healing

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But will God heal?  Specifically, will God heal you or your loved one?  Ultimately, we don’t know what God is going to do. He’s in control. That’s the crux of the issue. We have to let go and trust Him. We have to give it to God.

That is the hardest part. Because deep down inside, we know that He may not heal. And if He doesn’t heal, that causes us to face an even more important question: Is God good?

If God chooses not to heal, doesn’t that mean He’s not good? Why would God decide not to heal someone?

Ann Voskamp’s little toddler sister was hit by a truck and killed right in front of the view of her mother, who was washing dishes at the kitchen sink and looking out the window. She was running across the road after a cat. Ann raises this question about God’s goodness in her book, One Thousand Gifts:

“Can there be a good God? A God who graces with good gifts when a crib lies empty through long nights, and bugs burrow through coffins? Where is God really? How can He be good when babies die, and marriages implode, and dreams blow away, dust in the wind?” (p. 12)

“That which seems evil only seems so because of perspective…But what perspective sees good in dead farm boys, good in a little girl crushed under tires of a truck right in front of her mother’s eyes, good in a brother-in-law who buries his first two sons in the space of nineteen months-and all the heinous crimes and all the weeping agony and all the scalding burn of this world?” (pp.88-89)

Ann’s conclusion after much thought, study, and prayer is this: “Out of the darkness of the cross, the world transfigures into new life. And there is no other way…It is suffering that has the realest possibility to bear down and deliver grace. And grace that chooses to bear the cross of suffering overcomes that suffering.” (p. 97)

In suffering, in sickness, in injury, in need, we are taught about God’s grace. The cross, the suffering, transfigures us into the likeness of Jesus.

That doesn’t mean for a moment that I believe we’re supposed to give up and accept whatever is happening. We need to take authority over satan and continue to pray, pushing through all fear and doubt, pushing through the crowds and all obstacles, whatever is in our way, to be able to touch the hem of Jesus’ garment – to cry out like Jairus did, falling at His feet, “Please come and lay Your hands on my daughter, so she will get well and live.” (Mark 5:23, NASB)

In my book Walking With God, my former pastor Lawrence Wilson said that it is God’s decision whether He will heal someone. But it is our job and our responsibility to believe in faith and to continue to pray for healing – until the very end. As we’re praying, we’re also giving the final outcome to God – whatever He chooses. To trust Him. To know that no matter, He is still good and He loves us with an everlasting love. He will use all things for His glory.

“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been blind from birth.“Rabbi,” his disciples asked him, “why was this man born blind? Was it because of his own sins or his parents’ sins?” “It was not because of his sins or his parents’ sins,” Jesus answered. “This happened so the power of God could be seen in him. We must quickly carry out the tasks assigned us by the one who sent us.” (John 9:1-4, NLT)

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Did you enjoy this article? You can learn more about prayer and healing through Beth’s ebook, Walking With God, at http://www.bethjones.net/my-products/walking-with-god-ebook-now-available/ and through her 7-audios, quiet time series at http://www.bethjones.net/my-products/quiet-time-audio-set/.

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Every ounce of my soul responds with a resounding, “YES!” to that. I have personally witnessed God’s miraculous healing in my life, my family’s life, and many others:

* God healed me emotionally from severe depression and panic attacks, the result of childhood sexual and physical abuse.
* God healed my father when he had a brain aneurysm and a stroke in his 30′s
* God miraculously healed my daughter Heather from a brain injury followed by brain surgery – she’s perfectly fine today
* God miraculously healed me of an eye infection that an eye doctor said was the worst he’d ever seen and could cause blindness
* God healed my husband of a huge kidney stone that doctors thought would require surgery to remove
* God miraculously healed our daughter Leah of seizures, minor leaks in her heart, and a defective aorta – she’s been seizure free 3 years and no longer has to see a cardiologist or neurologist
* God miraculously healed my friend Reena’s daughter Marcy when she was in a terrible car wreck and doctors all thought she would die

I could tell you testimony after testimony like this. Some of you may be wondering about your own child or loved one. Can God heal him or her? Will He?

That is a question which has filled hundreds of volumes of books and has been debated by people, especially theologians, for centuries. I believe with all my heart that God can heal – through miracles like Jesus performed, through a change in diet and exercise, through medicine, through surgery, through counseling, through rehab, through laughter, through a number of other ways.

God also chooses sometimes not to heal, such as in the case with my friend Anita Gail in my book on prayer, Walking With God. Anita Gail was believing with strong faith for her healing of uterine cancer, along with many other people – and yet God took her home to be with Him in heaven.

We all asked, “Why?” We don’t understand these things. Anita Gail had finally given her life over to Christ, after a traumatic childhood where her mother horribly verbally abused her, she had gone through a series of unhealthy relationships with men, and she had become addicted to meth and cocaine. After Anita Gail got saved, she met the man she loved – a great man of God, a Mennonite farmer in Wisconsin named Kenny. She’d been praying for years with tears streaming down her face to find a godly husband and to get married – someone who would look beyond her nearly 300 pounds and just love her for who she was. God gave her the desires of her heart through Kenny.

They were very happy. She wrote me letters, pouring out her gratitude for God’s goodness. Then she died!  It doesn’t seem right or fair. Why would God snatch away hers -  and Kenny’s – happiness? Or so it seems. The Bible says God’s ways and thoughts are not like ours; they are higher. (Isaiah 55:9)  We may not understand when we or someone we love is sick or injured. We cry out, “Why?”

We pray, we doubt, we beg, we fast, we plead, we try to bribe God, we even get angry at God and shake our fists at Him. Sometimes there’s silence in response. Sometimes God speaks His peace to our troubled hearts in the midst of the storm.

Sometimes He helps us to find joy in the midst of the darkness, like the morning after Leah had another seizure in the middle of the night and I walked around outside, crying. The sun was shining, the sky was a beautiful blue with cotton-white clouds, and birds sang their praises to God. I felt His sweet presence, His Love for me and Leah. In the midst of my anguished, despairing heart and relentless tears, I felt a moment of assurance and joy that no matter what, He was with me and He felt my pain. She would be healed, He told me. And she is healed today by the stripes of Jesus! I give Jesus Christ all the glory for her healing. “Weeping endures for the night, but joy comes in the morning.”

God can and does heal – yes, today. The Bible proves that through Jesus’ miracles, as well as our own lives. The woman who was bleeding for 18 years who had gone to so many doctors. The blind man who cried out, “Son of God, have mercy on me!” The man who was lame, who couldn’t get to the stirring of the waters at the pool of Bethesda.

These people were healed, and multitudes more because of Jesus’ compassion and love. God wants to heal people. Jesus went around healing people, not giving them sickness. Jesus came to set the captives free.(Isaiah 61: 1-4)

Some people say you have to have faith to be healed and rebuke others who “just don’t have enough faith.” But the man whose son had epilepsy said to Jesus, “I believe; help my unbelief!” (Mark 9: 24) Even if your faith is small, you can move mountains with it and God can still do His great deeds for His glory! (Matthew 17:20)

Yes, dear friend, God can and does heal.  There are just too many miraculous testimonies to believe otherwise. 

But will God heal?  Specifically, will God heal you or your loved one? 

From Kimberly – Oh, haven’t we all asked those same questions?  It all comes down to really wanting to know those 2 things doesn’t it?  Join us tomorrow as Beth dives into these 2 huge questions. 
In the meantime, you can visit Beth at www.bethjones.net.  Make sure to sign up for her ezine!

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