Hurting Turns Into Healing

Hurting Turns Into Healing Sermon Illustration

Trusting God in adversity is difficult, but we must do it. Josh Moody gives a great example of how hurting can turn into healing: “Think of the surgeon prepping himself to go into surgery. As he prepares, he knows in one sense that he is about to do his patient harm. He is going to cut open his body and delve in with surgical tools. The patient will bleed. If there were no anesthetic, the patient would be screaming in pain strapped to the operating bed. That sounds evil. Yet that surgeon rightly believes that he is following the Hippocratic Oath to ‘do no harm.’ Harm is not harm when it does good. That is what I think the psalm must be saying. Yes, this may hurt. That is why you are asking for help. Look at the hills, but do not stop there. Go beyond them. Look to the God who made the mountains, who made everything” (Josh Moody, Journey to Joy: The Psalms of Ascent [Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2013], 36–37, Kindle).