I intend to investigate sickness and healing among other things over this series of Nuggets. There are those who feel that healing is ours by right because it is found in the atonement. The classic verse used to back up that claim is found in Isaiah 53:5. We can just simply name it and claim it on the basis of:
But He was wounded for our transgressions; He was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His wounds we ourselves are healed. [LITV]Isa 53:5
I don’t intend at analyse this verse at this time. I merely wish to broach the subject and lay the challenge before us. There are two schools of thought related to the matter of healing.
- The Name it and Claim it School
- The Need for a Theology of Suffering School
These two views are diametrically opposed and can come into open debate and worse when confrontations arise. Depending which camp you find yourself in strongly influences your personal view on how to view health, sickness, healing, prosperity, suffering and the reasons behind whether a person is healed or not. These issues and our belief as to what is correct determine not only what we think and feel on these related topics. But also determine any advice we are likely to hand out to family, friends and foe alike and anyone else who will listen.
I’d like to share with you an anecdotal example from Jennifer Rothschild’s book God Is Just Not Fair: Finding Hope When Life Doesn’t Make Sense. Jennifer is a remarkable writer with an honesty that is refreshing and a willingness to address the hard stuff. She has been blind since she was 15 and she wrote her book when she was 50. She has a wonderful way of telling it like it is which I highly value. She tells the story of being asked to share three messages at a Women’s Conference. Jennifer shared her story of living with blindness yet living in faith with sound biblical examples. She assumed the organiser of the conference would realise they were getting (as Jennifer puts it) a walking poster child from the “God doesn’t always heal” school. However this Conference was comprised of women who came from “the name it and claim it” brigade. At the end of each of Jennifer’s messages the organizer felt to bring increasingly pointed rebuttals to each of the three messages Jennifer had shared. Finally the organizer belittled Jennifer on stage in an attempt to correct her theology and then called for the women who believed they deserved to be healed to stand and demonstrate they deserved to be healed. ‘Deserved to be healed’ seriously? To make matters worse at the end of the Conference the Organizer said, “I would like thank our little speaker.” Really, the unmitigated gall of the woman. You can read the whole story beginning on page 23 of Jennifer’s book. The story would be funny if it weren’t so sad and unbiblical.
In my opinion the saddest aspect of this division into two schools of thought is the hurt and harm caused to those going through a struggle when facing illness, pain, grief or suffering of any kind. At the time when we should be supporting those suffering many have a tendency to cloud the issue which false theology. It happens all too frequently. Many of our friends, family and acquaintances have been told they must have sin in their life if they have long term on-going sickness. Those claim we all have a right to be healed say we need to simply believe that all sickness and disease can be healed in Jesus’ name. Statements like this have a profound effect on those who have been sick with long term illness. In our Bible College there was a band of zealots who regularly visiting those who were sick or struggling with issues in order to pray for them for healing to set them free from their sickness or depression etc. I found myself following in the wake of those zealots to bring balance and encouragement to those not healed but informed they had sin in their life. Friends, let‘s agree to seek God’s truth on these matters and not wilfully harm our fellow believers in a misguided belief that if you are not healed when the healing brigade have visited and prayed for you then the fault is yours. You clearly don’t have enough faith or you have sin.
Mixed up into the amalgam of thought on this are multiple views, doctrines and theological positions. All of which result in confusion and chaos and leave people rather bewildered and bemused. Now where does God fit in all of this mess? Some think God has headed for the hills. It is in the midst of our most difficult, darkest time when we dare to pray and find that God is silent. We hear nothing from God on the matter. Instead we hear the clamour of human voices bringing us their considered opinion or God’s truth. Why does God hide himself at the precise moment we really need to hear from Him? How do we handle the matter of unanswered prayer at our moment of crisis? How do we cope with polarised human opinion at a time when we need sound, godly advice to quiet our inner turmoil?
One way of handling the dilemma is to adopt the belief that I am not sick, feeling down or discouraged. I don’t have some strange illness, I am simply being lied to by the devil and I need to believe God’s word that I am the head and not tail. I am on the winning side and so I just need to have faith, trust God and deny the symptoms in order to appropriate my healing. This approach is widely taught but is fraught with difficulty in that the view is not in touch with reality. In many church circles it is considered wrong to speak out or embrace negativity. This viewpoint has many expressions or forms of manifestations but are really not in harmony with real life or biblical teaching. Bad things do happen to righteous followers of God who are seeking to live in accord with Jesus’ teaching and who surprisingly are also believing in faith to be healed. I will deal with the challenges to reason in this series of Puzzling Paradox Nuggets. I will also share real life experiences with you to help us come to a better understanding of the Truth of God’s Word. We need to strive to be biblical and balanced.
I like to gain input and insight from those who have walked the walk. Those who can share God’s truth with a strong dose of reality, having worked it out themselves in the forge of affliction. I look for that kind of person because there is a ring of truth about what they say but also I know it to be true in my own life. Before I went through some hard stuff I myself was more likely to give you canned, processed Christian clichés and platitudes in the guise of God’s principles. But going through the tough stuff pruned that tendency from me. I don’t consider myself to be up for this task I face of sharing this Nuggets series with you. I have promised you honesty and a willingness to address the hard questions with a wealth of real-life examples to share – mine and others’. One further step I have taken is to gather some more “friends” around me to give me a more balanced perspective – those friends are carefully chosen books by people who evidence that they share God’s truth on this matter because they have been through the tough stuff. They know how to share the comfort with which they have been comforted. They have formed their advice as they themselves have been through the fire. Jennifer Rothschild is one of those people. There are more of her insights to come in later Nuggets, but not too many to ensure I don’t infringe copyright, Her book is one I would heartily recommend.
Chika is a dear valued friend from Jakarta who I am including with her permission as a Friend Link1 who is willing to share her part in the story with you if you wish to contact her. I worked with Chika in Jakarta and want to tell you of one on-going encounter that we had together. We would pass each other on the stairs multiple times during the course of working in the same building for a couple of years or more. Each time I saw Chika on the stairs I would greet her with, “Morning Chika, how are you?”
Her response to me was always the same, “Excellent, excellent.”
After uncountable repetitions of this patterned greeting I broke the pattern by saying to her one morning, “I don’t believe you Chika.”
That response caused a reaction it seems because she said in a shocked voice, “Pak Ian, why did you say that? Why did you say you don’t believe me?”
I said, “Because every day when I ask you how you are, you say “Excellent, excellent”. I don’t believe that you can be ‘excellent excellent’ every day.”
“Why Pak Ian? Why do you say that?”
“Because we are all human beings living in a fallen world. We just can’t be ‘excellent excellent’ every day. We go up and down with mood swings and the hard stuff we encounter in life. There are times when we are up and times when we are down.”
Chika stopped and retraced her steps down the stairs toward me in order to share with a tear in her eye that indeed that was true.
Chika had been led to believe that she must always have a positive confession. We need to be freed to be real and to tell it like it is. We all live in a fallen world and we experience physical pain, soul pain and even spiritual pain with monotonous regularity. [I will explain those terms in a following Nugget.] Rather than keep up the image of a strong exterior, always being on the winning side, we need to confess how things really are in order to gain good advice and learn to heal. Instead we hide the pain behind the masks of unreality we wear. Just choose carefully with whom you share your inner self. Make sure they can be trusted with knowing the inner you. Don’t share TOO MUCH with that trusted person. There are some things you should only share in prayer with your Heavenly Father.
Our true value to our family, friends, acquaintances and strangers we meet is found in being real. We all need to find a sound theology of suffering.
To be continued . . .
To close this Nugget I would like to share with you something from the internet. It seems highly appropriate for this Covid ridden world.
Footnote 1 I have explained the idea of Friend Link in the About section of this website.