The topic of healing prayer is a sensitive one for many people. We all desire healing in our lives, yet life experience suggests that sometimes people don’t experience physical or emotional healing. Then the question becomes why.
The normal answer is that the person is at fault, God is at fault, or God’s will is not to heal. I find any of these answers to be unsatisfactory and simplistic.
As a spiritual director, I believe strongly in God’s desire to bring restoration to hurting people. In the case of physical ailments, healing may come through medical assistance, change of physical activity and diet, healing prayer or other supernatural intervention, or some combination of all these approaches. Emotional healing may also come through supernatural intervention through prayer or prophecy, but usually also requires some form of counseling or behavioral change.
When healing does not occur, in my mind it is to simple to blame God or ourselves. It is better to continue to pursue steps toward healing, while recognizing that life sometimes turns out terribly wrong. This is part of the mystery of a broken world, God’s action in our world, and human free will. I don’t pretend to understand the mystery of God’s healing or seemingly lack of intervention sometimes, nor do I assume humans are always responsible for what goes on wrong in this world. I instead choose to keep praying and hoping for emotional and physical healing in my life and the lives of all other people who are in pain.
My general perspective is Jesus wills to bring healing to everyone. When people do not experience that healing, I live with the paradox of that reality without trying to resolve it. Does this make me weak minded. No, I think it is a sign of courage when we pursue to live like Jesus even amidst the ambiguities of life. The reason I believe God wills to heal is because Jesus never demonstrated any other perspective and I trust Jesus to be a full representation of the likeness of God in human form.
May God guide all of us as we seek to be healing agents in a hurting world. May we follow the example of Jesus.
