A thorny subject matter

Next week – on April the 24th – I will be celebrating another year of being cured from a terrible disease that I had as a baby.  I have a special blog in mind for that day, so stay tuned.  But for today, I thought I would bring up a thorny subject matter: the topic of healing.  More specifically, the idea that it is sometimes not God’s will to heal.  Once again, I annually celebrate God providentially healing me from a destructive malady all those decades ago.  But also keep in mind that in 2015 my father suffered from his own malady, and he was not healed from it (at least not in this dimension; he is healed in every way in Heaven).  Why does God choose to heal some people, but not others?  Many people have been perplexed by this.  Perhaps you are wrestling with this in your life journey today.

Got questions.org has a helpful and thought-provoking article on this.  We read, “Often, Christians have an over-simplified idea of healing.  They think that, if they are sick, they have only to ask God to heal them and, because God loves them, He will heal them straightaway.  Healing is seen as proof of a person’s faith and of God’s love.  This idea persists in some circles in spite of the truth that every mother knows: a parent does not give her child everything he asks for every time, no matter how much she loves him. 

Joni Eareckson Tada struggled with this issue for a long time.  As she recounts in her book Joni, she sought physical healing of her quadriplegia.  She prayed and fully believed that God would heal her.  In her words, “I certainly believed.  I was calling up my girlfriends saying, ‘Next time you see me I’m going to be running up your sidewalk. God’s going to heal me.’” (quoted in an interview with Marvin Olasky, www.worldmag.com/2013/01/joni_eareckson_tada_on_faith_healing_and_marriage, January 17, 2013).  Yet Joni is still in a wheelchair today.  Forty-five years after the accident that left her paralyzed, God has still not healed her.  Her perspective is one of great faith: “God may remove your suffering, and that will be great cause for praise.  But if not, He will use it, He will use anything and everything that stands in the way of His fellowship with you.  So let God mold you and make you, transform you from glory to glory.  That’s the deeper healing” (quoted on www.gty.org/resources/sermons/TM13-2/a-deeper-healing-joni-eareckson-tada, October 16, 2013).  Some feel that God will never heal anyone miraculously today.  Others feel that God will always heal a person if he or she has enough faith.  But God will not be put into either box.” (Source: https://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-everyone.html)

As I stated earlier, someone may be perplexed at the lack of healing in your life or the life of someone you love.  If that’s you, please understand that my heart hurts for you.  I’m not ignorant of the deep heartache, sorrow, and pain that can come in and disrupt a world.  Therefore, with compassion and love, let me conclude with where I have landed on this subject matter.  More and more I’m learning that God thinks thoughts that are infinitely higher than mine (see Isaiah 55:8-9).  There are things that I’m just not going to get until I go to Heaven one day.  Therefore, I defer to the Lord’s wisdom and understanding (Proverbs 3:5).  Charles Spurgeon once put it this way: “God is too good to be unkind and too wise to be mistaken.  And when we cannot trace His hand, we must trust His heart.” (https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/1403154-god-is-too-good-to-be-unkind-and-he-is)  

Kevin