What’s more, in a bottle He can weigh your tears. Those tears represent how long you’ve suffered. Think of those times when the heartache seems to just go on forever. You wonder when it will ever end. When will you get relief? When Job first experienced loss in his life, he said, “The Lord gives and the Lord takes away; blessed be the name of the Lord.” But then much later when the suffering hadn’t let up but only got worse, Job said, “As surely as God lives, who has denied me justice, the Almighty, who has made me taste bitterness of soul” (Job 27:2). Right there shows you what chronic pain and heartache can do to you! But God understands that. And He doesn’t just know about it, He cares. He’s compassionate!
Thoughts like these help and comfort me when I need the healing touch of Jesus, when I need to feel His compassion and His heart. Lamentations 3:32–33 reveals the heart intent of Jesus. It says there, “Though he brings grief, he will show compassion, so great is his unfailing love. For he does not willingly bring affliction or grief to the children of men.”
He does not willingly—that is, He doesn’t from the heart—bring affliction or grief. Suffering may be a part of God’s larger and most mysterious plan, but God’s intention is always to demonstrate compassion and unfailing love that touches people at their deepest point of need.
This is the heart of the Healer. Praise His name!
Henry Frost wrote:
Christ is the eternal Son of God, and He is in His divine attributes ‘the same yesterday and today and forever’ (Hebrews 13:8). If therefore He loved in the days of His flesh, He loves now; if He cared then, He cares now; if He healed then, He heals now. It does not necessarily follow that He will do now all that He did then, or that He will do what He does now in the same way as He did then, for His purposes in some things are different at present from what they were in the past. Nevertheless, Christ is changeless in character, and we may be sure that He is infinitely interested in us and concerned about us.6
Isn’t that great to know during times when dark circumstances crowd in on us and we feel afraid?
My friend Stephanie is the mother of a disabled child and heads up a special-needs outreach within our denomination. Stephanie has known about my challenges with pain for some time now. And not long ago she thought of me when she was reading about Gideon in the book of Judges.
Stephanie wrote to tell me how she was particularly struck by this portion of the story that says:
Now the camp of Midian lay below him in the valley. During the night the LORD said to Gideon, “Get up, go down against the camp, because I am going to give it into your hands. If you are afraid to attack, go down to the camp with your servant Purah and listen to what they are saying. Afterward, you will be encouraged to attack the camp.”(Judg. 7:8–11)
Then she wrote me this most amazing insight. It was short and sweet, but very powerful (at least for me). Stephanie told me, “Joni, I guess what caught my attention was the phrase, ‘If you are afraid.’” God didn’t chide Gideon for his fears; God didn’t scold him. Instead, He anticipated those fears. And the Lord seemed to acknowledge that—in Gideon’s fallen human frailty—he was going to be afraid. But instead of dismissing Gideon’s fear, God provides a way out. A way of encouragement for him.
Oh, that spoke to me! I am so grateful that with this disability of mine, God knows my frame; He remembers that I am made out of dust.7 He knows, He anticipates the fact that I’m going to be afraid. He understands there are times when I dread the fact that my pain medication is wearing off, that I can’t do anything about it for another five or six hours.
I told Stephanie that and she replied with a fun little story. She said, “I used to work at the Helping Up Mission in Baltimore, Maryland, when I was a teenager, and I taught the preschool class. Each day they had to memorize a little Bible verse and received a ticket they could use at the mission store. One day the verse was, ‘He cares for you,’ from 1 Peter 5. One little girl, whose family situation was pretty rough, came up to me and proudly recited, ‘He’s scared for you.’
“To me, that sounded like an accurate translation, given her circumstances. Jesus took on her fear, so she didn’t need to. So I didn’t hesitate to give her the ticket for memorizing the verse.”
Back in the Christmas season, we celebrated the glorious gift of God with us. Immanuel … God is with us. And He is our Wonderful Counselor who understands our circumstances—and us—so very deeply. Anticipating our fear, He provides a way out by inviting us to cast it all on Jesus, because no one cares about our fears like Him.
Friend, at times I live in dread of the pain that looms on the horizon. And maybe you struggle with that too. Well, “if you are afraid,” be encouraged. In God’s grace He foresees your fear and will always provide a way out of the fear. And I have Stephanie, the account of Gideon, and a little girl from the slums of Baltimore to thank for that reminder.
2. Yes, we are healed by His wounds—but not necessarily immediately.
All life, all healing, and all atonement flow from that fountain who is our Lord Jesus Christ. Where else would it come from?
In Isaiah 53:5, we read these words: “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”
Yes, we can certainly see that our Lord’s suffering and death has saved us from our sins and brought us peace with God. But did it also secure for us an unconditional, no-strings-attached guarantee for instantaneous physical healing?
It’s true that disease flows from the curse God pronounced on us after Adam’s rebellion. It is also true that Jesus came to reverse this curse. Does it follow, then, that Christians shouldn’t have to put up with cancer, Down syndrome, Lyme disease, or Alzheimer’s? We’d like to think that since Jesus came to take up our diseases, there should be healing for everything from migraines to menopausal sweats. But that’s akin to saying, “There’s an oak in every acorn—so take this acorn and start sawing planks for picnic tables.” Or saying, “Congress just passed the Clean Water Act, so tomorrow morning Manhattan residents can start drinking from the East River.” A century may pass before that oak is ready for lumbering—and purging industrial ooze out of a river will take decades.
So it is with Jesus’ reversal of sin’s curse (and the suffering that goes with it). What Jesus began doing to sin and its results won’t be complete until the second coming. The purchase of salvation was complete and the outcome was settled with certainty (and note that the context of Isaiah 53:5 and 1 Peter 2:24 refers to deliverance from sin, not disease). But the application of salvation to God’s people was anything but finished.
God “has saved” us, yet we are still “being saved” (1 Cor. 1:18). We are still on earth. This means we’re still going to feel the influence of that old curse. At least until heaven where—what do you know—“we will be saved” (Matt. 24:13)!
First Corinthians 15:45 calls Jesus “the last Adam” who came to undo the curse triggered in the garden of Eden. But this summer you’ll still be wrestling with weeds in your backyard, as well as a backache from all that hoeing. Only in paradise will it be said, “No longer will there be any curse” (Rev. 22:3). 8
Theologian Richard Mayhue wrote: “Isaiah 53 primarily deals with the spiritual being of man. Its major emphasis is on sin, not sickness. It focuses on the moral cause of sickness, which is sin, and not on the immediate removal of one of sin’s results—sickness.”9
I have truly been healed by His wounds. He may yet choose to give me temporary deliverance and relief from my chronic pain, for which I would be most grateful. But whether He grants that or not, I know that complete healing is “just around the corner,” in my Father’s house. And how could I have ever had hope of even entering my Father’s house apart from the blood of Jesus, shed on the cross for my eternal salvation?
3. Our Lord Jesus has varied purposes fo
r His own.
Without a doubt, this to me is the strongest argument for trusting Jesus with our suffering.
Some of us will live long lives, mostly hale and hearty through all our years. Others of us will die relatively young, before we’ve lived out the expected span of years, or have to endure disabilities, frequent illness, physical weakness, or (in my present case) chronic pain. David had it right when he wrote: “But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, ‘You are my God.’ My times are in your hands” (Ps. 31:14–15).
My times … in His hand. That’s just where I want my times to be. I can’t imagine them anywhere else!
God has a purpose for my life, an intention He had in mind before the beginning of time—and certainly before I was ever that proverbial gleam in my daddy’s eye.
Romans 8:29 says that “those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the likeness of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers.” Besides all the other reasons for my life, His highest purpose is that I might become gradually conformed to the image of His Son, who lives within me. And day by day He works in me and through me; I am His workmanship, as Ephesians 2:10 says, “created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for [me] to do.”
As you may know from your own Bible study, that word “workmanship” in the original language, Greek, is poiema, from which we get our English word “poem.”
He has a plan and purpose for my time on earth. He is the master artist or sculptor, and He is the one who chooses the tools He will use to perfect His workmanship. What of suffering, then? What of illness? What of disability? Am I to tell Him which tools He can use and which tools He can’t use in the lifelong task of perfecting me and molding me into the beautiful image of Jesus? Do I really know better than Him, so that I can state without equivocation that it’s always His will to heal me of every physical affliction? If I am His poem, do I have the right to say, “No, Lord. You need to trim line number two and brighten up lines three and five. They’re just a little bit dark.” Do I, the poem, the thing being written, know more than the poet?
If you want to see that point of view in spades, all you have to do is Google, “God wants you healed.” In two clicks you’ll see all the ministries and Web sites proclaiming God’s blanket desire that everyone who calls on Him in faith will be made well and whole, free of injury and disease.
Here are some statements from just one such site—the first one I happened to open:
So why aren’t we seeing greater manifestations of His healing? Aren’t people still suffering from sickness? Doesn’t Jesus love people today just as much as He did when He walked the earth? Don’t believers still need to see demonstrations of His power?
YES! Not only do we need the healing power of God today, but God wants to release that power. Hallelujah! However, healing isn’t up to God alone. It isn’t God who decides who gets healed and who doesn’t. That’s a radical statement, but it’s true. And herein lies some of the greatest obstacles to receiving God’s healing power.10
So, “it isn’t God who decides who gets healed and who doesn’t”?
I’m sure that would be news to Him.
In other words, according to this author, God isn’t the one who is shaping me and forming me and conforming me? He isn’t the one who is using all the tools in His toolbox to make me most like Jesus and so that I can bring Him maximum glory? I have to do that on my own? It’s up to me?
Horrible thought! How I would hate to bear that responsibility on my own shoulders. I wouldn’t last at that job for two minutes!
Really this is just the same old inexpressibly weary harangue I’ve heard for decade upon decade. (I used to have more patience with it than I feel these days.) I’m sure you’ve heard it too—and I’ve already mentioned it earlier in the book: If you aren’t well, if you are suffering in any way, you are the one who is blocking that flow of healing power because of your hidden sin or your lack of faith. Because God obviously wants everyone well.
Believe me, I have seen the wreckage, heartbreak, confusion, guilt, despair, and faith-destroying corrosive power of these hateful arguments for more years and in more lives than I care to count.
Yes, Jesus is and always will be the fountainhead, source, and limitless artesian well of healing, forgiveness, redemption, and life.
Henry Frost, writing eighty-plus years ago, even suggested that as the world’s cultures move further and further from the foundations of God’s Word and apostasy increases (a picture of our world today?), Christ may manifest Himself with even more miraculous signs and healings.
It is therefore true that there are large parts of the world where healing miracles, in proof of a living and all powerful Christ, may well be looked for; and it may confidently be anticipated, as the present apostasy increases, that Christ will manifest His deity and lordship in increasing measure through miracle-signs, including healings.11
Be that as it may, sometimes, in His mercy and in His purposes, He will heal immediately. But at other times His healing will go on at a deeper level in the innermost parts of our being and not be fully realized in our bodies until we step into our new bodies upon our arrival at our Father’s house. And yes, He has redeemed us, but He is also continuing that redemptive process in our lives right up until we draw our last breath. Yes, we are healed by His stripes, or wounds, but we are a work in process, and He isn’t finished with us yet!
As Henry Frost said:
Christ did die to destroy sickness, and He will yet do it. But He does not say that He will, in a perfect sense, do it now, but rather, at a later time when He comes in power and great glory.12
The fact is, when it comes to the health and strength of our earthly bodies, He doesn’t ask everyone to walk the same path.
When the resurrected Christ told Peter how he was going to die to glorify the Lord, Peter looked over his shoulder at John and said, “Lord, what about him?” Jesus patiently replied, “If I want him to remain alive until I return, what is that to you? You must follow me.”13 In other words, Jesus has His own purpose for each of us. And whatever situation He gives us in life, we’re to follow Him in faith and trust.
God has different purposes for His own, and He shows Himself strong and gains glory in different ways throughout each of our lifetimes. And if He allows suffering in our lives, He does for very specific, very important reasons, and He does not do so lightly!
In the Phillips translation of 2 Corinthians 4:7–10, Paul writes these words:
This priceless treasure we hold, so to speak, in common earthenware—to show that the splendid power of it belongs to God and not to us. We are hard-pressed on all sides, but we are never frustrated; we are puzzled, but never in despair. We are persecuted, but are never deserted: we may be knocked down but we are never knocked out! Every day we experience something of the death of Jesus, so that we may also show the power of the life of Jesus in these bodies of ours.
Hard-pressed? Puzzled? Persecuted? Knocked down? Yes, yes, and more besides on some days! And just how does His life show up in our bodies? Through death! Through hardship! (That must really get Satan down some days, don’t you think?)
Paul says that as believers we’re clay pots, common earthenware jars meant to hold priceless treasure through the course of our lives. That impossibly valuable treasure is nothing less than “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6).
Each of these earthenware jars has been handmade by God Himself, our Creator and the master artisan—not stamped out in some mass-production factory in China. So as with all handmade items, we are unique. No two exactly alike. And if our very life purpose is to display the treasure we contain within, that display often works best when there are faults and cracks and chips in the pot! It is through these that the radiant, resplendent glory of Jesus shines through to the wondering eyes of the world.
Thinking about this same passage, author Robert Jewitt asked the question, “What would carry the same significance in our day as the clay pot of the first century?” The answer he came up with: a cardboard box! Our bodies, to paraphrase 2 Corinthians, are like the box your new shoes came in. Like a Christmas package in a big, cardboard FedEx mailer. But within that box, as with Paul’s jars of clay, we hold a priceless treasure.
Years ago now, my own dear mother, Lindy Eareckson, left this earth for heaven. In that moment, she had no more need of the box that had wrapped her for eighty-seven years. It was empty, with worn-out corners, bends, and wrinkles. And yet it had been the vessel in which the treasure of the Spirit of Christ had dwelt. We loved that “box” because she was in it—and because she let Jesus shine through it. And He had shone all the more brightly through the edges, tears, and thin places of that box as it began to collapse with age. He was radiant in her, shining mightily as she served our family, as she stuck by my side all the years I was in the hospital, and as she gave and gave and gave.
But now the treasure is safely home, the box discarded and left behind.
The point is that Jesus revealed Himself in my mother in quite a different way than He desires to reveal Himself through me or through you. My box is not your box. My packaging is not your packaging. And I believe with all my heart that sometimes it is through the lives of those who are mentally or physically challenged, or those bearing up under suffering, that Jesus chooses to shine in the most spectacular ways.
A Place of Healing Page 6