I keep telling people: the greatest work God (the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit) desires is to cause a single heart to fall in love with Him. There is no greater miracle, and the conversion and healing of the heart is the motivation for every other sign Jesus performed and every prayer that God answers for us now. Today's gospel reading, in which Jesus heals the paralytic after forgiving his sins (Mt 9: 1-8), illustrates this wonderfully.
Sometimes we accept the "this world" view of a situation as the full view. There are things with which we struggle that indeed have elements that are merely part of our own personality and brain chemistry and the habits we have formed over time. There are medical conditions which are solely a matter of their medical explanation. But in many cases, there are also spiritual components of these challenges which we ignore, asking God only for the grace to bear them rather than to solve the spiritual part of them. Unforgiveness alone plays a role we little understand in our bodies and our psyches, and it is also not entirely a matter of exercising our own will.
Until we bring the power of the cross, and the freedom which Christ has won for us thereby, to bear against these bondages which have come into our lives through our responses to a variety of hurtful, unhealthy, or sinful situations, we will only be addressing a part of the problem. Just as someone who deals with chronic - or even situational depression - may do themselves an injustice by not availing themselves of the professional help that is available, even more futile is our refusal to trust in the power of the cross to address any spiritual element of our struggles.
There is bondage in our lives from which Christ wants to set us free, as part of the whole solution for which He is providing.
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