Chapter 18 - Prayer and Physical Healing

Several people close to me have received a diagnosis in the past year; a diagnosis for which there is no cure. My mom received a "no cure diagnosis" over twenty years ago. And I have become somewhat familiar with this kind of news through the years, although it is always a shock to the system initially.

When I first read Yancey's book on prayer it was because I was trying to pray for someone and found myself struggling, wondering what was the right prayer. At times, it was hard to pray. Other times, I prayed in anguish and in sobs of desperation. The book was recommended to me and I devoured it. I have not read it the second time with the same intensity because those emotions have settled down.

I'm sure I will again pray desperate prayers in the future. But for now I have put myself and my loved ones back in the hands of God (where we belong) and I am simply trusting Him for all of our futures; knowing that the number of our years here on earth are not the ultimate priority for God (and really should not be for us, either). I am comforted by the scripture I quoted in my previous post, that God ordains the number of our days before we are even here. Whatever God ordains for me, He will provide the grace for me to accept and even embrace. I pray that I will always look for what He is trying to teach me about Him and about trusting Him in every area of uncertainty that presents itself in my life, rather than to always look for an escape. However, I know that as fallen human beings, our first impulse is to ask for the escape. And God knows this about us, too.

I would not describe myself as a prayer warrior. My most frequent and natural prayer is one of thanking God for His undeserved mercy and His faithfulness to me. I am so unworthy. I can't even figure out why He loves me, let alone why He would bless my life. When I wake up at night, I thank God for being so good to me. But, for some reason, I have always struggled with the petition part of prayer. I always wonder how I am supposed to pray and what kind of prayer pleases God. Am I to ask for miracles just because I believe God is able to grant them? Does He want me simply to pray for His will? I don't feel deserving of or entitled to a miracle. So many others have suffered so much more in their lives than I ever have, why would I even ask God to spare me or someone important in my life? These are my particular struggles.

I am not a why me person. I am a why not me person. The hardest thing for me to understand is not why God would let me suffer, it is why He would bless me. I can always look around and see so many more deserving people than myself. So I feel like I shouldn't ask for more than He's already done for me. But the Bible instructs us to ask. I usually wind up praying for His will AND for His mercy. I think I'm more comfortable with this request because it goes without saying that mercy is something undeserved.

I know that some Christians wonder if they are being punished if they get sick or if someone close to them dies, or even when something bad happens. I haven't ever viewed suffering of any kind as punishment. I have always viewed sickness and death as a part of life on earth. Life is a terminal condition. But until we experience a diagnosis, we don't feel that threatened by our mortality. We live as though life will go on forever, even though we intellectually understand that it won't. A long life is an illusion because none of us has the promise of tomorrow. Every day could be OUR last. But we have the promise of something better when this life is over because Jesus came.

On the subject of punishment, it was pointed out to me once that although there are consequences in life, God is never punishing us for our sin if we believe in His Son. He would not be a just God if He did because He has already punished His Son for our sin. Jesus took our death sentence upon Himself. God would not have punished His Son in our place if he were then going to punish us anyway. He is a God of justice and mercy. And that would make His sacrifice null and void. I had never thought about it quite this way. So when you have thoughts of God punishing you, remind yourself what you are accusing Him of by doing this.

Yancey says in this chapter, "Jesus never promised to erase all poverty, all suffering, all human need. Rather, he announced a kingdom that values the needy above the beautiful and powerful and self-sufficient. In my own experience, those who most readily recognize their dependence on God are the ones who have no other choice: the disabled, the suffering, and those who care for them."

It's so true. When do we feel the most dependent on God? When we can't solve our own problems. We are always dependent on God. We are dependent upon God for our next breath. Diagnosis or no diagnosis. But He is the God of all comfort. He does not promise that we will not suffer in this life. He promises His grace and His comfort. He cares. He knows. He has compassion on us. He will never leave us.

Jesus suffered; therefore, He knows what we are going through down here. Only through our suffering can we truly know what anyone else is going through and how to help and comfort them. What always brings me comfort in my suffering is the awareness that through it God is equipping me to help others who will one day find themselves experiencing something similar. I will have added credibility because I have shared in that pain.

Yancey ends the chapter by quoting the words of Paul, telling us that God "comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows."