Christians and Healing

[SchrodingersFerret]

What's your view on healing for today? For that matter, what's your view on healing in biblical times?

[Twintery]

www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=James+5:14-16

And I dont underestimate prayer as regards healing, operations doctors etc.

Why do you ask? Is someone you know sick?

[niminypiminy]

Very good questions, Schrodingers

I think there is a difference between healing and cure. Although unexplained and amazing things do happen occasionally, mostly they do not, and in my view promises that prayer will lead to cure are wrong -- and sometimes manipulative (especially if they are accompanied by the corollary, 'if it didn't work, you didn't pray enough').

Yet there is more to healing than cure. In one sense we all look forward to a true healing of ourselves beyond death, when we find our whole, complete selves with God. Healing can also mean that we find comfort and peace, and are able to live better intractable and sometimes untreatable conditions; or it might mean that we find fellowship and support in the company of other Christians; or it might be that in the dark hours of pain we are able to cry out to the suffering God, and to find consolation in the fact that he is with us. It might mean knowing that we are loved through the gentle touch or selfless attention of those caring for us.

When I pray for healing for others and myself , it is these kind of things that I am praying for. I am praying that God will be present in the situation, and will work through the human beings in it, and that the situation will be changed by his grace and mercy.

In terms of headings in the Bible, I think Jesus was an extraordinary healer. But we shouldn't lose sight of what his healings were for: he wasn't a one-man medical mission to the Middle East (because if he had been, he certainly didn't even scratch the surface of all the disease and suffering there); rather, his healings were signs of who he was.

[thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts]

I can't add anything to Niminypiminy's post only to say that these people www.acornchristian.org/ are a good resource.

[capsium]

I think Redemption through Christ includes physical as well as emotional and spiritual healing.

However just as some one is not completely perfected in Christ in this life, full healing may not occur in this life either. There can be an inertia there, for the spirit to manifest into the physical, old mechanisms can take a while to change sometimes.

One thing I will say is that stress has been observed to be at the root of a lot of illnesses. I have certainly found my Faith has helped me overcome this.

I think Hope and Faith are extremely important in this life and cling on to them, where there is Life there is Hope, for me.

[SchrodingersFerret]

Thanks for the thoughts. I'm pondering it a lot atm, as I'm ill myself and on strong medication. It would be rather nice not to be, iyswim.

[madhairday]

I absolutely agree with niminy's post. I think God does so much more than we even imagine, somehow, that deep healing can take place which may not look anything like the healing we would expect or even desire.

However, I know God heals in some extreme ways today as well. Interestingly, these types of signs seem to happen far more in countries where there is a/ poverty and b/persecution of Christians. I'm not sure why, but I wonder if there is an edginess involved in believing in God's grace and power and living in such situations, a kind of thinner place, almost. Like niminy said, Jesus' healings were always signs, and we musn't forget this today. Somehow, we need to reconcile it all, but it's impossible too. I like the description of it I have heard as 'the now and the not yet' - like windows of the 'not yet' break through into the 'now', pointing to what the kingdom is meant to be. Does that make any sense? Sometimes these 'windows' are more incredible than others. I do know people healed of various things, including myself of a damaged leg many years back. However, I have lived with lung disease, chronic and degenerative,, all my life, and have not been 'healed'. I have come across some of the pressure niminy mentions - the whole 'you need to pray more', 'you haven't got enough faith', 'you haven't claimed your healing' etc etc. It's terrible, just terrible, to say this to a sick person, putting the blame on them for 'not being healed.' But who are they to say what healing God is doing in my life?

I have often said this, but it's in my deepest moments of pain that I sometimes encounter God most profoundly and healing takes place. People can keep getting despondent because my lungs are still fucked up, but actually, something else is happening, something I wouldn't miss out on for the world. People may see this as a cop out - kind of 'oh, she's not been healed so she's justifying it all', but actually it's not that at all, it's that I have found God in the pain, found God in the non-healing of the pain. Maybe God will heal up my lungs physically this side of eternity, whatever. Of course it would be good to be without this hideous pain and non stop round of infections. But is it the be all and end all? i am not sure.

I struggle with it. I do. Especially when we pray for children to be healed and they are not. It's easy to become despairing and despondent. What is God doing? Why can't God 'make' the 'not yet' come into this 'now?' I don't know.

I think healthcare can be amazing too, so many people gifted, and so much natural resource. I think God uses it all the time, as I believe all that is good originates in God.

A good friend of mine was healed of skin cancer once, many years back. As in one day it was all there, the next she went for a scan and it had all disappeared, after prayer. Doctors were flummoxed. She got cancer again 5 years later and died. Why? Who knows. But in that, there was a sign of the not yet, at that time for that person and that community.

'Through a glass darkly'....

sorry for essay....hobbyhorse subject

[niminypiminy]

MHD I need a votive candle icon.

That was a wonderful, moving post.

[thegreenheartofmanyroundabouts]

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[cloutiedumpling]

What a great post MHD. It is a subject I always struggle with.