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Be Healed by Dr. Bob Schuchts begins with a reflection on the story of the woman at the well.
In this story, Dr. Schuchts says, Jesus walks the woman through three steps to bring about her healing. First, He helps her encounter Him. Second, He reveals her brokenness. Third, He then gives her His love and truth to heal her wounds.
According to Dr. Schuchts, Jesus follows this pattern today to bring us healing. Dr. Schuchts organizes the rest of the book around these three steps, offering readers exercises, prayer practices, and reflections to guide them on a healing journey with the Lord.
In this article, we’ll briefly discuss each of these steps. To learn more and access the exercises, questions, and prayers in this book, I highly recommend picking up a copy for yourself. You can do so here.
Encountering Jesus: He Wants to Heal You
Throughout the Gospels, we see that Jesus wants to heal. He heals people of physical, mental, spiritual, and relational infirmities all throughout the Gospels. Ultimately, He brings us healing on the cross, healing us of the root of all of these infirmities: sin.
Jesus’ desire to heal doesn’t end with the Gospels. He still wants to heal us today. In fact, His entire mission is to restore all of humanity to wholeness. Ultimately, this process will be fully completed in Heaven, but now we must begin it so we can uproot sin and become more and more an image of God here on Earth.
The first step of the healing journey is to truly encounter Jesus, our healer. To receive His healing, we must come to know Jesus as a healer and truly believe in His mission and desire to heal.
To facilitate this encounter, Dr. Schuchts offers reflections on many Gospel passages. He invites his readers to contemplate the Gospels and place themselves in these stories. Doing so will help us to encounter Jesus.
Acknowledging Your Brokenness
The Roots of Sin
Dr. Schuchts offers an analogy to help us understand the roots of our sins.
Imagine an apple tree. The apples of this tree are the sins we repeatedly bring to Confession.
Now, even if we remove all of the apples (which Confession does), what happens?
The apples grow back.
The only way to really keep the apples from growing back is to pull the tree up by the roots. So it is with our sins: we need to recognize their roots to begin, with the Lord, the process of their eradication.
So, what are the roots?
Dr. Schuchts offers two tree metaphors to describe the roots of our sins. Our thoughts and actions come from one of these trees.
The first tree is the tree of life, or our communion with Christ. When we abide with Christ, we are rooted in His love, become like Him, and live lives that show the fruits of the Spirit.
Sin, on the other hand, comes from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. The roots of this tree are ungodly self-reliance, where we believe we can live without God, relying on ourselves instead of Him.
Additionally, Dr. Schuchts discusses the seven deadly sins, which underscore the sins we repeatedly fall into.
He encourages readers to reflect on their “apples”, the seven deadly sins they tend to specialize in (usually one or two), and their areas of self-reliance. This exercise tends to bring you much awareness, which is an important part of the healing journey.
Our Wounds
Dr. Schuchts also offers an image to help people understand how wounding experiences, such as trauma, can have a huge impact on people.
When we face wounding experiences, these wounds can lead us to believe lies about ourselves. He lists seven wounds that encompass all wounding experiences, and the lies that typically come from these wounds. For example, the wound of abandonment can lead to a belief that one is all alone and no one cares about them.
These beliefs and experiences can then lead people, consciously or unconsciously, to make inner vows. These inner vows serve to protect us, help us find comfort, or care for ourselves in the midst of wounds. For example, someone who has been hurt by others may vow to never need anything from anyone again. These inner vows, though, are rooted in pride, as they are ways we try to care for ourselves without God.
These inner vows then form strongholds that can block us from God’s healing love and grace.
Like his work with sin, Dr. Schuchts encourages you to take this concept to prayer and ask the Holy Spirit to reveal the wounds, beliefs, and vows in your life
The Three Healing Remedies
Dr. Schuchts then offers three healing remedies for the wounds, beliefs, vows, and sins uncovered above.
First, redemptive suffering is a healing remedy. Facing our pain with Jesus, relying on God’s strength and not our own, can help us to find healing and show virtue instead of vice in the face of our wounds.
Second, the sacraments are places to truly encounter Jesus’ love and grace. This concept is the foundation of Dr. Schuchts’ book Be Transformed, which you can learn more about here.
Finally, healing prayer is an important remedy. Allowing the Holy Spirit to guide you into an encounter with Jesus in the midst of your wounds, aided by Scripture, can be a powerful healing remedy.
Conclusion
I highly recommend picking up a copy of Be Healed by Dr. Bob Schuchts. I invite you to read it slowly, working through the exercises and prayer prompts, and allow the Holy Spirit to work. You can pick up a copy here.