Some Thoughts on Healing

 Some Thoughts on Healing Few things are more personal and vital to people than their health. Americans spend multiple billions of dollars each year trying to find cures for various diseases that have struck themselves or a loved one, making numerous for-profit and non-profitorganizations very wealthy and powerful. Fad diets and health regimens sweep the country with regularity. Pharmaceutical companies rank among the largest and wealthiest corporations in the world. Affordable health insurance and drug coverage are top political issues, especially as the Baby Boomer generation ages. Health is big. Religion, too, has a stake in health issues. Some of the best-known hospitals are affiliated with various denominations: Catholic, Adventist, Baptist, Methodist, Presbyterian, etc. Churches promote healthy lifestyles and are zealous advocatesof health initiatives and support groups. Many take a holistic approach to their membership's well-being, believing churches must provide help and comfort for both body and spirit. In addition, most churches believe in divine healing—at least on paper. It seems only the more charismatic congregations, however, announce their belief in God's power to heal. In the twenty-first century, it is far more "reasonable" for mainstreamdenominations to sing the praises of medical, technical, and scientific advances in health-related areas than to promote the more "primitive" practice of trusting God. Healing is just too low-tech and passé. Of course, healing takes faith, which is not a characteristic of the present culture. Faith is on the outs, with doubt, skepticism, disbelief, and downright antagonism in the majority. Most people would give the same credence to divine healing as to shamanism, transcendental meditation,feng shui, astrology, or magic beans. In a word, the typical secular individual would call healing through faith in God "superstition." At best, they would consider it a sometimes-effective placebo or mind over matter. For, to admit to healing is to admitthe existence and intervention of Almighty God. Christiansare, by definition, followers of Jesus Christ—and how unpopular that is even among those who profess Christianity! Any reader of the gospels cannot help but be struck by the number of accounts of healings Jesus performed during His ministry. He freely healedlepers, the blind, the lame, women with female problems, children with deathly fevers—in fact, just about anyone who asked! He even raised a few individuals from the dead! Yet, He really did not heal all these people Himself, but His Father in heaven did these merciful works through Him (John14:10). Divine healing works the same way today. In Luke 18:8, Jesus asks, "When the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?" This is obviously part of the problem why more healings do not occur among us, but it is certainly not all of it. Many faithful Christians have died trusting inGod to heal them, and whether or not they availed themselves of medical help during their illness does not seem to be all that much of a factor—or whether they chose to follow a "natural" cure or some new, experimental treatment. Something other than humanremedies for disease is the factor that decides the life or death of the ailing faithful. The "missing" dimension in healing is God, of course. Too many of us—in our pain, grief, and confusion—look at divine healing far too simplistically and carnally, which is understandable under such trying circumstances. We know God desires toheal us, and He promises to do so (see Exodus 15:26; Psalm 103:3; Matthew 8:1-3; James 5:14-15). We know we can claim God's application of the stripes of Jesus Christ for our healing (Isaiah53:5; I Peter 2:24). However, we often forget that these promises are not unconditional; God is not bound, like some genie in a bottle, to fulfill them automatically once they are claimed. As a loving and caring Father, He would like to heal us every time, but sometimes it is better that He does not. Three overriding factors—His sovereignty, His love, and His purpose—take precedence, and He considers these when He contemplates our petitions for healing. The bottom line is that He will do for the sick child of God what is ultimately best for him or her (Romans8:28). Period. Sometimes, He decides that physical death is best. He made such a decision concerning His own Son (see Luke 22:41-44)! We can be thankful that God is not constrained by death; Jesus Christ put that enemy down (ICorinthians 15:50-55; Hebrews 2:14-15). Even so, our emotions and human points of view frequently do not agree that death is sometimes best. We feel our losses deeply. But faith must do its work here, too. We must believe that God's care of His children is absolutely lovingand that His promise of eternal life is sure—that death is only temporary rest before a vibrant and abundant life in His Kingdom. As mature Christians, we must come to understand healing more perfectly. We need to come to the conclusion Job does: "The LORD gave, and the LORDhas taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD. . . . Shall we indeed accept good from God, and shall we not accept adversity?" (Job1:21; 2:10). Jesus Himself echoes this attitude in Luke 22:42, "Father, if it is Your will, remove this cup from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done." Finally, God gives us hope, reminding us that death and sorrow are not the end of the matter: "Though He causes grief, yet He will show compassionaccording to the multitude of His mercies" (Lamentations3:32). - Richard T. Ritenbaugh