If you didn’t read Part 1 last week, start here It’s All About The Healing

Let me be clear.  I am not saying prayer is a waste of time!  I say pray without ceasing!  But do I believe prayer and faith alone will always prevail?  Yes and no.  Let me explain…

First, those statements made to me are egocentric.  By this I mean that they assume that my prayer for healing involves only myself and God.  Second, they’re limiting God!  People’s statements presume God’s plan is that my healing is between Him and me alone.  Third, they implicitly condemn God’s work in others.

How?

Answer these questions:

1) Why did God lead Julie to become a psychologist if not to be part of His plan for healing?

2) Why were so many others (wife, kids, family, friends, lawyer, etc) called to witness my healing?

3) Why were we given medicine and science and both doctor’s offices and cathedrals?

So “Yes” in that prayer and belief bring God’s plans and for me healing, but how arrogant would I be to ask only God to aid me and in so doing ignore His plan!  God brings us what and who we need – in His time – so by praying for healing and believing in all His possibilities I can say that “No”, prayer as presented to me – excluding God’s other efforts, timing, plans, and works in and through other people – won’t work alone.  We must trust and believe in His human works and His unknowable plans as well.

There’s one other bit of ‘no’ I’ve come to accept:  I, we, cannot presume to know what healing means.  Again, it’s an egocentric thing.  I may define healing as, “I’ll never consider suicide as an option for my life’s end.”  God may define it as, “Everyone exposed to john doe’s pain will never consider suicide as an option for life’s end,” while leaving me to my struggles with suicide.  So if I look only at myself I would feel I’ve not healed when through God’s eyes He’s healed many.

Thinking more basically… How would God have done His work on the cross without apostles abandoning, denying, and betraying Him?  What would have happened without Pilate, The Sanhedrin, Barabbas, and the workmen who made the cross and forged the nails?  Did God, in His greatest glory, do it alone?  No.  Why would anyone presume then that God’s plan includes only God and themselves?  Why would my healing be any different?

Perhaps I’m stating the obvious and there are no revelations; but for me.  I believe that without the human works God brought to me I’d be lying in bed with my mental ‘demons’ still running around in my head (actually many, but not all, still are) or I’d be dead.  I do not believe it’s between Him and me alone.

Healing. 

True Healing. 

Complete Healing.

 It’s all about the Healing.

I’m healing but not fully healed.  It’s a slow process.  Yet today I walk the road of healing hand in hand with those people in whom God has done wondrous works as well as hand in hand with God Himself.  I pray and believe in His plan.  I trust in His people.

Pray. Believe. Trust.

If you need a professional then seek one out.  I believe God put him or her there for you.  Don’t wait forty six years as I did.  Do it now.

~jdoe