to the point where I
can’t face it alone.”
It seemed as though I could hear the quiet assurance of an
inner voice saying: “Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness. Stand up for
justice. Stand up for truth. And lo, I will be with you. Even until the end of
the world.”
I tell
you . . . I heard the voice of Jesus saying still to fight on. He promised
never to leave me alone. At that moment I experienced the presence of the
Divine as I had never experienced Him before. Almost at once my fears began to
go. My uncertainty disappeared. I was ready to face anything.
Can you see
in this example the pathway to healing? Courage to face a difficult situation
and stand for truth, acting in faith by turning to God in prayer, and peace and
strength from the Lord through His grace—courage, action, grace.
“Notwithstanding
my emotional or physical condition during this talk, please remember as I speak
today that it is never about the messenger; it is about the message. I pray I
can remember what Martin Luther King Jr. said to himself before his first
speech at the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church: “Keep Martin Luther King in the
background and God in the foreground and everything will be all right. Remember
you are a channel of the gospel and not the source.” ( Martin Luther King Jr., The Autobiography of Martin Luther King, Jr., ed. Clayborne Carson (New York: Intellectual Properties
Management in association with Warner Books, 2001), 42–43. This book was
compiled thirty years after Martin Luther King Jr.’s death and is a beautiful
representation of his words and thoughts.)
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