So Jesus is walking back down the road after a long day sermoning on the mount. As usual, the road is lined with the curious, the skeptical and, of course, those with calamitous conditions wishing to be healed.
A leper approaches Jesus and begs to be healed. Jesus, per his custom, puts his hands on the man’s body, feels deeply into his soul to find the cause of his malady and then asks “do you sincerely wished to be healed?”. The man cries “yes!” so Jesus instantly heals him and moves on. “Just another day at the office” thinks Jesus.
Jesus continues down the road, it’s been a very long day healing people and he’s hungry and getting a little irritable. A woman rushes up to Jesus with a severely injured baby in her arms and shrieks “Lord, Lord, my babe had been struck by a carriage, he is shattered and not breathing, please heal him!”. Jesus pauses, puts his hands on the baby, assesses the karmic implications, says the prayer and the baby is instantly healed.
Jesus thinks “I am done for this day, I want some milk and honey” and begins to walk faster down the road, almost to town. Just before arriving back at his current abode, an especially demanding man jumps in front of Jesus, falls to his knees and pleads “I am dying Lord, the very devil himself has my soul, please heal me”. Jesus first looks the man over and sees that he has no outward sign of deformity, disease or affliction.
“What is your difficulty, my son?”, asks Jesus. The man says, “I am filled with jealousy, grief and rage, my wife has had an affair, lied to me and left me for another man. She has also left me with our only child, our lives are ruined, my heart is eternally broken. Forgive me Lord, I so want to kill her and dream of savagely torturing her lover”.
Jesus listens patiently (reasonably patiently, he is getting more hungry by the moment) and puts his hands on the man’s body to feel the condition of his soul and asks the man “do you sincerely want to be healed of this condition tormenting your soul once and forever?”
The man cries “yes, yes! I cannot live in this condition any longer!” Jesus pauses, feels more deeply into his soul and finally says “I could easily heal you instantly, but I’m not going to” and begins to move on. “Why are you not healing me, Lord? I have watched you and you’ve healed every sufferer I’ve ever seen ask you”. Have I not prophesied in your name?”
“Three reasons”, says Jesus. “First, if I heal you instantly of your current affliction, the pattern of your soul indicates this is only going to keep happening to you over and over again. Instantly healing you of your current malady would only be superficial. I would be robbing you of one of the greatest learning experiences of your life and, as you might imagine, stealing is not my thing”.
“Second, if you survive this hell and allow the fire to burn this evil from you and genuinely heal to the depth of your soul, you’ll be able to help heal others of this terrible affliction in the future. If I heal you instantly, you’ll develop no such ability”.
“Last, I could really use some help on Earth with all this healing business, it was never meant for one person to do all the work and I’m assigning you the task of learning how to heal rather than be healed. I know this sucks, but you’ll thank me in the long run, trust me”. Now please, if you don’t mind, there is a pie waiting for me and even the Lord needs a treat from time to time”.