“Have you anointed her and prayed for her healing?”
My wife suffers from various physical ailments—too many, in
fact, for her years. She has undergone numerous surgeries to remove tumors that
could have turned malignant. Then came surgeries to repair hernias, remove a
gall bladder, remove plantar warts, and repair carpal tunnel. She still suffers
from herniated disks in her back and neck. To top off these issues, she suffers
with fibromyalgia, degenerative arthritis, and neuropathy. Every trip to the
doctor seems to entail another medicine or a further diagnosis.
Had my wife lived in Job’s time, she would certainly have been
classified as a notorious sinner by any number of pious church folks. Although
a righteous man—declared so by God and himself—Job faced real accusations, not
hypothetical ones. Several fair-weather friends accused him of sinning against
God. Why else would he be afflicted by boils and have lost most of his family
and possessions? Even his wife told him to curse God so he could die and get
his miserable life over with.
Job, however, maintained his innocence, and at the end of the
story God corroborated his testimony. Sickness is the bane of living in a world
tainted by sin. The world God originally created was free from sickness—and all
the other results of sin—and the new world he will create at the end of time
will be identical.
While sickness came when sin entered the world, all sickness
is not the result of individual sins. If this were true, my wife would be one
of the greatest sinners in the world—when, in fact, she is quite saintly. God
can and does use sickness as a means of disciplining or punishing those who
revel in willful sin, but having a cold, flu, COVID, or some other illness or
disease doesn’t necessarily mean we’ve committed a particular sin.
When my friend asked whether I had anointed and prayed for my
wife, I answered, “Yes.” But she hasn’t been healed. Just as sickness is not
always the result of sin, so God doesn’t always choose to heal our sicknesses
when we ask. He is sovereign. We must trust his plan.
If you’re sick, examine your spiritual life. If it’s in
order, pray for healing, but leave the results to an all-wise God.
Father, we entrust our health-related matters to you. If sin
is the cause, convict us. If it’s not, then give us the courage to trust you
and endure.
I invite you to try my book Hurt, Hope, and Healing in eBook or paperback. If you seek hope and healing because of the hurts you have faced, this book is for you. Click on the title above to order your copy. And thanks to all our faithful followers who share our posts on Facebook, Twitter, and Linkedin.
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