Longing for Healing

Within all of us, there is a longing to be healthy, and if we are sick, to be healed. It’s inbuilt—a desire to deal with the effects of The Fall (more like “The Crash”) in the Garden of Eden, when our first parents succumbed to the wiles of Satan. And for those who experience unrelenting pain, unanswered prayers for relief from depression, or a weary hope for a return to good health, there is more than a longing—it’s more like a “groaning” as Paul puts it in Romans 8:22-23.… we ourselves … groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for the adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies.

That’s hopeful groaning. Part of the agony of longing to be healed is trying to maintain hope when we are still sick or incapacitated.

Paul desperately wanted healing—for his painful thorn to be removed. If his thorn was an illness he longed to get well. If it was a relational thorn, he longed to experience relational and emotional healing. His three memorable prayer vigils make that clear. Paul also cared about healing others. The book of Acts records multiple times God used Paul to heal sick folk. In Lystra, he healed a paralyzed man (Acts 14:8-20). In Malta, he laid hands on a sick man and healed him. The word went out about this and sick people from all over the island came and were cured (Acts 28:7-10).

When our third child, Craig, was three months old, he contracted pneumococcal meningitis. Even though we were in the “God doesn’t heal people miraculously” camp at the time, we unashamedly called as many friends as possible to pray for his complete healing. God answered those prayers. Miraculously he was restored to one hundred percent brain function.

Let’s admit it, we all yearn to be in good health, and if we are not, to be healed. And as the Lord Jesus, the Great Physician demonstrated, God’s heart is for healing.

Excerpts from The Point of Your Thorns: Finding Purpose in Your Pain

by Rowland Forman