Thoughts On Divine Healing

This is dedicated in part to my dear friend and brother in Christ, Joe Meyers who, along with many of us, has found himself struggling with the subject of Divine healing in light of those who are prayed for yet don't recover from their sicknesses.

I offer three thoughts.

1.  My brother, Dwight, passed away at the age of 34 with complications associated with diabetes.  We had prayed diligently for his healing.  He too had sought God and felt that he had received confirmation of healing through a dream he had.  Yet he died.

I can't tell you the agonizing hours I spent pryer to his death seeking God for answers as Dwight continued to slip away.

I was the only one present the morning of his passing and as I walked down the hall of the hospital to call my family I remember saying, "God, I don't understand but your word says you do all things well and I trust you."

Immediately peace filled my soul.  I still had no understanding but it didn't matter.

Years later I came to rest on the knowledge that God had indeed healed my brother in the most perfect healing possible.  Which leads me to my second thought, one that I would urge you, my brother Joe and others who struggle, to study and consider.

2.  Hebrews 2:6 - 9:

But someone has testified somewhere, "What are human beings that you are mindful of them, or mortals, that you care for them? You have made them for a little while lower than the angels; you have crowned them with glory and honor, subjecting all things under their feet." Now in subjecting all things to them, God left nothing outside their control. As it is, we do not yet see everything in subjection to them, but we do see Jesus, who for a little while was made lower than the angels, now crowned with glory and honor because of the suffering of death, so that by the grace of God he might taste death for everyone.
(Heb 2:6-9 NRSV)


We are still living in a world that is subject to death and the grave.  We have the assurance that one day that will all be changed but not yet.


Consider the reality that even Lazarus one day did die.  The widow's son that Christ raised from the dead did pass on.

 We don't live in a perfect world.  We live with the assurance that one day there will be a "new heaven and a new earth wherein dwells righteousness."  That day is not now.  It is yet to come.

My mentor, C. K. Barnes pointed out an interesting passage that I think relates to all this.  It is found in Romans 8.

 I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us. For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the children of God; for the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God.
(Rom 8:18-21 NRSV)


There is a revelation yet to come that will bring the ultimate deliverance for not only the human race but for all creation.  We must be patient and look for that day.
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3.  Miracles are meant to be a sign not a destination.  They are meant to point us to greater truths and, ultimately, God.  We must be careful that we don't camp around them or else we will miss the point they are pointing to.

Thank God for every miracle, every body that is healed, every sickness that is overcome by God's power. And I never fail to ask for the miracle on every occasion.  What rejoicing there is for every time death and sickness are abrogated.

For what reason?  Testimony for sure.  Proof of God's power?  No doubt.  Encouragement?  Absolutely!

I think one of the things that frustrates us in all this is that we don't have all the answers.  We don't see what our Father sees and we would like to.  One day answers will be forth-coming just not today.  We must lean upon Him and trust His wisdom and be like Job who declared:  "Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him."

We now see through a glass darkly.  Our vision is still a bit blurry shadowed by our limited knowledge of the eternal.  One day this mortal shall (Paul says, "Must") put on immortality and this corruptible will put on incorruption.  We long for that day and we rest in the knowledge that just as Christ was raised from the dead we too shall be raised to "newness of life."  My God hasten that day.