The ‘Problem of Evil’ is a significant factor
for apostasy in Christianity. It is more often an unanswered prayer or an unrealized
hope in the context of much-anticipated healing and deliverance that prompts a
[so-called] believer to recant his faith in the Lord Jesus.
The Bible assures believers of
healing (Exodus 23:25; Jeremiah 30:17; Matthew 4:23-24; James 5: 14-15 etc.).
The same Bible also assures us that God will not always heal (2 Corinthians
12:7-9; Hebrews 11: 35b-40; 1 Timothy 5:23; 2 Timothy 4:20; Jesus did not heal
everyone during HIS ministry on earth.).
So if we expect healing or
deliverance with certainty from a
particular sickness or a problem, we expose our ignorance of the Biblical
teaching in this context.
Gotquestions.org highlights Joni Eareckson Tada’s testimony in this
context: (Emphasis Mine)1
Often, Christians have an
over-simplified idea of healing. They think that, if they are sick, they have
only to ask God to heal them and, because God loves them, He will heal them
straightaway. Healing is seen as proof of a person’s faith and of God’s love.
This idea persists in some circles in spite of the truth that every mother
knows: a parent does not give her child everything he asks for every time, no
matter how much she loves him.
Joni Eareckson Tada struggled
with this issue for a long time. As she recounts in her book Joni, she sought
physical healing of her quadriplegia. She prayed and fully believed that God
would heal her. In her words, “I certainly believed. I was calling up my
girlfriends saying, ‘Next time you see me I’m going to be running up your
sidewalk. God’s going to heal me’” (quoted in an interview with Marvin Olasky,
January 17, 2013). Yet Joni is still in a wheelchair today. Forty-five years
after the accident that left her paralyzed, God has still not healed her. Her
perspective is one of great faith: “God
may remove your suffering, and that will be great cause for praise. But if not,
He will use it, He will use anything and everything that stands in the way of
His fellowship with you. So let God mold you and make you, transform you from
glory to glory. That’s the deeper healing” (quoted on Grace to You, October
16, 2013). Some feel that God will never heal anyone miraculously today. Others
feel that God will always heal a person if he or she has enough faith. But God
will not be put into either box.
At the same time, it is incorrect
to blame the believer for lack of
faith or accuse him of being in sin
when sickness or problems persists in his life.
Ironically, the Bible reveals healing in people who did not exhibit faith in God.
The sick man in the pool of Bethesda did not have faith in Jesus that HE could
heal him (cf. John 5:1-5). Nevertheless, Jesus healed this man, who was sick
for 38 years.
Sin
need not necessarily be the sole factor for sickness or troubles in our
life. The Bible affirms this fact, “Or those eighteen who died when the tower
in Siloam fell on them—do you think they were more guilty than all the others
living in Jerusalem? I tell you, no! But unless you repent, you too will all
perish.”” (Luke 13: 4-5, NIV).
Why
does God not heal everyone? If God heals everyone then people will flock to
God for healing instead of flocking to God to love HIM for who HE is.
Jesus came to make dead people live
(i.e. spiritually dead people). HE did not come to make bad people good or to
heal all the sick people in our world.
So
should we hope and pray for healing or deliverance? Yes, by all means!
That’s the most appropriate action of a believer. Pray for God’s will to happen
in our lives.
When we learn that God will not heal
everyone, it’s not that God does not heal at all. God still heals and delivers
us even to this day, it’s just that healing and deliverance need not be for all
who ask.
God
may not heal us, but HE will offer us peace, strength, power, and wisdom to
navigate through all our trials and tribulations: “When life-threatening
illness strikes, by all means pray for healing if the Spirit so moves you. But
also pray that, if cure is not according to God’s will, he might equip you and
your loved ones with strength, clarity, and discernment. Pray he might grant us
all peace to endure — through the pain, through the infirmity, with eyes cast
heavenward even as fear drives us to our knees. Pray that as the shadows
encroach, and the light within us dwindles, that the light of the world might
illuminate our minds and hearts, drawing us toward himself in our final moments
on this earth. Pray we would know in our hearts that our end on this earth is
by no means the end.
However dark death seems, it is
fleeting and transient, a mere breath before the eternal life to come.”
Endnotes:
1https://www.gotquestions.org/God-heal-everyone.html
2https://www.desiringgod.org/articles/if-god-doesnt-heal-you
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