Miraculous healing testimonies are getting harder and harder to ignore. With all of the verified healings readily accessible through media outlets like YouTube, being a Cessationist can’t be easy today.
Miracles are great (understated I know). Testimonies are great. But walking in the knowledge and practice of the life Jesus lived also opens another door. It’s a door that can allow pain, confusion and even torment in. It’s the door that’s opened when the person we pray for isn’t healed, we aren’t healed and when we experience terrible tragedy.
Not everyone gets healed. The people we love pass away. Tragedies happen to believers and non-believers alike. This is our reality. This is the world we live in. The question that many of us wrestle with is, “Why?”
It’s a question that can’t be ignored. If we seek to life the life Jesus lived we must face this question and reconcile it somehow. If we seek to grow in our relationship with God we must face it. I say that because for many people this issue brings into question God’s character. He is love but for many of us (if we’re honest) the events of life question that assertion.
I received a message from someone who was wrestling with this question. She lost a loved one and wanted to know why God didn’t heal. The following is my response. It is where my understanding is at this point in my life. It’s not meant to provide specific answers to the question of why. It’s meant to help us think and consider some things we may not have before. She said it helped her and I hope it helps some of you as well.
First I want to say that I'm sorry about your *****. It's certainly a tragedy and I pray that your heart continue to be healed.
There is no specific answer I can give you about exactly why your prayer wasn't answered. What I can do is give you and idea about where I am in my understanding of God and tragedy.
Let's start with what God IS. He is life, healing, restoration, resurrection, love, peace, patience, kindness, rebuilder, redeemer, father, lover, savior, best friend, comforter, steadfast, hearer, always listens, giver and much much more. Every good thing comes from above (James 1:17). God is light and there is no darkness in Him at all (1 John 1:5). I understand that Jesus is the perfect representation of God the Father (Hebrews 1:3) and therefore I can know all about the Father and His will from the life and ministry of Jesus. Therefore I am confident that God's will is always to heal, restore and redeem as Jesus never refused to heal or minister to anyone who came to Him.
Our adversary (Satan) has come to steal, kill and destroy (John 10). He is ultimately responsible for every negative thing at work in this world. He roams like a lion ready to devour (1 Peter 5). He is the accuser (Rev 12:10) and he is a liar (John 8).
So we can be confident in who is responsible for good and who is responsible for evil. But the thought is that it shouldn't matter who Satan is because God is all-powerful and should be able to thwart anything Satan does. This comes from our understanding that God is in control of everything and nothing happens that He doesn't want to happen. But is that really the way it is?
Of course God is all-powerful. I am confident of that. But for me it's not about power. It's about what kind of world God created. In this world we have free will (we must have this for there to be true love so to the extent He has granted us free will He will not jeopardize it) and we use free will to do great things but also to hurt each other and ourselves tremendously.
We have dynamic and unpredictable weather (Job speaks about this some), we have a kingdom of darkness who battles against the kingdom of God and us sometimes we experience the horrible casualties that are present in all wars (Eph 6), we have a kingdom of darkness (Satan's kingdom) that yields the power of sickness and disease to afflict those who use the power of free will to walk in darkness (in other words when we sin we open ourselves up to what resides in the darkness. Deut 28 explains what some of those things are).
The ruler of this world (Satan)(2 Cor 4:4, John 12:31) seeks our destruction and as ruler has the ability to constantly work against us. I think he is stronger than many of us give him credit for as the descriptions of the leviathan and behemoth seem to symbolize in Job and that it took Gabriel 21 days to reach Daniel (Dan 10). The battle is real and it is fierce.
We live in a fallen world that was cursed because dominion of it was given over to Satan (Gen 3:17), we have the power of faith (Matt 9:28), we have the power of prayer (Acts 12:5-17) and there are probably more variables that we won't understand.
Yet in all of this I'm confident that God heals, restores, redeems and protects much more often that naught. For me it's important to remember that in the times He doesn't seem to do those things it's not because He doesn't want too because I'm confident in who He is (as listed above). It's because of one of the variables at work in this world as listed above or unknown. For me the need to have a specific answer as to why something terrible has happened has decreased as my revelation of who He IS has increased. You may not be able to know exactly why your ***** wasn't healed/raised but you can rest in the knowledge that God didn't afflict her and be confident that He did everything He could to heal her. God is FOR us! Again, it's not His power that's limited but the kind of world He chose to create that limits Him.
He risked a lot in creating a world like this with free will and it has cost Him greatly as many of the objects of His adoration (us) have chosen against Him and are suffering. Much (if not all) of the problems in this world can be traced back to how we used and use our free will. But the risk was acceptable to Him because it meant that we could freely choose to love Him back and that's what I believe He wants more than anything.
I hope some of this helps you. Blessings,
Jesse and Kara Birkey
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