What do you think? If a man has a hundred sheep, and one of them goes astray, does he not leave the ninety-nine and go to the mountains to seek the one that is straying? - Matthew 18:12

As Christians we often talk about our battles against the passions and struggles with temptation as if we are living in the midst of a bitter siege on our persons. Our “goodness” is within the walls, and all the sinful parts of ourselves lurk outside banging at the gates, looking to plunder what remains of our innocence and purity.

Or we may take the idea of “casting off the old man” to the literal extreme and believe that it’s necessary to cut away parts of our inner being in and effort to chisel ourselves into what we think of as a better person.

As I reflect on my past efforts to alter my habits, change my behaviors, and live more virtuously, I find that they all mostly failed precisely because I externalized my undesired aspects of myself as an enemy. I spent energy hiding and shoving peices of myself away instead of understanding and healing the parts of my being that were expressing themselves in these passions.

The idea of fighting the disease of sin has stolen the limelight from the practice of healing the parts of us afflicted with sin. With this mindset of rough and tough spiritual warriors being so prevalent in our culture, with the physicians absent, it’s no wonder our collective condition appears to be steadily worsening.

I like to sit with my envy, possessiveness, scorn, frustrations, lusts, unfulfilled desires, shame, bitterness, fear, despair, hopelessness, and other related feelings about as much as I like to poke at a pus-filled cut or walk on a swollen and inflamed ankle. Acknowledging heavy emotions and impulses is difficult, especially when you feel ashamed of them. Remaining present and attempting to understand them is even harder still.

It’s much easier, in the short run, to clamp down on these feelings and push them into the nether regions of my psyche, ignore the painful work of healing, and continuously denying the symptoms of further infection. Why do the work? I can take the easy way out of my problems on the denial train and even claim to be virtuously fighting my passions while doing so!

Maybe we should look to someone who sets a better example than me.

While Christ never let sin inside Himself, He interacted with it in others as He went through the world. In Capernaum, He dined with sinners comparing them to those in need of a physician. Throughout His ministry in Galilee people, sinners, draw near to Him and find healing. Demons flee from His presence, not His absence.

The same theme is present in His interactions with the disciples as well. When James and John arrogantly ask to sit at Christs side, they aren’t cast our for their arrogance, but corrected. When Peter denies Christ out of fear, he is given the opportunity to draw near again. When Thomas doubts, Christ pulls his hand into Him and transforms the doubts into belief.

If we are called to be like Christ, then why should we not imitate this with our own sinful aspects? Why do we so often forget that we have the ability, or rather the duty, to extend forgiveness and compassion to ourselves for our failings and provide care for our healing. How many of us take the time to sit and dine with our jealousies, anger, lusts, and other shames like Christ did with the tax collectors? I think precious few.

For example, I have found myself resenting, scorning, and envying creative-type people all my life. Others talking about their artistic hobbies made my head swell with ire. I acknowledged these feelings were wrong, and I bit my tongue and used my force of will to push the feelings of resentment and envy into the shadows of my consciousness. This doesn’t make them go away.

Healing starts to come through drawing those feelings in and sitting with them. This does not mean they get to control behavior but merely be allowed to linger without shoving them away. Over time, remaining with the resentment and envy made me more able to bear the feeling without it taking over my mind. The triggers become less and less intense, and eventually I began to realize the wound underneath was my own blocked creative expression, the medicine I’m taking for these feelings is writing.

Do not stretch my words here too far. There are parts of the Bible that tell us to take a firm stance against sin. There are unacceptable behaviors. There are times when it is necessary to stand fast against temptation. We do need to cut out poisonous relationships and influences to keep ourselves healthy. However, we don’t have the ability to cut out parts of our own person; we are complete beings, and the diseased aspects need to be healed and transformed, not severed and cauterized.

Also, this isn’t magic. Showing compassion to yourself takes a lot of strength and a lot of patience. Reintegrating parts we’re ashamed of won’t happen overnight. A diagnosis doesn’t make the disease vanish the next day. It’s likely we’ll have to take a good long course of medicine to really find healing.

So I encourage myself, and all of us, to envision ourselves as shepherds herding lost emotional sheep or physicians healing the sickened parts of our souls with the same enthusiasm we use when we visualize ourselves as spiritual warriors putting on the armor of God. We’ll find much more healing and growth by treating our sinful and shame-bound aspects with the forgiveness, compassion, and care that we are worthy of as human beings.