Could It Be That Healing Isn’t Just for Me?

Today I’m swimming in some deep water. I want to share something I recently learned about healing, but I need to clarify a few things up front. This is a personal revelation, specific to my life with the Lord. This is not a general study of the issue of healing. I do NOT speak as one who has been seriously ill or physically impaired. That has not been part of my journey and I do not presume to know the first thing about the pain and difficulty that so many wrestle with on a daily basis. Healing, or the lack of it, is an intensely personal dealing with our sovereign, and sovereignly good, God. I share with you from my own little life, about my own private walk, and that’s all.

I Needed Healing But God Didn’t Heal Me…Or Did He?

Do not fear [anything], for I am with you; Do not be afraid, for I am your God. I will strengthen you, be assured I will help you; I will certainly take hold of you with My righteous right hand [a hand of justice, of power, of victory, of salvation].
Isaiah 41:10 AMP

What a promise this is! And more, what a declaration of intent God makes concerning His people. Sometimes, in the swirl and eddy of my life, I hold onto this promise with both hands. And when I am sick or hurt especially, this promise feels far away from me. Why? Because I know that God could heal me in an instant if He wanted to, and when He doesn’t, I feel abandoned.

When I was sick for two months (December and January), many of the things that had been percolating in my heart finally bubbled up to the surface. There’s nothing quite so spiritually clarifying as physical debilitation! I was in need of healing in obvious ways and not-so-obvious ways. I cried out for that healing, again and again and again. And two things happened. The first thing that happened was that I experienced the power of Christ’s Life to perform my responsibilities when I was completely unable.

The things that absolutely needed to get done were done. And I was NOT the one that did them. This experience was the answer to a prayer I’d been praying for a year. I was sick as a dog yet full of amazement at what was happening before my eyes and in my own body. It was worth every sleepless night and feverish ache and violent, involuntary eruption of my stomach’s contents. In fact, it was healing for my heart.

What Is the Purpose of My Healing?

The second thing that happened was the Holy Spirit showed me another way of looking at healing. I’m not sure that I’d ever asked God why He didn’t heal me miraculously. I know that I made a lot of assumptions and had a pretty lively conversation with myself about it over the years, but I don’t remember ever asking Him and then waiting for an answer. It was just all about me. And what the Spirit did was shine a light on that self-centered myopia and tell me, in a surprisingly gentle way, that it wasn’t about ME. My healing wasn’t for me or about me. My healing was about US—me and my Lord.

God was after relationship while I was after miraculous healing. And because He’s a perfect Father, I WAS healed. But I was healed in His time and way, not mine. God wants to go through EVERYTHING with me and through me and in me and AS me. I don’t need miraculous healing; I need a deep and abiding relationship with our God, Who is Love. That’s the foundation that will carry me through each and every circumstance in my life. And that’s the promise. “I will certainly take hold of you with My righteous right hand [a hand of justice, of power, of victory, of salvation].”