The Super Natural
Last week I had a conversation with a couple friends of mine about prayer and whether or not we could change God's mind/will by how we pray. It was a great conversation and it once again left me asking questions about God and the Holy Spirit's power for physical healing. Can we heal people? Is it our faith or the faith of the person asking for prayer? Do we have any say in the timing of when healing occurs or is it simply us responding to God's invitation/timing?
The next day I went to the UPS outlet and picked up a book I had ordered 2 months ago entitled "Healing Is A Choice". I immediately went home and started reading the preface (but I never got past the 3rd page!) and was struck by a simple observation made by the author. He was introducing the book by asking the question "Does God want to heal us?". A good question if you are going to write a book about healing! He started talking about God's ultimate timing and stuff like that but then he stated something I thought was very profound. What did he say?
He said we know God's desire is to heal us because our bodies heal themselves every day!
It's true!! If I get a cut on my finger there is a 99% chance that the cut will heal all by itself. When I get a virus my body kicks into high gear and begins to ward of the disease. Why? Because God created my body to do that! I'm created in His image. I was created to heal because it's the nature of God to heal things!
I sat back in my chair and thought to myself "why haven't I ever thought of that!". Why hasn't anyone ever pointed that out to me? God takes such a beating from the world who says He doesn't care or hear or do anything about our suffering and yet everyday we experience His immeasurable grace and power working in the tips of our fingers (and through the snot from our noses!). He IS a healing God! I have simply chosen to attribute it to the natural things instead of the supernatural creator of those things.
Does it answer all of my questions about healing? No! But it has been a great reminder that the God I serve and love has seen fit to take care of me on a moment-by-moment basis through a simple thing like my physical body!
posted by Jon Loeppky at
7:54 PM
4 Comments:
Interesting thoughts, I may have read that book myself. (can't quite remember)
I have a hard time with the faith of healing. Whether you believe it is the person you are praying for, or the person doing the praying. I often think writers tend to over simply in their statements that God is love and healing, so his desire is to heal all the time. In the long run, yes we are healed in heaven. The short run has less to do with faith than life, I think.
We do live in a fallen world, that is the way it is. Sickness and disease are a by product of that world.
Read Joni's book "When God Weeps" and "Affliction" by Edith Schaeffer to get the other side or another understanding of healing. Well worth it.
You tend to learn it's the journey through the affliction that is your spiritual life than the outcome of you healing through faith.
1:15 PM CDT
I once had tea with Pastor Scobbie, we were talking about how Christ is our friend, father, love, etc.
He looked at me and said with a twinkle in his eye and a Scottish roll, "He is also an all consuming fire..."
1:22 PM CDT
Thanks for your comments Jer!
I think when it comes to God's power, and the ways he uses it, we tend to expect the out-of-this-world kind of stuff (raising the dead, etc) as proof that He loves and heals. My point is this, does love and healing have to be monumental for it to be real? If my body recovers from the stomach flu - a body which was designed by God - is that not a display of His power? I would say yes!
I believe the problem for many comes when we equate miraculous healing with love. God says he disciplines those he loves!
Discipline (and suffering) draw us into conflict with God, and conflict (occording to most business and marriage resources) is the doorway into intimacy. If we can't work our conflict with God about what he does, and does not do, we will find it very hard to get to a point of intimacy with him.
Suffering and disappointment have done that for me. They have driven me deep into his presence and I would not change that for the world!
2:12 PM CDT
Yeah I hear you, and I like your point in the first and last paragraph. "Does love and healing have to be monumental for it to be real?" No - your example is nice. God's design is truly fantastic! and the way the body heals itself points to a great Designer. If we think of that - wow!
Big problem when we equate miraculous healing with love, or faith. (I added the later)
And suffering and disappointment driving one (certainly myself included) to a deeper intimacy with God is so true. And wonderful when you really think about it. So why do we always want the easy way out? Why do we want the miracles? Signs and wonders?
How about this? God is so much God that it’s as if He says, "so you want to sin? Go ahead-but I’ll make sure you sin in a way that ultimately furthers my ends even while you’re shaking your first in my face." Think about that. Even when we think everything is going wrong, prayers aren't answered, people are not healed, evil seems to run amok, God makes it work for His grace and benefit. Wow!
Proverbs 16:4 The LORD works out everything for his own ends, even the wicked for a day of disaster.
Joni writes some wonderful words that sink deep into my heart. It really makes me think, "why do we always want that monumental ______? Healing, miracle?
“The core of His plan is to rescue us from our sin. Our pain, poverty, and broken hearts are not His ultimate focus. He cares about them, but they are merely symptoms of the real problem. God cares most—not about making us comfortable—but about teaching us to hate our sins, grow up spiritually, and love him. To do this, he gives us salvation’s benefits only gradually, sometimes painfully gradually. In other words, he lets us continue to feel much of sin’s sting while we’re headed for heaven. This constantly reminds us of what we’re being delivered from, exposing sin for the poison it is. Thus evil (suffering) is turned on its head to defeat evil (sin)—all to the praise of God’s wisdom.” Joni p56
Man, that gets me every time. Our suffering defeating evil, the devil, as much as miraculous events.
“Your own scars, your anguish, all those times you felt rejection and pain, have given you at least a tiny taste of what the Savior endured to purchase your redemption. Your suffering, like nothing else, has prepared you to meet God—for what proof could you have brought of your love if this life left you totally unscarred?” Joni
12:24 AM CDT
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