Photo by Milada Vigerova on Unsplash

Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass. Psalm37:5 NKJV

For the last several years I have had an annoying health issue. One of those things that just drag on annoyingly, chipping away at you like being water-boarded. I prayed about it, I asked others to pray about it, but in the end I didn’t get the miraculous healing I desired so much. I believe you are left wondering three things. Does God do miracles? Will God do miracles for everyone but me? Did I not have enough faith to manifest the healing?

Everyone has seen it, but not everyone would believe it. We see on television an evangelist going to a foreign country and laying hands on a blind or deaf or crippled person and all of a sudden they are jumping around and praising God! Why does this only seem to happen in foreign countries? OR Do these healings exist here, but aren’t widely accepted?

Have I done something that is not pleasing to God? Has He turned his back on me? Is my situation too small for Him to be concerned with? Am I bothering Him? It is so easy to rationalize the number of reasons why God would not respond in a timeline that is appropriate for me personally. Is this a rational way to think?

I am a self confessed “Bible Geek.” Any wisdom I have comes from the bible, and through studying the bible, I believe I know God intimately and personally. As I read the stories of Jesus and His healing ministry, I see such stories as the woman with the issue of blood (a story in three of four gospels) who “took” her healing as an act of faith in who Jesus was. In fact, after she was healed Jesus said to her faith had made her well. Or the centurion in Matthew 8 who told Jesus that He only needed to speak the words for his servant to be healed. The bible is laced with people who got their desired result because of their personal faith. Why doesn’t that work for everyone?

These are the questions that I ask myself, as much as my human brain can understand. The question of who, what, when, where and why? It is easy to question God about the things our human mind can’t wrap around and it is also easy to take on shame and guilt, thinking about how little faith we have or that because of some sin God is far away from us and our requests are falling on deaf ears.

I can’t claim to understand God’s ways, there is no way my selfish human flesh would be able to make a decision completely independent of what my fleshy bits would like to see. In my opinion, I study the word, run a church group, try to be like Jesus so why does the request fall on deaf ears?

I believe my thinking on this matter is flawed. I have come to believe that even though my faith didn’t make me well, my faith had me believe that God would work it out for my good in the end. Which isn’t always the easiest way, and Lord knows humans would always pick the easiest way! I wanted spontaneous healing and maybe God was like “Well, I gave these other people a gift to be a surgeon, maybe I will let them take care of this and through this interaction someone may see Jesus and I might be glorified.”

In the end is the result not the same? I asked for healing, I got healing. I don’t get to demand how its done. Prayerfully, my issue is gone. I had faith enough to believe it would work out, so maybe in the end, it really was my faith that made me well.