Does God Want Me Well?
BY RUSSELL M. ELDER
James 5:13-15
Several years ago I heard a well-known radio evangelist open his broadcast by saying, ìIt is Godís will that everyone be healed.î I couldnít help admiring his confidence; he spoke of Godís will for everyone with greater certainty than most of us can speak of Godís will for ourselves. There was only one thing wrong with that statement. It wasnít true.The spread of this erroneous doctrine in recent decades has been phenomenal. Although for centuries God has been calling people to spiritual wholeness, relatively few have been willing to come. But now when the call is to physical health, multitudes respond with great enthusiasm. After all, who wants to be sick?
Itís a fact that most people are more concerned about the health of their bodies than that of their souls. Listen to the requests in the typical prayer meeting and youíll hear it loud and clear. They request prayer for their heart conditions, their kidney problems, and all kinds of other ailments. But very few ever ask for healing for their worldly attitudes, their unforgiving spirits, or their sinful pride.
It is partly because of our preoccupation with physical health that we are willing to believe the half-truths promoted by those who promise healing for all people under all conditions. And we are thus more likely to become the hapless victims of those who offer healing for money.
On this subject, E. Stanley Jones made the astute observation below in a daily devotional guide entitled Mastery:
The Christian movement has a message for the body. The body is included in Christian redemption. But it is not the central emphasis. Christianity is not a healing cult. Its main business is not keeping the body in repair. Those who make Christianity a healing cult make God serve them, and they and their physical needs are at the center. They try to organize the universe about them at the center instead of God at the center, and that wonít work. So the healing cults leave a lot of shattered faith and spiritual disaster in their wake that greatly overbalances the healing results.Looking at It Logically
Letís get back to the quotation with which I introduced this subject: ìIt is Godís will that everyone be healed.î If we run it out to its logical conclusion it becomes: It is Godís will that every sick person be healed every time that person asks for it. If that were so, the end result would be perpetual life on earth for everyone. Such a conclusion obviously cannot be defended.A good many years ago I read about an evangelist that promised its followers exemption from physical death. For some time, he did attract a large and growing following. But one day, the movement came to a screeching halt. The evangelist himself got sick and died, proving to his followers that what he had been teaching was wrong, dead wrong.
If we reject the premise that God heals everybody, must we accept the logical opposite that He heals nobody? Not really because all healing is from God. Concerning supernatural healing, though, I believe we should not be too dogmatic.
While the Bible does not teach that the body is all-important, neither does it teach that it is not important. When Jesus was on earth, He demonstrated His concern for the whole personóbody and spirit. He fed men spiritually by giving them living bread from heaven, but He also fed them bodily with loaves and fishes. He healed their spirits by casting out demons and forgiving their sins, but He also healed their bodies of all manner of sickness and disease.
True, God no longer brings a dead person back to physical life, as He did with Lazarus. Nor does He make anyone who was born a cripple physically whole. But God does healósometimes instantly, sometimes gradually; sometimes in answer to prayer alone, sometimes through the use of doctors, medicine and technologies.
Some Studies in Contrast
A few years ago, I learned of a foreign missionary who was visiting a remote village. He was asked by a newly converted Christian whether all things are indeed possible with God. When he replied affirmatively, she said, ìWell, my little boy has recently lost his sight, please ask God to heal him.î That request pushed this missionaryís rather traditional faith to the limits, but in response to the womanís request, he prayed for the child. It was such a perfunctory prayer, however, that he soon forgot it.Several months later, he returned to the village, and upon seeing the mother again, he asked, ìHowís your little son?î ì0, donít you remember,î she beamed, ìyou prayed for Jesus to heal him and heís out on the hillside playing with the other children.î
believe that story to be true because I know the source too well to doubt it. But I know of another blind child, this one in America, for whose healing many people prayed long and ardently. She was never healed. Yet God gave her such spiritual vision that she blessed the world with hundreds of hymns. Her name, of course, was Fanny Crosby.
Recently l read of a child who lost an arm in an accident. He was rushed to a well-equipped hospital where a team of specialists worked many hours to restore it, uniting bones, muscles, tendons, and blood vessels. The result was a medical miracle; the arm was saved as well as its usefulness. But we all know of other cases in which the severed limb was not restored and the victim had to face life with a major handicap.
What About Paul?
If you study the life of Paul you will see a number of instances in which God used him as an instrument of healing. Among the healed were an impotent man at Lystra who was a cripple from his motherís womb, a demon-possessed girl at Philippi, and a young man at Ephesus who had fallen to his death from an upstairs window. At one point handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched the apostle were taken to the sick and their illnesses were cured.But Paul didnít keep that power. To Timothy, his beloved ìson in the gospelî who was suffering from a stomach ailment, he had to recommend the medicinal use of wine (I Tim. 5:23). He couldnít just send him a handkerchief and make him well. The same was true with Trophimus. Paul wrote in II Timothy 4:20 ìTrophimus I have left in Miletus sick.î Paul could no longer heal him and bring him along.
And what about Paul himself? He suffered from some unidentified malady that he described as a ìthorn in the fleshî. There is much discussion about the exact nature of the infirmity, but whatever it was, Paul pleaded with God on three separate occasions to deliver him from it. And three times God said in effect, ìNo, Paul, Iím not going to remove your affliction, but Iím going to make you a better man because of it. My grace is sufficient for you.î
In my own ministry I have witnessed miraculous healing by the power of God a middle-aged woman facing surgery for a large tumor, a teen-age boy given up to die after being run over by a tractor, and a young comatose mother expected to die before morning. In each instance, the attending physician conceded that the recovery was attributable to a power beyond the reach of medical science.
But in all honesty, I would have to cite other situations in which healing did not occur: a useful minister injured in an automobile accident, a devoted mother suffering from cancer, a much-needed father taken from his family. Though earnest prayer was made in their behalf, they died.
Fitting the Pieces Together
I have to remind myself repeatedly that I canít see life in its totality. Sometimes what I can see makes no sense at all. But God who is both all wise and infinitely loving sees the whole picture from the perspective of eternity. And He never makes a mistake.Are we then to pray for physical health and, when necessary, for physical healing? Of course we are. James 5:13 says, ìIs anyone among you suffering? Let him pray.î But we should not pray as though it were a matter of ultimate importance. God is more concerned with our spiritual health. Note what James says in verses 14 and 15:
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the sick, and the lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.God may choose to deliver us from our affliction by healing the body, or He may choose to lift us above the affliction by making us strong enough to bear it. What really matters is how we use the problem or the pain to our spiritual good and to glorify God.For believers to glorify God, there are three positive reactions to suffering. We may tolerate it. We canít change the situation, but we refuse to let it get us down. We may transcend it, that is, rise above it. We may have to pass through the furnace of affliction, but by the grace of God we come through the fire without so much as the smell of smoke. Or, best of all, we may transform it. We make it work for us so that with the strength of God we become victorious.
Spiritual pearls. Because of the unusual way in which it is formed, someone has defined a pearl as ìa thing of beauty wrapped around troubleî. That gives added significance to Johnís vision of the New Jerusalem with its gates of pearl. The gates themselves are symbols of suffering.
In I Peter 4:19 the apostle says, ìTherefore let those who suffer according to the will of God commit their souls to Him in doing good, as to a faithful Creator.î Honest exegesis requires that I point out that the suffering alluded to in that verse is caused by persecution. But to confine it to persecution alone is to miss a beautiful point, for the difference is only a matter of origin. Some of our suffering originates outside the body, and some originates within. But God is concerned with it all.
It may be that you suffer ìaccording to the will of Godî. He may not see fit to deliver you from your affliction, but He will deliver you from your crippling attitude toward it.
In the field of physical rehabilitation, a careful distinction is made between an impairment and a disability. An impairment is a matter of objective reality; a disability is determined largely by oneís own state of mind. I once knew a young man who was disabled by the loss of a finger and a severe emotional reaction to it, and another who referred to the loss of both legs above the knee merely as ìan inconvenienceî. You may not be able to control what happens to you, but with Godís help you can control your reaction to it.
Does God want me well? Indeed He does, but He wants me totally and eternally well. And to accomplish this, He may allow me to pass through the refining fires of affliction. But as God reminds us in Romans 8:18, that affliction, fierce though it may seem at the time, is ìnot worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us.î So, in sickness or in health, let us present our bodies a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God. o
Rev. Russell M. Elder is pastor of the Edgewood Free Methodist Church, 250 Edgewood Avenue, Rochester, NY 14618.