Coach's Corner

Why Doesn’t God Heal Everyone Who Asks?

Why Doesn’t God Heal Everyone Who Asks?

Healing is a tricky thing sometimes. Not only does it cause immense amounts of joy for those who experience and witness the healing, but it also produces great amounts of pain and sadness for those who go without being healed. It is one topic which causes both believers and non-believers, alike, to question God’s sovereignty and power. One often finds themselves wondering why God would choose to heal some but then leave others to suffer in their pain.  Does God just reach down His hand to the earth and pick out some people to heal and leave others to continue in their equal amount of discomfort and suffering? Is it something we have done to warrant God’s seeming ignorance to our heart-ache and pain; a certain sin that only some are guilty of?

The book of Job, found in the Old Testament, provides great insight into pain and how and why God allows some to suffer so greatly. Job was the most faithful and righteous man of his day and yet God allowed, at Satan’s request, him to endure a wretched, unfair series of calamities—his crops and livestock were ruined and his family, minus his wife, were all tragically killed. Job’s friends offer him advice, suggesting that perhaps he has angered God or committed a great sin so that now he is receiving his due punishment; however, Job refuses to believe that God is punishing him and instead tries to understand what God is teaching him through this great amount of suffering. Job, although he questions God’s reasoning, chooses to remain faithful and to trust God throughout his trails. Job chose to seek the Giver (God) not because of His gifts and blessings; for when the gifts and blessing were taken away, he still chose to seek the Giver. In return for Job’s faithfulness, God rewarded him with an even greater livestock and crop and blessed him with more children.

Faith is not reserved for trusting God for miraculous healings and immediate intervention in our lives. Faith is about depending on God, even when the results don’t always correspond with our request. A painful experience can bring about two reactions; we can choose to hate God for allowing us to go through such misery. Or, we can choose to turn to him with our pain and our inability to understand. We can choose to believe Him when he promises that he has prepared a much better place for us- a perfect place without any pain; a place opposite of such a pain-wracked earth.

In his book, The Problem of Pain, C.S. Lewis wisely observes, “God whispers in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pain; it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world”. Of all people, Lewis truly understood what it was to be shouted at by God, having lost both his mother and his wife to cancer. Yet, he is able to see that God only desires to have His beloved creation, his children, listen to Him and know that He is a faithful and caring Father.
Maybe God uses pain to tell us to trust Him, as a child trusts their father. Maybe God is not trying to tell us anything specific each time we hurt. Pain and suffering are part of our planet. What else could God use to speak loudly enough we would pay attention? What else would convince us that this world is not running the way God’s creation is supposed to run? Without feeling pain and suffering from time to time, we would neglect to notice and thank God for His presence, His faithfulness and His intervention in our lives.

Posted April 28, 2008