Article December 18, 1989 Issue

Christ speaks to everyone

The Christian Science Monitor

For several weeks a close relative called me frequently, expressing deep despair about her life. In my efforts to help her regain her joy and inspiration, I talked to her about God's love for man, thinking if I could get through to her, the depression would lift. But each time, she became so upset that we couldn't continue the conversation. One day she simply hung up, and I realized that my endless talking was actually a hindrance to this relative's gaining peace.

Yearning to know what I could do to help, I recalled that Christ Jesus often encountered people in mental or physical distress who were unable to lift themselves out of their troubles. There was the man from the country of the Gadarenes, possessed with many devils (Mark 5:1–15); the woman suffering with an issue of blood for twelve years (Matt. 9:20–22); the nobleman's son who lay dying at Capernaum (John 4:46–53), and many others.

Jesus often went to the hillsides or to the mountaintop and sometimes spent all night in prayer. His constant communion with God enabled him to free humanity from enslaving conditions. This statement of Jesus' points clearly to how he was able to accomplish his remarkable healings: "As I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."^{John 5:30.}

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