Why does God heal?

This thread will hopefully take in many concepts.

I was asked to pray with a cancer patient some years ago,she was not expected to live more than 6 months and was in pretty bad shape when I met her. During the prayer a thought came to me about forgiveness and I asked if she needed to forgive anyone. I explained unforgiveness could be a huge block to the work of God's healing power. She told me of a neighbour who had abused one of her family years ago and stated, shoving her bony fist into my face that she would prefer hell than to think of ever forgiving him. She came across as being extremely angry in lots of ways and seemed to have a very poor prayer life. We talked a little more around the abuse and the Lord showed me her heart was broken. I told her what the Lord was showing me thinking perhaps that she would soften up a little but nothing changed in her. I prayed but told her I was going to focus more on the healing of her heart than the cancer.
I didn't have the opportunity to really spend time with her again but a relative told me the Lord healed her and she was and is doing well now some 5 years later..TG.
When I heard she was well again, I wondered why because of the obvious block she had put up, and in prayer felt the Lord was giving her that time for her heart to heal and so at some stage to begin the process of forgiveness. I never got the opportunity to tell her she needed to be praying for the healing of her heart and couldn't tell the relative to tell her, because she was related to the abuse but didn't know it. I hope and pray for her that some day she will be able to forgive, but as far as I know she is making the best of her healing and living it up, with the emotional pain buried under the hard exterior.

This led me to thinking why does God heal? For His glory... for our good health... to give us more time to sort out our lives...

 

This is one of those big questions. I don't have the answer except that God must have a plan that we will understand later. I have heard what you have stated about forgiveness and I am not certain that it can block our healing but if we want God to forgive us for our sins then we should be able to forgive others for theirs.
I wonder about Garabandal, those who attend the Miracle for a cure - why would they be given this gift? Conchita has told us the answer but why them and not someone else? Again, it must be God's plan.

 

What came to mind while reading your post Border collie was. Remember that story/joke about the man who died and asked God why He did not hear his prayer to rescue him when he was drowning.

God said, I sent a boat, and a helicopter and you refused to take the help I sent you. That is why you died.

I believe failure to forgive is a sure sign of pride. We all suffer from pride to one degree or another. But the healing from God is unconditional, like all His gifts. Pray God, this woman realises that love is much more powerful than pride. She has a terrible shock coming to her when she meets her God.

 

Border Collie,

I believe you are correct about the gift of more time, and perhaps that gift came through your faith and not hers. Unforgiveness has terrible consequences. As Matthew's gospel states:

6:14 For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father also will forgive you; 15 but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Remember the story of the ten healed lepers- only one returned to give thanks to Christ. I've always wondered why the others did not return. What distractions or what inner struggles prevented their return?

I also recall Padraig sharing that God is so lavish in his blessings: God might bless some hardhearted persons materially in this life because he is able to foresee their eternal destiny without blessing.

I am confident that the Lord leaves no stone unturned in reaching out to the lost and wounded, but he does this without negating our freedom. I will pray for the softening of this woman's heart.

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the high and lofty One who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: "I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite.

 

I think sometimes it might be asking too much to be able to understand why x or y person heals, its almost similiar to asking the big questions like why x or y person dies old or young, there are always going to be some mysteries above our pay grade!

But if we broaden it a bit possibly we could get some answers. If we ask the simple question does disease have a supernatural rather than natural origin, maybe we could play around a little in trying to answer that?

Firstly we eliminate two issues or categories here. Of course anybody could make the obvious point that God is all powerful and knows everything etc so what part of our life doesn't in some sense have a supernatural origin? So we are just speculating here about those aspects of our life which aren't normally associated with the supernatural.

Also we want to elimate those diseases with obvious natural origins which I would say are simply diagnosed illnesses. This is not a perfect distinction either, because while you might be diagnosed with cancer thats not to say the cancer doesn't have a supernatural origin but just to play along we will simply exclude any clearly diagnosed illness on the basis that it has a natural origin.

You see the fascinating point here is that there are a lot of people out there with no real diagnosis, they don't know the reason behind their illnesses, the doctors cannot find any. And of course we are only referring here to people who have been through the mill with doctors and tests and healers etc going back years, it sometimes takes time to get diagnosed but with some people it seems hopeless, the doctors just dismiss them as unsolvable cases or accuse them of making it up.

Should people in that category assume there is something strange on a supernatural level going on?

There maybe at this point two possible extremes. At one level we have people who could revert to thinking they are 'victim souls', that assume they are suffering for God and make no great effort afterwards to get cured. In short some people might have too great a sense of the supernatural in this case, they assume too quickly thats its all about the cross leading to God etc.

Anyway its well recognised that this category is usually a mistake, you are in fact obliged to try and get well and its a good thing to do so, only very rare people are victim souls although of course you can always offer up your suffering but don't revel in it!

But maybe the other attitude is also a false extreme: that illness is all natural and you shouldn't think about the supernatural at all? Its clearly a good thing, as you said above, to forgive people for example because supernaturally that could be a factor in your illness. (Or indeed it could be a factor that somebody close to you is not forgiving someone which could affect you, but thats to get very deep into this thing.) Indeed some respected healers/mystics seem to assume that a person in this category - with maybe a longtime undiagnosed illness - must be under attack in some sense from dark supernatural forces.

So maybe it really is an important thing for a person to get spiritually protected from these forces if he hopes to get cured, in at least some cases? I guess spiritually its what we should be doing anyway but its still interesting to speculate about its effect on illness...

I know you know more about these things than I do but I thought I'd try to amuse you with some philosophising if you are reading this on a hospital trolley or something!

 

I have a chronic illness. Lots of pain. Good days and bad but most people don't see that. I try to be happy, positive and loving. I pray that others may see the Love of Christ through me. I have prayed to just feel well enough to take care of my children and I am. I am so much better than a year ago. But I still suffer daily. Just enough to keep me humble. And enough to beat and offer up for others. I love love to use my suffering as a prayer. As an offering. For others. For mankind. So. I'm not sure why I haven't healed completely but I'm ok with that. My pain is serving a purpose in Gods plan

 

Thank you! May God bless you and your family!

 

Thank you for offering your suffering; I will keep you in my prayers. My mother always told us "Offer your pain up to God", not what you wanted to hear as a child; but now I get it.
Peace and Blessings

 

Thank you. He has.

 

Failure to forgive may be a sign of pride Julia, but in this person's case it was a deep hurt that was blocking her, she regularly came in contact with the abuser, who in turn in his depravity would deliberately remind her about what he had done. I was shocked and saddened at the depth of her hurt. If I was in her place, perhaps I would be in prison now....

 

Thanks for your thought provoking reply SB! At first glance without my glasses, on reading the first paragraph I thought you said Gay Parade instead of Pay Grade!

I'm not sure if I'm qualified on how to answer the rest of what you presented. I heard a talk by a priest some years ago on healing. He said the first thing we should ask the Lord on praying for a sick person was, "who sinned?" Because sickness does not come from God.
So if we take the "who sinned" and try to expand on that, we come up with a whole range of possibilities.... the person's own sin or lifestyle, a trauma in their lives, a sin or trauma in their ancestors lives, a curse put on them by someone outside the family line, a curse on their land.... this list goes on. But to find the solution can take years, because of our free will, and our commitment to finding an answer. Life is so complex and involves so many distractions that it is difficult to focus on just one thing and to follow it through.
And then you have the people with healing gifts, words of knowledge etc, who in my experience can be wrong in their administration of those gifts just as often as they are right. This being because they are only human too, and on their own journeys, and can be even more broken (often unknowingly) than those they pray for. So the Holy Spirit may not be able to flow through them as fully as He would desire, or to bless them with all the gifts they need, because of their own fears and perhaps sinful struggles etc..
I think the best way is to try to use whatever life throws at us in our aim for personal holiness and to make reparation as often as one can for mankind's offences to the Good Lord.

Thankfully I am not on a trolley but at home in bed!
The hospital I attended the other night is rarely mentioned in the trolley watch in the news hence my reason for going there. I had already been to one previously that night but was told there was a 4 hour waiting list and I couldn't wait because of the pain I was in. I found out the hard way why the second one is not mentioned in the news... I was left sitting on a chair in the reception area for 11 hours through the night before even been let through the doors to see a doc, as was the same with the other people.

 

BC, I hope you have found some relief for your pain, God help you. Surely you must be helping repair damage and opening doors for souls to be healed and saved in this year of Mercy.

 

I can only trust that the good Lord is using everything to it fullest good Julia, but I do feel this latest illness is an attack of sorts from you know who! A person whom I pray regularly with and helps in my dealings with people also had an unexplained mishap! They collected me from the hospital yesterday on crutches and I drove them around the other side of the building to see another consultant! They even said to me that stan must be a little annoyed, the poor divil