A question for your Lenten consideration:  Do you believe God is still in the healing business?  Give it some serious thought before you reply. 

I’ve been giving this some consideration lately. I’m primarily prompted by the many people who are hurting physically. I’m grateful for the prayer ministry at my church, St. Paul United Methodist, and the fact that I belong to a “praying” church.  The daily E-mail prayer concerns I read and lift up are a testament to the ailments and treatments being endured by our dear brothers and sisters.

Forgive me if I raise more questions than answer or if I do a little public soul searching while sharing some observations. 

Your friend is seriously ill. Cancer let’s say.  The big C.  How do you pray for that person? Do you pray for their comfort? Their strength? Do you pray God will minister to them and their family? Do you pray God’s will be done?

Or are you so bold as to pray to God for their physical healing; that the Great Physician will extend His healing hand to mend their infirmity.  And if not, why not?  Is God not still in the healing business? Do miracles not exist these thousands of years removed from the great stories of the Old Testament and the various reports of physical healing throughout the New Testament.

Let’s take it a step further.

Two gravely ill children. Two different towns. In both instances, the friends and families and churches get on their knees and pray earnestly and repeatedly for the healing of their dear youngster.

Though the response is the same, the outcome differs. One child is miraculously healed.  The other dies.  If you can explain it, you’ve more understanding than I.  God’s will some will say. An explanation perhaps, but try telling that to the parents of the child who didn’t survive.

God needed an “angel” and that child was the one.  Really? 

My foundation of comfort in such instances is simple:  Be still and know that I am God.  Would that provide the same comfort or explanation if it were my child?  I’d like to tell you it would.  I hope that it would. But I can’t say for certain.  God knows better than me what’s best for his children.

Will I still pray for someone’s physical healing?  You better believe it.  To not be so bold, to my way of thinking, would be holding back on the person who’s hurting and more importantly holding back on God.  As if He doesn’t already know that my deepest desire is for someone’s healing.  Still, I believe He wants to hear it from me.

Tears, fist shaking, despair.  Whatever you’re feeling, God can handle it.

I’m reminded of the scene in the movie “The Apostle”.  Robert Duval’s character is praying to God.  Make that PRAYING to God.  He’s fist pumping and yelling and angry with God. He’s at his mother’s house and it’s in the wee hours of the morning when this apostle is carrying on like that.  His mother gets a call from a neighbor who wants to know what’s with all the comotion.

Mother tells the neighbor, “That’s just Sonny praying.  Sometimes he talks to God, and other times he yells at Him.  I’m afraid he’s yelling tonight”. 

Let us be more like the woman in the Gospels who needs a healing touch from Jesus.  Or rather, she knows she needs only touch Jesus’s cloak and she will be healed from her infirmity.

She fights through a crowd to touch his garmet!  And she’s beyond confident that that touch alone will bring the healing that has somehow never taken place during her years and years of suffering.  It worked. Her touch of the Great Physician was more than enough. 

The Lord felt the power go out from Him and asked who was responsible.  The lowly woman confessed the touch and testified to her extreme faith.  Jesus told her, “Go and peace and be freed from your suffering”.  The Greek for “healed” actually means “saved”.

In this instance, both physical healing (be freed from your suffering) and spiritual salvation (go in peace) are meant.  Do you believe God is still in the healing business?  I do. And I’ll continue to ask God to heal those who are hurting, both physically and spiritually.

Praise the Lord O my soul, and forget not all his benefits.  who forgives all your sin, and heals all your diseases. 

Psalm 103:2-3

-Steve Fandel

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