Miracles, Healing, and Faith
You shall serve the Lord your God, and he will bless your bread and your water, and I will take sickness away from your midst. — Exodus 23:25
He personally carried our sins in his body on the cross so that we can be dead to sin and live for what is right. By his wounds you are healed. — 1 Peter 2:24
Author
Alberto González Muñoz
Summary: God can heal any illness, but miraculous healing does not always happen. A doctor who returned to the faith shortly before he died regretted not having taught his children to live as Christians. He then realized that he could show them how to face death with faith, hope, and peace. We can pray for healing, but we must respect God’s sovereignty: we should neither blame a sick person for a lack of faith nor declare a healing that has not happened. God’s power can also sustain us through painful treatment or as we face the end of life. For those of us who believe in Christ, that end is a meeting with God.
Can God heal every disease? Of course He can! Yet we all know that miraculous healing does not always occur. I knew a renowned physician who had been a Christian in his youth. When atheism became fashionable in Cuba, he abandoned the faith and drifted away from the church.
He spent the best years of his life far from the Lord, neither teaching his children the faith nor even allowing them to attend church. At the age of 60, he returned to the Lord; but a year later, an advanced cancerous tumor was discovered in his brain. His doctors did not have to explain that he had only a few weeks to live. He knew.
“I know God can heal me,” he told his pastor, “but being healed is not my greatest concern. What pains me is that I did not teach my children how a Christian lives, and I will not have time to do so.”
The pastor understood the man’s sorrow and asked the Lord for words to help him. Then he said:
“We will pray for a miracle, but if it does not happen, you can teach your children how a Christian dies.”
The sick man’s face lit up. Those words gave meaning to his sudden and grave illness. He had a unique opportunity before him. If God did not heal him, he would show his family the value of faith as he faced death. The man lived only a couple of weeks after that conversation. During those fifteen days, he proclaimed to everyone that a miracle was not only being saved from death, but also facing it victoriously, with the peace that only the Spirit of God can give to those who trust in Him. His family and acquaintances were deeply moved by the power of the Gospel of Christ and by the courageous serenity with which this man accepted his illness and departed to be with the Lord.
Illness comes into everyone’s life, and God has the power to deliver us from it if that is His purpose. We must be very careful and respect God’s sovereignty whenever we ask for or hope for a miracle. I have seen sick people blamed for a lack of faith, as though God’s power were limited in any way when He chooses to manifest it. Worse still, I have also seen healings declared when the supposed miracle had not occurred. Afterward, I am amazed that no one mentions or remembers the declaration they made earlier. You find all sorts in the Lord’s vineyard.
The good news is that God does perform miracles, which means that He can do more than heal us. He also has power enough to strengthen us through a long and painful treatment, and even to sustain us as we await the end with ineffable hope and peace. After all, for the believer in Christ, the end of life is not death; it is meeting God.
And that is the most wonderful thing that can happen to us!
God bless you all!