What always kills me, is there are a bunch of healthy people on a thread like this, declaring healing, when they basically have never been unhealthy., They say something about following biblical principles, believing God, confessing sin or whatever.
But they have never been faced with a serious, painful disease that will kill them sooner or later. Then they declare to disabled people like me, that they have all the answers, pulled right out of context from the Bible. And the implication is always there, that if you had ate better, lived for God more, obeyed God, confessed your sin, etc, etc, you also would be well, like them.
Well, here is the bad news. My mom is 89, healthy as a horse, living on her own, doing well. She is not a Christian. Then there is me, disabled and in constant pain. I started reading the Bible daily a few weeks before God saved me, in 1980. I have obeyed God through some terrible times, and some great ones. My life is completely committed to God, and everything he says in Scripture.
I also have an aunt who is 95 and active. She is a Christian. She is blind from macular degeneration, which also has blinded her 3 other, younger sisters. Her daughter, a fervent Christian and nurse, got Stage 4 ovarian cancer, and will be lucky to live a few more years with constant chemo, as it has already metastized. my aunt is incredibly active. For years, she has helped pack food for the "poor seniors" as she puts it, who are 20-30 years younger than her.
So older people who are healthy and not Christian; a Christian who is blind through a genetic disorder, who is otherwise healthy. A vibrant woman who loves God with all her heart, mind, soul and strength, facing a death sentence from cancer. And me, who has been sick for 22 years with a debilitating disease, who is happy, loves God, very active in church in the ways I am able, a pastor, now looking to help the hurting and broken, through education, and more important, the leading of the Holy Spirit.
Apply your simplistic, out of context, bad hermeneutics false doctrine, and no one should be what they are. The Christians should be healed, the nonChristians should be sick. And yet, too many won't listen.
If God heals you, that is wonderful! My hope is that someday God will heal me in this life. But if he does not, and waits for eternity, I will praise him, one way or another. The Christian walk is a complicated and difficult journey for all of us. God chooses not to tie a bunch of gifts up for us, and then walk away, because every we have it all. Instead, he encourages us to walk with him through the storm, and trust him. When I was in seminary, God gave me these 2 verses, which I meditated on for 2 years, every morning for 1/2 hour. God taught me more about who he is, and he taught me to trust him, and not myself.
"Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and lean not to your own understanding,
Acknowledge him in all your ways, and he will direct your paths." Prov. 3:5-6
This helps me persevere, and rejoice, knowing that I can trust God! It also helps that I know the Bible so well, and God speaks to me through it every day. He had hermeneutics as a subject in my MDiv, and I learned how to correctly divide the Word, and to speak the truth in love, that Word Faith is a lie from the devil.
Again, Word Faith is a heresy, coming out of bad doctrine. We do not receive all the gifts and our lives are perfect because we are born again. Instead, we are living in a fallen world, and learning and growing, and being transformed by the Holy Spirit. Some day, we will be glorified, and then, we will be perfect. I am happy now, with the amazing way Jesus is teaching and leading me. I look forward with intense anticipation for when I meet Jesus face to face, when he returns. Can you say the same?
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