Healing

Until this year, I had only one memorable Christmas in my entire life, the Christmas I had in Rwanda, Africa in 1982. This year's Christmas includes an ongoing gift, the fulfillment of a promise the Lord made to me almost 22 years ago. He had promised that I would go through a time of wilderness wandering (cf. Numbers 14) until I came to the end of myself. Then I would be healed. I almost gave up, almost forgot the Lord's faithfulness. Then last week, He showed me through a Tozer book that I had turned my health into an idol. Before long, I could really see it. I repented and laid that idol on the altar once and for all. Soon I began to see signs of healing. Praise the Lord! My health has really been a can of worms. (This healing is going to be gradual). My hope is revived. Some issues in my life are being dealt with. I don't really know how to function without this idol, but the Lord is teaching me. How I praise His Name, not only for what He has done and is doing, but also for how He is doing it, and for Who He is. This is going to be a big adventure, one that I can really get into. I'm excited! This morning, just as I was leaving, my roommate's TV was tuned in to a controversial televangelist's show, and a healing was taking place. I began to think about faith healers, and to wonder if some of them are missing the mark (aside from the veracity of their claims of healing). I reflected on my healing, and on how much the Lord has had to do in my life to make me ready to live as a healed person: how much sin He has had to deal with, how much baggage I've had to put down, and how much my thinking has had to change. And I often wonder about these healers who focus on instantaneous healings. Instantaneous healings can bring notoriety, which Jesus avoided. The healings that take years, like mine, don't carry with them any sense of impressing the crowds. Jesus did some instantaneous healing, but He also, at times, dealt with the sin of people who wanted to be healed. Surely the reason He told people not to spread the news of their healing, was that His mission was primarily to be our Savior from sin, and that He didn't want people to get the idea that He was about physical healing only. The time to tell was after He had died and risen from the dead, for then people would understand what He really came to do, and what kind of Savior He really is, a suffering Savior. He didn't come to end all suffering in this life. He came to suffer for us on the cross to take away or sins and rise from the dead. Then after He rose from the dead He would suffer WITH His disciples in every period in history, as they suffer for spreading the good news about Jesus and His forgiveness.