I have spent my fair share of days sitting in hospitals with friends or family members who were sick. Or I have myself been on a sickbed and/or in a hospital bed. My initial thought was, “Why are there so many people everywhere sick and not healed?” (Turns out that is a pretty self-centered question, as I learned here) It is a question for which I had no immediate answer. What I do know is that when Peter healed a paralytic and raised a woman from the dead the result was scores of people came to a living faith in Christ. We don’t see that today.
In those days Christianity was a new and fledging movement of faith. Healings and resurrections were an important visible sign of the life of God at work. Such miracles were captivating people’s attention for the Gospel. Many were coming to faith in Christ because they could see God working in ways that there was no other explanation.
I ask myself, “Why don’t we see more people miraculously healed, raised from the dead, today?” I pondered this a couple days. Then I received a breakthrough from the Lord. From my limited and simple perspective I came to two conclusions.
First, the Gospel of Jesus is firmly rooted in the world today. The need for such miracles is certainly not extinct, but as a sign, perhaps not as important or useful, therefore, not as prevalent. At least not in countries that are more advanced. This does not by the way, abrogate or minimize the work of prayer or the acts of God in extraordinary healings. Which leads me to my second conclusion.
In most of the world modern medicine is well advanced. It is, in and of itself, a modern miracle. God has shown man how to harness things in the natural world created eons ago by him (Protons, neutrons, the atom, herbs, human cells, etc.). The result is tens of millions around the world are daily being healed and delivered from sickness and disease. New forms of healing are being discovered all the time by way of “miracle drugs” and treatment programs never before available. And what of people being raised from the dead? All of the modern miracles of medicine are, in essence, raising people from the dead every day who would have died otherwise without the medicines and treatments available. Fact is, the vast majorities of those today who enter the hospital are healed and go on to live a long and generally healthy life.
So the answer to my question about healing is that actually multiplied millions of people are being healed every day. But people don’t come to faith in great numbers as a result of those healings today. Why is that? Because we take so much of the miracle of modern medicine for granted. We have learned to rely upon doctors, nurses, medical technicians treatment plans and medical centers. God does not enter in as a factor to most people. Even those who call themselves followers of Christ unintentionally overlook much of what God has done for our healing. In developed countries we have come to expect that we will get well from the vast majority of sickness and disease. Healing doesn’t always fall into the category of great “signs and wonders.” We do give God glory for the “BIG” acts of healing. But for the daily unnoticed healings, well, we don’t give them a thought.
In the days of the apostles there were no such expectations of getting well from many ailments. Healings of any kind were considered medical miracles filling the people with great awe and wonder. I venture to say that it is the same today in underdeveloped countries of the world. There is generally no hope or expectation of recovering from many curable diseases. Thus we see that teams of medical missionaries are sent to these places and are greatly used of God to bring many to faith in Christ through the healing they bring. I know that I have read and heard of healings and resurrections in undeveloped places where such “signs and wonders” were used by God to bring people to faith in Christ.
Final thought: None of this ignores the spiritual discipline of prayer for healing. God’s Word instructs us to pray the sick among us. Nor does it ignore the fact that God does intervene at times in extraordinary ways, beyond the scope of what we recognize as normal scientific understanding. People are brought to faith in Christ in times like those. My point here is that we simply take far too much for granted. What scientific understanding we do have is from God. Further, when we do pray we pray without understanding. We don’t pray often enough for healing with a view towards God’s mission in the world. His mission is NOT to ensure our “happiness” and “comfort.” God’s mission is the restoration, reconciliation and redemption of all things. We don’t realize enough that God is always at work everywhere towards those ends and he invites us to work along side of him towards those ends. Someone said, “As long as our comfort and wants are the focus of our prayers, we will remain in the dangerous place of falling asleep in the comfort of our privilege.”[1] The bottom line is we take far too much for granted. We take the work of prayer and the work of God for granted.
Where does this leave me as a follower of Christ? What responsibility do I have in this? What does this “insight” from the Lord mean to me personally?
- I need to be certain that I do not myself forget what awesome and wonderful things God has done for me, for family members and friends by way of healing moments. I must remember to worship and praise him for such wonders as modern medicine. I must be certain that he gets the glory, which ultimately points people to him.
- I need to take every opportunity to tell others of God’s greatness, compassion and love. I need to tell others of what he has done for me, not only in healing my physical body but how he has healed me spiritually; how he saved me by his grace through faith in Jesus Christ from an everlasting fire. His son, Jesus, set me on a path of everlasting life with him in heaven.
- I need to pray with a view towards the overall mission of God in the world and in our lives. God’s mission is not our “happiness” and our “comfort.” God’s mission is the redemption, restoration and reconciliation of all men to him. My prayer ought to focus not just on creature comforts but on what God wants in our world. My prayer should focus outward and upward and not just inward.
- Finally, I need to hug a doctor or a nurse and say, “Thank you!” for giving themselves to the miraculous field of modern medicine. I need to pray for those who minister healing every day in the great medical centers of our society.
[1] Does God Care About Who Wins Football Games? (Should we pray about trivial things?); Posted on January 8, 2019, Michael Hidalgo https://relevantmagazine.com/god/practical-faith/does-god-care-about-who-wins-football-games
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