And Behind Door #2 ...

Growing up I would look forward to some of the perks of summer--freedom from school and binging on game shows. One of my all time favorites offered participants their choice of several doors. The fact that they got to keep whatever was behind the door they picked fascinated me. Sometimes the prizes were out of this world--sometimes not so much.

In our Christian walk, healing is kind of like that game show, the difference being that the prize is always great. "Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning" (James 1:17). In other words, the healing God gives will always be super! The only unknown in healing, though, is which door to knock on. What is the avenue God will use this time to bless us?

In the Gospels--as well as across the Bible--we see many different ways in which God blessed with healing. In John 9:5 Jesus spit in the mud, applied the mud to the blind man's eyes, and told him to go wash in the pool of Siloam. Jesus didn't even pray! In John 8:5 Jesus simply reached out and touched a leper saying "I am willing, be clean!" and he was clean. in Matthew 9 He forgave the sins of a man sick of the palsy and to prove to the doubters that he did indeed have power to forgive sins, He healed the guy. He told him to pick up his bed and go home. And he did. In other stories in the Gospels we find even more ways. While the elements of seeking Him and having faith were a constant, the avenue in which Jesus chose to heal when He walked on this earth as a man varied widely, and guess what--He hasn't changed!

Hebrews 13:8 says, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." This means that even in this day and age He will heal one way one time, another another time. He does not limit Himself to one single avenue (door)! While the end result in this Divine show will always be good, it's really God who picks the door for us. Let me 'splain you (as Ricky Ricardo used to say).

Many moons ago Dennis was diagnosed with a snarky skin condition. The doc prescribed some lotion and told him to be prepared to use it for the rest of his life. Dennis prayed, reminding the Lord of His promise that healing was paid for on Calvary (1 Peter 2:24). Many prayers and years of lotion later, Dennis looked down at his hands one day and, wouldn't you know it? The "life long" skin condition had disappeared, never to return! It didn't happen overnight, but it happened. God is faithful to His promises.

Another door of healing Dennis walked through still boggles my mind. He had gone fishing with his best friend at his friend's sister's house in Arkansas. In the morning, the sister, a godly woman, told Dennis that in the night the Lord had told her to tell Dennis to go to the doctor about the thing he had on his head. Dennis knew what she was talking about. He had seen a spot on his head, up in his hair, but hadn't given it much thought. Since he knew the spot was not obviously visible to others, he knew this word had to be from the Lord and he obeyed the admonition. It turned out that the spot was a skin cancer the doctor was able to take care of easy-peasy. The interesting question is this. The sister who received the word from the Lord knew nothing about the spot Dennis had seen. The word God gave her had to be given supernaturally. If God could supernaturally give a word to that sister to give Dennis, couldn't He just as supernaturally snap His creative fingers and make that cancer disappear? Of course He could. But God cannot be put in a box. He did not choose to heal that way on this occasion. He gave a supernatural word of knowledge to His daughter to share with Dennis and then used the hands of a doctor to deliver him from this affliction. Go figure.

FYI--if "simple" skin cancers are not taken care of, they can grow to such a degree that they become life threatening. There is no doubt in my mind that this divine intervention is why Dennis is with us today. I kind of think God worked this way to let us know that it is not a sin to go see a doctor, a precept widely held in some circles. The trick is to put our faith in God and what He can do through the doctor. You can read in 2 Chronicles 16:2 about a king who trusted only in the docs, did not seek God and, ahem, the results weren't too good.

Then there was my first husband, Steve. I had seen him healed of a childhood affliction by standing on God's Word (basically that's when God quickens a passage to you and you remind God of it when you pray). In that instance, he was healed overnight. A few years later he was severely burned on 40% of his body. We prayed and claimed God's promises of healing. But this time the healing didn't happen overnight. Many surgeries and therapies later, he still had a stubborn infection that kept the wounds on his back alive and kicking. Not realizing that there are many doors in which to walk through for healing left me feeling like a deer caught in the headlights. Where was God? Why hadn't the healing happened instantaneously?

To make a long story short, Steve continued to stand on God's promises. Not once did I hear a negative comment come out of his mouth. And no, he had no hidden sin. As his helpmeet, I can testify that he walked with God closer then than he ever had before, with a clean heart. Then, on the last night of a missionary trip to Belize, he got up to minister and felt heat go all over his back from top to bottom. He wondered what it was since it was February and the building was cold. It was only in the morning when his missionary friend helped him put the medicinal cream for the open wounds on his back that he learned what the heat had been. God had healed his back, a back now covered with beautiful pink new skin. Every wound was closed, to open never more. Nine months of standing on God's Word, then the healing manifested itself. In other words, God is faithful, but the healing might not be immediate.

It might not be like the time Steve was preaching about forgiveness and a lady in the congregation got up all excited. She had been harboring unforgiveness but, as he taught, she forgave the offense--and the big tumor that had been sticking out of her stomach immediately disappeared. Or like the lady in Mexico with extremely misshapen fingers. She prayed to prepare her heart for the Lord's supper and, as she partook of it, her fingers straightened out. So yes, there are times when healing is instantaneous. But there are other times when we need to keep knocking on the door.

Some people consider it a sin to remind the Lord of His promises, to lift our needs before Him more than once. "Lack of faith!" they cry. Really? In Mark 8:22-26 Jesus Himself prayed twice for a blind man! If Jesus, the Creator, the One Who gave His life for us on the cross to purchase our redemption and He Who payed the price for our healing, if Jesus prayed twice, don't you think we can, too?

I could go on and on with stories from my life and those around me who have experienced a healing touch from God in many different ways. But it all boils down to this: don't give up. Find a Scripture that "speaks" to you, stand on it, remind the Lord of it ... and wait for Him to lead you to the right door.

And, having said that, I will close with a dream Brother Bobby Ewing from Waco, Texas, had. He dreamt that he was in a hospital to pray for healing for the people in a ward. He would pray for a person, give him/her a flower, and the person would die. He'd go to the next person, pray, same result. When he woke up he complained to the Lord, "Lord, if everyone I pray for is going to die, I don't want to pray for anyone." The Lord told him, "It is your job to pray, it is my job to heal."

I heard this when I was young and, frankly, didn't understand it. Now, with decades of Christian walk and ministry under my belt, I understand it a little. We have been called to pray for those who need healing. But the results are in God's hands. I hate to break it to you, but there are times when He will heal on the other side of Heaven.

My first husband Steve, he of the healed back? After a year of standing on God's Word for cancer, never ever evincing doubt in God's faithfulness or power, he succumbed to the disease. Of course I struggled with this outcome. The truth is, though, that we can do and say all the right things, all the faith things, but Job 14:5 says that God has determined the exact day of our death. So in the instance of cancer, God did heal Steve--in Heaven. Not what we wanted, but he joined the saints who are even this day being added on to the list in Hebrews 11, saints who believed God but didn't live to see the fulfillment of their prayers here on earth.

We are not God. He is. He has a plan for each and every one of us. But just because some will be healed in Heaven, does that mean we fold our hands and give up? No! We put on the armor of God and do battle as children of the Most High God. We do not give up--we stand, and leave the results to Him.

Knock on the door of healing. Wait. Keep praying. Keep believing. The right one will open!

"... And, having done all, ... stand" (Ephesians 6:13).