When Jesus had called the Twelve together, he gave them power and authority to drive out all demons and to cure diseases, and he sent them out to preach the kingdom of God and to heal the sick.
Luke 9:1-2
We know God can heal everything and anything, I've seen it many times, after all He created the universe, but when does God choose not to heal?
If someone brought an injury upon themself, for example, if they broke their hand or foot or anything else for that matter, would God allow it to be healed miraculously?
Someone else I know that has the gift of healing said to me the other day, that sometimes Satan can throw a spanner into the works too with the gift of healing - so I was after a few thoughts on this.
So can I get some readers thoughts. What are a few times and examples of when God has healed someone or hasn't healed someone and what wisdom or insight have you had?
13 comments:
Why does God only seem to heal some afflictions (mostly minor ones) whilst not healing others? For example, people with deformed limbs and those with severe cerebral palsy. Surely there must be millions of cases of these, and no doubt doubt millions of prayers asking for healing. Yet I can't find any evidence of people such as this being healed. Why do you think that is?
Where does your information come from? We have covered this previously, but for you quickly, I/we know of examples of deformed limbs and cerebral palsy that have been healed, but that's not what I'm after in this blog..
You asked "when does God choose not to heal", and I am saying that He apparently doesn't in the cases of those with deformed limbs and cerebral palsy. If He did, it would be pretty easy to prove wouldn't it? A before and after photo for the deformed limb would be a good start in that regard.
Perhaps Simon wants you to be excited and motivated by the idea that God can heal. So, the approach to take is not to concentrate too much on supporting evidence - intellecutal activity can dampen the emotional excitement and make you lose focus on the sentiment.
Simon, when skeptics look at claims of faith healing closely, when they take the hard-nosed, scientific investigative approach, they find the alleged healing fades away with everyday explanations like "temporary relief", "placebo effect", "wrong diagnosis to start with".
It really is very difficult to find real cases of real healing of serious illness.
There are so many associations of fakery, magician style tricks and sleight-of-hand with faith healing (not just in the Christian world), that the onus really is on you, Simon, to produce hard evidence. If you put you mind into serious detective mode, you'll be surprised at what you don't find.
You've brushed off the hard cases like deformed limbs, cerabal palsy mentioned by Jack. In fact, I think your reply looks rather flippant. There really is no evidence for this type of healing from God.
By the way, who heals? Is it God as say at the start of your post, or it those people "with the gift of healing"?
The main point, in all this, is why do you not deem hard evidence to be important? It really does seem that you prefer a sentimental approach that pretty much exludes intellectual enquiry. Why so?
To answer your question Sime - I think when we look at the Gospels, and the miracle healings that occurred, they always always had a greater purpose than just the "awe and wonder" of the healing. They always taught a lesson. Someone incredibly dear to me died of cancer at the tender age of 7. She was taken too soon by human standards. It was horrible, and hard to trust in God through it all, particularly when we prayed and prayed for healing. But sometimes, healing doesn't come through the physical, but through the spiritual - her healing was divine. She was taken to be with her Loving Father. And though in my human mind, I can't understand it, I trust that God has a bigger plan.
Flip side is - I witnessed healings with my own eyes a few weeks ago. They were phenomenal. And they served a purpose, greater than just the physical healing shown.
The miracle isn't always in the healing I think, sometimes it is in what happens next.
Just a thought?!
Thanks Sarah,
That's more the answer I was searching for, that's what I've found in my experiences too!
In reference to the other comments, I'm not here trying to prove God's healing to you, this is not the blog or forum today. As you know, I/we have seen it, experienced it; if you see what we see, proof is not needed - witnessing is enough - its very different to a magic show, if you ever experience it for yourselves, you'll understand, but all I'll say for now, is search for God, all these details will be insignificant in proportion to Him.
You work is a scientific field don't you Simon? Surely investigation and evidence is a crucial part of that, yet when it comes to supposed divine healing you reject these - how can you justify this?
When God hasnt healed someone.. When they dont believe God can heal, if they dont have faith maybe? just a thought =P
Can science prove God? Can man explain all scientific things even today? In many cases, things still remain unexplained - true?
In many of the things I've seen & experienced, I'm not sure they can be explained, even scientifically, call me a bad sceintist, but even for the great scientists, they will still only have 'therories' on such things you want proof for. :)
I haven't yet had a good read of this blog, so I'm not 100% sure where you're coming from. The one thing I wanted to say was - always be careful of talking about a person's failings causing a lack of healing. Please. Even if you're not meaning, "if you're not physically healed, it's your fault". It can easily come across that way to people who are hurting.
My experience? I've seen healings, I've experienced healings. And I've experienced distinct NON-healings. Miscarriages, in particular. My first... I prayed that God would heal me, heal the embryo inside me. And he said - no. No explanation, just no. I felt his presence throughout the entire ordeal, I knew he was suffering with me - but he didn't heal me, he didn't fix the problem. I don't know why. I don't know why he doesn't fix many problems which cause so much pain and are clearly within his capacity to fix. But while I don't understand why, I know that a God with an infinite brain might just see and understand things that escape this comparatively small-brained critter. And I trust that he continues to have my, and everyone's, best interests in mind.
We're slightly getting off my initial track, but I want to rule out faith, or lack of. I've had a few experiences where God has said no where there was plenty of faith - only time will explain why, we are not omniscient, we should trust God with that.
I'm not sure if this is getting anywhere - this was for a specific group of readers I suppose.
Thanks for your input though guys.
Simon,
My experience with healing is varied. I would not say that I have the gift of healing as such, but have experienced the power of God's beautiful healing in my own life - not always from physical ailments, but more emotional, spiritual, relationship and intellectual healing. In my journey, my experience of finding cancer in my body at a very early stage brought healing in the physical and saved me from incredible uncertainty of full blown melanoma, but also taught me a huge amount about trusting in the Lord. This, in turn brought about spiritual healing as I began to see a little better just how God works. Earlier in my life, I had the experience of a falling out with someone I was close to. This caused huge anxiety and worry and feelings of failure. After much prayer though, I was able to offer forgiveness to this person and ask for their forgiveness for my part (despite it not really being my fault) which in turn brought amazing healing upon myself and taught me a little more about the selfless forgiveness offered to me by Christ when He died for me and I didn't deserve it. I was healed from all the guilt associated with that relationship breakdown and free from the burden of carrying around those useless feelings that wear you out.
With regard to healing an injury that has been brought upon oneself, instead of focusing on the physical, consider the deeper issues that perhaps lead to the injury being caused...healing in the relational, emotional, spiritual, intellectual can result from your prayerful efforts that lead to greater control of self which in turn leads to prevention of these feelings and actions that lead to these injuries being brought upon themself. Maybe doctors are required for physical healing in this circumstance...but maybe your efforts will heal in these other areas - this is still healing, but in a different realm. A testimony of the difference in behaviour by those close to this person may be the only evidence you will get in this case.... bless ya.
Hi, Just interested in Simon's comment that he rules out faith or lack of, when it comes to healing. Didn't Jesus once say that someone wasn't healed because of the disciples lack of faith. Does this mean that you don't take everything in the bible literally, but have to interpret some things? How do you choose what to believe and what not to?
On the topic of healing, I think we get into dangerous ground when we start trying to figure out the formulas for how God works. Sometimes people are healed and its hard to explain away, sometimes they are not healed. We don't know why or why not and as soon as we try to figure it out we put God in a box, (which will always be wrong, because God is beyond our understanding). Lets pray, lets have faith, but lets not try to figure out the secret formulas - we'll never get it right.
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