Understanding God is Healer - while still being in process
This article is part of an ongoing discussion series on Mental Health and the Church. While each article can stand on alone, if you’d like to start at the beginning click here.
For years I struggled with a big question – “If God can heal, then why was I still struggling, facing both mental health issues and ongoing physical illness?” So I did some study, because that’s how I’m wired. I spent many hours over several months studying Scripture, looking at the meanings of verses and words, praying, asking God questions, and I received some amazing revelation and understanding. But I still had questions…lots of questions.
Here’s a quick summary of some of the understanding I gained. Back in the beginning, when the Trinity created mankind, they created us in their image, whole and unblemished in any way. And everything (plants, animals, and humans) was given this amazing ability to reproduce itself, regenerate and self-heal to an amazing degree. Then God’s perfect balance in mankind and the earth was disrupted when Adam and Eve stopped trusting God and sinned. It didn’t take very long for the enemy of our souls, Satan (the accuser), to twist mankind’s beliefs about God until we no longer saw Him as truly and fully good. We lost our faith in God as the one who loved us unconditionally, who was our provider and sustainer, and stuff went downhill from there…. Struggle and stress became a normal part of our effort to survive, and sickness and death became not only a possibility, but a part of life.
As I studied, I became convinced that God is our healer and He wants us to be whole – absolutely, categorically, undeniably! Why? For several reasons –
Because wholeness is part of the very nature of the Trinity – Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They themselves are whole, and when they created mankind they created us in their image, whole.
Because of the regeneration, self-healing aspect that our bodies were created with so that we could live on earth; and if we got hurt, we could heal.
Also, many times in the Bible the Lord declares that He is our healer, and Jesus proved that while He was on earth, and He’s still healing today. (I’ll include a list of verses you can study at the end of the article).
Then there’s Jesus’ work of salvation on the cross, which included healing for all mankind.
Everything I discovered pointed irrefutably to God’s desire for all mankind to live in wholeness – body, soul, and spirit. If that’s true, and it is, then how do we stay in faith while we wait for God to heal us? And how do we deal with the internal doubts that whisper, or even that internal shout that says that we may not get healed?
These are huge questions, and so important. Medical diagnosis often doesn’t leave us with much earthly hope, but thankfully hope in earthly help and treatment is not all we have as Christians. However, I can tell you that God is Healer and He wants to heal you, but that’s me telling you. You need your own revelation on that, so I’d encourage you to do some study if you haven’t already. Look at the verses I’ve listed below, read the testimonies of Jesus’ work. Listen to testimonies from today. And fight to keep faith, hope, and trust alive.
The battle for mind control
The biggest battle most of us face is in holding on to our faith and trust in God when the answers to our prayers don’t come as quickly as we’d like. That’s a very real battle for people with ongoing health issues, and in that struggle we often need encouraging and strengthening by others.
God’s goal for us is not just the alleviation of our symptoms, or physical health issues, as good as that would be; it’s also the renewing of our mind – breaking old thinking patterns and habitual ways of responding, establishing within us the mind of Christ and the nature and character of a true child of the Kingdom of Heaven. In other words, replacing our old man’s habitual responses with a whole new way of looking at life, and living it – one that is representative of our reality as a new creation in Christ.
The fact is, you or I could get the miracle of healing we want, but if our thinking patterns and habitual ways of responding aren’t also renewed we may very well end up becoming sick again.
Scripture tells us that, as Christians, we are to be led by the Holy Spirit in all aspects of our life. So, as we wait for our healing, we need to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. That means we ask Him for the strategy He has for us to follow as we wait, and we use our brain, our discernment, wisdom, and common sense. Holy Spirit’s strategy will usually be holistic, not just spiritual, because God is interested in your whole life, your whole being, not just your spirit and spiritual expressions. We have been given the mind of Christ to access in the renewing of our minds. Holy Spirit is our life guide, our coach (Rom 8:14), and Jesus is our wonderful, wise counselor (Isa 9:6), and part of what they want for your/my life is a whole life reformation – into the image of Christ – to bring us back into wholeness of body, soul, and spirit. God wants to be part of our daily life, and our trust and faith process, and as we wait for our healing to become fully manifest there are things that He will want to do in our lives.
How that’s being worked out in my life
Here are some of the ways He’s led me as I’ve trusted and waited. My mental health struggles arose from years of abuse as a child, so they have been trauma-based; – chronic complex PTSD, major depressive disorder, and generalized anxiety. So a lot of the work the Holy Spirit has done has been in dealing with the effect that’s had on my life, renewing my mind, and resetting habitual fear responses, as well as physical, cellular trauma work. As a result, my freedom is increasing, but it hasn’t come just as a result of one miracle; it’s taken work on my part. Holy Spirit has led me to ask for prayer many times, even when I thought I couldn’t face one more person praying for me. He’s led me to work on renewing my mind, unraveling and breaking old habitual ways of thinking and responding, and seeing them replaced with new healthier ones. I’ve had both professional counselling and inner healing ministry (several types). I’ve learned to build into my life quiet space and time to reflect and refresh, I’ve learned to make friends instead of isolating myself, to spend time with them and do fun stuff, and I’ve taken up relaxing hobbies. I try to eat well, while not letting that become a slave-driver. I spend time talking with the Lord in honest conversation, and in experiencing His love. I spend time worshipping, reading my Bible, and studying it to gain understanding. In other words the Holy Spirit’s plan has been holistic, not just spiritual.
All these things have helped to make a difference for me over the years, and during the years my trust and faith in Father God, Jesus, and Holy Spirit, as being good, loving, kind, and faithful, has increased tremendously. I love and trust them now more than ever.
But I still have questions
Even with all that amazing work, I still have questions that I don’t have answers to. I don’t have the full answer to why we aren’t seeing everyone healed, or why my process is taking as long as it is. To be honest, none of us, not even expert theologians, know exactly why that is. We can make guesses, we can form opinions, but the truth is we don’t actually know. And that’s where our struggle is – we don’t see all that God is doing, or understand all the why’s behind what’s happening.
We do know that we are in a battle to see God’s Kingdom dominion re-established in the earth, and we’re making great advances in that, and will continue to do so. More healings are happening now than at any other time in history, for which I am extremely thankful. But sometimes knowing that doesn’t help us a lot in our personal struggles.
Meanwhile, God has not changed – He is still Healer. As Christians, we’ve struggled with this truth over the years because as much as we’ve prayed, sometimes people get healed, and sometimes they don’t. Sometimes that struggle has been based on bad theology – beliefs like, “God gives people sickness to teach them something or punish them for some sin”, or “God only wants to heal some people”. Yet even having better theology doesn’t mean that you won’t still face struggles and live with unanswered questions.
I have to be honest here, I do get tired of hearing Christians try to blame me or others for the fact that we’re ‘not healed’ yet, by suggesting that we have some secret sin or other things that are blocking that healing. I do get tired of reading memes that say things like, “My God is the God of suddenlies”, as if that’s all He is, and the only way He works.
From what I’ve seen over the years –
God is, at the same time, the God of suddenlies and the God who uses slow process, and what we call a ‘suddenly’ can take a long time in the build-up to its revealing.
He is the God of the breakthrough, and the one who calls us to face, and fight, battles and take ground, that we then establish and inhabit.
God heals miraculously in an instant, and He also heals slowly over time.
God is the God of huge seen–at–once transformations and He also transforms through small shifts in our perspectives, tiny nudges that help us understand something that we didn’t understand before.
God gives sudden revelations and understanding of truth that instantly sets us free, and He brings freedom through unlearning lies, limiting beliefs, wrong mindsets, etc. Often freedom comes in unlearning as much as it does in learning.
Sometimes He heals through our body’s natural healing system, or healing happens as we change things in our lives that were inhibiting healing from happening.
Sometimes healing happens on this side of the veil of eternity, sometimes it’s on the other.
God is good!
What I do know as I wait for my healing to become fully manifested, and as I pray for yours, is that we cannot twist God’s arm and make Him perform on our terms. I do know, though, in all our not knowing the ‘why’s’, that God is good, He is loving, He is kind, and He is faithful, and will never leave me, or you, nor forsake us in our struggles. Our tears are not worthless or futile. God knows each of His children intimately, and in every sorrow we endure, every tear we shed, He is there, with us. Psalm 56:8 says He remembers our sorrow as if He kept each tear in a bottle. That word picture means that our tears are a memorial reminder to Him of His promise to one day wipe away all tears from our eyes. Currently we may be in process, but we have left our old life behind, and we are being established in our new one as children of God, as sons and daughters who are also ambassadors of a new Kingdom being established in the earth. In the end, we will walk in fullness of joy and God will wipe every tear from our eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things will have passed away (Rev 21:4).
How we look forward to that day, which is our beacon of hope and our promise that will not fail. Until then, don’t give up, keep trusting, and keep your hope alive. Be like the heroes of faith we all admire and read about in Scripture, and in books, who stood firm and believed and gained an eternal reward for standing in faith (Heb 6:11,12; Heb 11). Re-read Hebrews 11 – it is full of encouragement. Stand firm in the belief that God’s plan is for you to be whole. Contend for your healing, resist the devil and his lies. Don’t let him tell you that God doesn’t love you or want you to be whole, and that people don’t care…because we do!
And if no one else tells you this today, I will. You are loved and you bring something precious and unique to life – yourself! You are a gift from God to mankind, whether you can currently see that or not. Your life matters, you have value, and on top of that, you have a whole lot of wisdom and experience to share with us all.
Lotsa love – Lyn
In the next two articles I’ll be looking at things not to say to Christians with ongoing health struggles – why we shouldn’t say them, and what we can say instead. You won’t want to miss those articles.
For the next article in this series click here
Here are the verses on healing I promised earlier in the article.
Exodus 12; Exodus 15:26; Exodus 23:25-26; Numbers 21:4-9; Deuteronomy 7:12-15; Deuteronomy 28: 58-61; Psalm 103: 2-3; Psalm 105:37; Psalm 107:17-20; Psalm 107:17-20; Proverbs 4:esp 20-24; Isaiah 53:3-4,12; Isaiah 61:1-2; Jeremiah 1:12; Matthew 4:23; Matthew 8:16,17; Matthew 9: 22; Matthew 10:1,8; Matthew 12:15; Mark 6:5,6; Mark 16:18,20; Luke 1:37; Luke 4:18,40; Luke 5:17-26; Luke 6:17-19; Luke 10:18; John 6:38,63; John 14:12; Acts 3:6; Acts 5:16; Acts 10:38; Acts 28:8-9; 2 Corinthians 1:20; James 1:17; James 5:14-15; 1 Peter 2:24; 1 John 5:14-15; 3 John 2.