Working Through the "Why Lord" Times in Life
I've been thinking a lot about healing these days, for obvious reasons. If you've read my blog recently you know that someone I love deeply has been diagnosed with cancer. We've been praying for healing for weeks now and the cancer has spread. It seems that our prayers are being ignored, but we know this is not the case at all. We serve a wonderful God who loves us more than any of his other creation. In fact I read something today that totally blew my mind. I had never seen it this way. See if you don't agree that this sheds new light on how important we are to our Father in Heaven.
When God wanted to create fish, He spoke to the sea.
When God wanted to create trees, He spoke to the earth.
When God wanted to create man, He turned to HIMSELF.
"Then God said: "Let us make man in our image and in our likeness."
Take a fish out of water it will die. Remove a tree from the soil, it will also die. When man is disconnected from God He dies. God is our natural environment. We were created to live in His presence. We have to be connected to Him because it is only in Him that life exists. Stay connected to God and remember, water without a fish is still water, the soil without a tree is still soil, and God without man is still God.
We are loved by God. He doesn't want illness, but when illness happens you can be sure that He is going to use that illness for a greater good. This is where faith comes in. If we look at all the times that Jesus healed people there were many ways that he healed the sick. He spit in the dirt and made mud for one blind man. He blew in the ear of a deaf man. He spoke to the man whose servant was sick, and the servant was healed without ever seeing Jesus face to face. The woman with an issue of blood just touched his garment and she was healed. The one constant in the healing process besides Jesus was the faith of the one who was healed. It wasn't the method Jesus used that was the key. He could have painted their faces blue to heal them, or slapped them on the forehead. He didn't because it was all dependent on the faith of the person who was seeking healing not on the flamboyant methods of the healer.
So does that mean if you aren't healed that you don't have faith? No, because Paul had an affliction that he prayed for God to remove and God did not remove it. Paul was a man of great faith. It was God's will that Paul's disorder remain so that God would be glorified. It kept Paul humble and elevated the God he served.
I don't want to over think any of this. I just know that my God loves me. He knows what is best and He sees the end from the beginning. He prepares us for every step of our journey and then provides the strength to endure even the most difficult of trials. Take Job for example. Why did God permit Satan to destroy Job's life? Because He knew the depth of Job's faith. He knew that Job loved him and trusted him completely. The beauty of the story of Job is that God's confidence in Job was proven justified, and Job's reward for his unwavering faith was not only restoration of all that was taken from him but a multiplying of the earthly possessions.
I love reading the last five chapters of Job. God speaks and puts everyone, including Job, in their place. The visuals are extraordinary. If you have the Bible app that will read to you, set it to play those last 5 chapters and close your eyes and visualize what God is describing. There is no one like our God. No one! Job knew it, but still he had to be reminded. His humility before God after all he had been through is something at which I marvel.
Imagine Jesus knowing how much faith we have. He sees our doubt our fears our apprehensions. Can we honestly come to him and lay all that down and just fall headlong into his arms and release the bondage of this life? How much faith did it take for the woman to touch the hem of his garment as he passed, surrounded by throngs of people all wanting to be near him? All she wanted was just a quick touch and she knew it would be enough. We not only can touch our savior, but we can rest in his arms like a baby and know that He is sovereign and loves us unconditionally.
Imagine Jesus just waiting for us to surrender everything in our lives to him. It isn't just about healing, but about everything. Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. We cannot see Jesus, but for those of us who walk with him, we have confidence and faith that He is there and He isn't letting us go through this life alone. We can walk away from Him, but He can't walk away from us. He is still God even if we stray, but we are nothing without Him.
What an amazing gift is the gift of salvation through Jesus. God made it so simple that it confounds the wise because he knew that most of us are just children looking for the love of a father to make it all better. Crazy enough but our Father really does know best.
Hebrews 11:3 "By faith we understand that the universe was formed at God’s command, so that what is seen was not made out of what was visible."
Job 2:10 "He replied, “You are talking like a foolish woman. Shall we accept good from God, and not trouble?”
Job 42:12 "The Lord blessed the latter part of Job’s life more than the former part."
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