A Regression in Healing...What the Heck?!

      To say I was puzzled doesn’t even begin to describe it.  I had an AMAZING breakthrough in Israel.  I was freed from demonic strongholds, my right hip and foot straightened forward, and my right hand was able to open a water bottle.  However, by the end of July, my right big toe began hurting.  A lot.  Everyday.  Whereas, back in Israel, I was able to remove the need for an ankle brace, now I need to wear it daily to make sure the foot is not in pain by the end of the day.  However, it doesn’t make sense.  Why would I have a breakthrough in healing, only to find debilitating pain later on (I was left limping!)?  There are times when my faith is assured and I can stand on what God has done.  However, there are moments, like now, when I am forced into a whirlwind of questions.      Why am I feeling pain?  Is this a demonic attack?  Did I sin in such a way to allow demons to take hold of me where the pain came?  Did I not work hard enough to make sure my body continued walking in its healing?  These questions are legitimate in that things are possible, but the underlying concern is how quick I ran to the assumption that the burden of my healing laid on my ability.  It’s a haunting that has persisted since adolescence.  I remember the questions I had then.  Did I lack enough faith to receive healing?  Did I fail to thank God enough to quicken the wait time for the healing?  How many times do I have to go to the altar before God gets the hint that He should move in my life, too?      Why, when I pray for someone else, they receive an immediate answer, but when I ask for healing in my quiet time, nothing changes?  God, how much do I have to beg for Your promises to manifest in my life?  Aren’t I Your kid, too?  I know that I’m not supposed to earn the gift of healing, but when I see others receive their promise, and I don’t, it doesn’t help any.      Ask me if I believe in healing, I will readily say yes.  However, in the grips of my pain - both physically and emotionally, I have to confront the reality of my questions. Do I trust God?  Sure…or so I would say.  Truth is, I see a hint of cynicism weed its way into my heart when I see the discrepancy between expectation and reality.  Or the reality of my present circumstance.      The questions come from the peoples’ expectations on what healing should and will look like.  I know that God isn’t cookie cutter.  I know that good people can struggle in life.  Jesus didn’t promise freedom from heartache.  But humanity likes to simplify matters.  And so, if something is out of order, we like to determine the cause.  Because if we do, then it is easier to fix something.  Or so we think.  Sometimes people don’t get better when we want them to.  Sometimes people die.  So, even with my personal experience of discouragement, shouldn’t that be evidence enough to leave God?
     There are times I hold onto Jesus, only because I resolve there is nowhere else I can go.  I have a historical understanding of world religions; I have found a consensus among them.  Humanity is required to prove its own goodness for the divine.  And yet, in my understanding of humanity, there is not one person who is completely good.  Even the goodie-two-shoes, like me.  Only in the case of Christianity, does God 1) detail that humanity is plagued with the curse of sin, 2) outright say that something has to be done, 3) say that humanity can’t do anything sufficiently to save its own soul, and 4) provide its own antidote for the problem. That being said, I have found a confession cracking through the hyper-spiritual denial I wasn’t even aware existed.      I know I have trusted Jesus for my personal salvation and for a sense of morality.  However, I have failed to trust that God is a God of His Word.  Oh yes, I have said I do.  But the continuing confusion, puzzlement, anger and discouragement relays a darker reality in my heart: cynicism.  I want to have faith, but my expectations periodically have been slashed.  Friends and family will be quick to remind me that I have seen God move in my life.  But in the moment of pain, I forget it all.  God works at this time, but then doesn’t for that time.  It isn’t fair.      The teacher of Ecclesiastes echoed the same sentiment.  “Vanity.  It is all vanity” that the good will experience the bad.  Job questioned God’s justice in the midst of his suffering, because he knew he was a righteous man, yet going through hell on earth.  What could be worse than losing all your children, property and health?  Horatio Spafford, author of “It is Well with My Soul”, understood that on a very personal level.      Life was as blessed as any American could define.  Spafford was a lawyer, living with his wife and four beautiful children.  However, in 1871, his only son died of pneumonia and the Chicago Fire affected him financially.  An economic recession made him take another hit.  However, if that wasn’t enough sorrow for a godly man to surmise, two years later, the most heartbreaking occurred.  His family intended on a vacation, but Spafford’s wife and three daughters went ahead.  The vessel collided and all three of his daughters died.  How much could a man take?  And yet, in his sorrow, he wrote, “It is well with my soul.”  (Information from Wikipedia.)      Out of curiosity, I read the entire hymn.  Why was this man without any doubt of God’s goodness, and yet, I was struggling to trust in it?  I found that Spafford spent a little time discussing his hurt, but the majority of his song praised God for the salvation that was afforded.  Reading through Ecclesiastes and the end of Job, I found two interesting verses:       “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You…[God] has made everything beautiful in its time.  Also, He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out that work that God does from beginning to end.” - Job 42:2; Ecclesiastes 3:11      I never thought I blamed God for my predicament, but I recognize that I have blamed Him for not releasing me from it on my time.  The questions I uttered came from an expectation of how healings should come.  Looking in the Bible, yes, there were some who received healings immediately, but there were others who had to have a second touch (Mark 8:24-25).  Some didn’t see the healing until after they left Jesus (Luke 17:11-19).  Biblically, timing is not necessarily immediate.     The statement that I just need to have enough faith doesn’t make sense (as if I need to muster more up), because Jesus said that faith as small as a mustard seed is enough to move mountains (Matthew 17:20).   Another concern I had was how I was told to keep thanking God for the healing to come.  Now, I know I need to be better about carrying gratitude, but I remember a man who was a bit spiteful about healings, and yet, Jesus made him walk (John 5:1-9).  So, why does that also have to be a determination for receiving healing?     Remember, I am not asking questions because I want to dissuade any responsibility or acknowledge possible demonic attacks.  These questions stem from an internal conviction that somehow any gift I receive from God must be earned.  And that is NOT biblical.  At all!!! I wrestle, because I wonder what I can do to get God to move on my behalf, in my way.  And thus far, it hasn’t happened yet.  Actually, I don’t remember God giving me healing on my terms any time He did something.  Whether it be the limb, or the place, or the time receiving the healing…it hasn’t been exactly what was hoped for or expected.  So much for telling God how He should do things.     I realize that I despair, as many Americans probably would, because I have bought into the Western Gospel where we worship God for what He can do in my life more than worshiping Him for who He is, trusting in His character and appreciating what Jesus did on the cross.  We identify blessings more on a Darwinism level, because we like the black-and-white answers to know if we are good (or not…yikes).  We have bought into signs not as a reflection of God’s heart, but rather as a proof and evidence that God loves or favors us.  Meaning, if God doesn’t move, then something’s wrong with you…or worse, maybe there’s something wrong with God.      I never thought that I could get to that position.  The more I walk with Jesus, I can see all the more my increasing and pressing need for Him.  His Lordship wasn’t in question.  However, His friendship has been.  For how can one be a friend with someone they do not trust?  However, I must excuse myself from the mindset that God has to bow to my demands.  Even when those demands are good.  Faith is not just believing that God exists.  It is a trust in His character and that He is a God of His Word (see Hebrews 11:1, 6).  Even when His work doesn’t make sense at the moment.      Questions aren’t inherently sinful.  I have found that when I face my honest, desperate soul and give it to God, with all the horror of impending doubt, I find solace, not because I receive answers, but because He is faithful.  I can’t say that I have arrived.  I can’t promise that I won’t ask questions on this topic, again (although, that would be nice).  But I hope I am walking with more faith, even if the only thing I am holding onto is trusting that God’s eternal plan is bigger than my finite life.  Here’s to one step at a time…Faith works like that.