FAITH:

 Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. – Hebrews 11:1 (NIV)

We finally heard definitively that CJ has metastatic ovarian cancer. She had her first chemo treatment 2 days ago. As any normal person would, we pray for healing for CJ! We are asking God to guide and intervene in this entire process, and of course would like to see CJ restored to full health! But as any mature Christian understands, God rarely answers our prayers just the way we want; he often has a better plan in mind, one we cannot fully grasp with our limited understanding. As the apostle Paul reminds us, now our view of God is like looking dimly into a hazy mirror, but someday we will fully be in God’s presence and see things clearly! (I Corinthians 13:12) And so before we even begin to look at God’s healing, we need to first begin by understanding what faith in God involves.

1) GOD’S WAYS ARE BIGGER AND BETTER THAN OURS!

Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways”, says the Lord. “For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts”. This means God is God, and we are not! And part of trust, or faith, in God is that God’s answer to our prayers is always in line with his “bigger picture” plan, not just what we think we want right now.

2) FAITH IS BASED ON THE ASSURANCE AND CERTAINTY OF A FUTURE HOPE!

If you already see something or know the outcome, that’s not faith; it’s just observation. I think there are 2 basic kinds of hope. The 1^st I would call preferred hope. This is common human hope that says “I want God to give me health, a great husband or wife, smart kids, a great home with good neighbors, lots of good friends, and as a Christian, a good long life loving God, serving others & sharing the good news of the gospel, and enjoying this beautiful world”. And when crisis comes, we ask God to rescue us with such things as healing, a new job, a reconciled marriage, overcoming addiction, or maybe kids that finally wise up and see the light!

The 2^nd kind of hope I call promised hope! This is what true Christian faith is anchored on. This is based upon the actual promises that God gives us in the Bible. This includes such things as forgiveness for and salvation from our sins through Jesus’ death & resurrection; strength and peace as we face various trials in life; the promise of God’s Holy Spirit dwelling within us, Jesus’ promise never to leave us nor forsake us as we go through the trials of life, the promise of new, abundant life through Jesus, and eternal life in God’s new Kingdom that will last forever! These, and many other promises, are unchanging, and we can “bank of them” with certainty! All the other “preferred” hopes we have may, or may not, be part of God’s overall, eternal plan for our specific life. Hebrews chapter 11 is considered the ultimate “faith chapter”, and highlights many people who saw God answer their “preferred” prayers, but many others who in faith didn’t get what they wanted, but looked forward to the ultimate future that God promises us all who trust in Jesus.

To see from God’s perspective, it helps to look at the Bible as God’s divine drama for our lives, based on 4 acts. Act 1 is Creation: God created a magnificent world without sin, and we were the crowning achievement, made in God’s image! We were created to live in God’s presence in the Garden of Eden forever, enjoying a sinless, wonderful life with him! Act 2 is the Fall: Adam & Eve chose to sin and disobey God, resulting in being banished from God’s presence and suffering the consequences of sin. All of creation feels the effects of sin: physical death, sickness, hatred, strife, wars, killing, mistrust, pollution, and virtually everything that makes life miserable for us and separates us from God. Act 3 is Redemption: Jesus came to earth to rescue us from the deadly effects of sin by dying in our place. And his powerful resurrection unleashed the power of God to reverse the horrific effects of sin and begin to redeem and restore us and all creation to what we were created to be! Act 4 is the Restoration: Jesus preached a new coming Kingdom of God, and anyone who trusts and believes in Him as the Son of God will be able to inherit that Kingdom! There will be no more sin here, and we will live forever in God’s presence again with new bodies that never get sick or die. We will ultimately live on a restored, new earth that in many ways may be similar to this one, but will have none of the effects of sin that plague us now, and God will dwell with us! Here we will live in what the Bible calls Shalom, which means complete wholeness, harmony, and peace with God, with each other, and with the created world itself.

HEALING:

Now that have God’s bigger picture and plan in mind, we can understand God’s healing from that perspective. Remember two things about God’s physical healing: 1) it is temporary. All of us will die at some point in the future. 2) It’s always for God’s glory. He always heals in the Bible to point to his coming Kingdom, and healing reminds us that God has power over sickness & death, and in the future Kingdom, we will never be sick or die again!

This is spring, and baseball fans are always optimistic, at least for a few weeks (even the Detroit Tiger fans!). Let’s use a baseball diamond to explain how God heals us. Consider the 4 bases:

Home plate: This is “home”, the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached about, that amazing, eternal sinless abundant life that God promises to all who put their trust in Jesus as Lord and Savior! Imagine God as the umpire, and only he decides who will safely be allowed to cross this plate into eternity.

First base: This is the first kind of healing, what many consider to be miracles or instantaneous healing. The Bible has many example of this, and this is primarily how Jesus healed people. This happens in every generation, including today, but not as frequently as in the Bible.

Second base: This is a more gradual, slow-process type healing that includes rest and use of medical knowledge, and is the most common type of temporary healing. God has created an awesome, magnificent natural world, and he has given many people wisdom and knowledge to understand how to use chemicals and natural plants to create wonderful medicines and treatments. Together with our wonderfully created bodies that have their own healing mechanisms, God uses all of this to bring healing to our bodies and souls. We are praying for CJ’s chemo treatments to have this God-inspired effect!

Third base: This is healing through physical death, and none of us who love our family and life here would “prefer” this option, at least right now! (But we will all reach 3^rd base sometime, whether we want to or not!) When I was in seminary a lifetime ago, the President of the seminary had a life-long healing ministry and told us that death is the ultimate form of God’s healing. Back then, I thought that was just a cop-out. But if we can step back and remember God’s “big picture” viewpoint, death for believers is a step into his Kingdom, an amazing new life, without sin and with a new body, more wonderful than we can ever imagine! And to carry out the baseball analogy, if you are dead on 3^rd base, you can’t go home. But God provided Jesus to be our “pinch runner”, and through his resurrection overcame the power of death and can now easily carry us “home” if we will trust him and allow him to save us and help us.

For many Christians in our world who face extreme persecution and hardship, and for others who are physically worn down due to severe physical disease or just old age, death can become a welcome relief and a portal of faith into the new life with God we all long for, deep down in our souls. The apostle Paul faced great hardship and persecution, but also loved his mission work. He felt this struggle and said “For to me, to live is Christ, and to die is gain. But if I live on in the flesh, this will mean fruit from my labor; yet what I shall choose I cannot tell. For I am hard-pressed between the two, having a desire to depart and be with Christ, which is far better.” – Philippians 1:21-24

To be brutally honest, I love Paul’s writings and I know the future Kingdom will be amazing; but Paul was a single man facing great persecution. I have shared a wonderful 41 years with an amazing wife named Claudia! And I’m praying and asking the Lord for a first or second base type of healing, at least for many more years! But whatever happens, I will always trust God to “have our back”, and I know that His thoughts and ways are marvelous and beyond what we can imagine!

Please pray for:

– God’s healing for CJ, according to his time-table and perfect plan

– peace, strength, patience, and deepening faith for us, so that God might be glorified in the way we act and live out our lives

– pray for yourselves (and we pray with you), that you can fully trust your life to Jesus, and know with assurance and peace that you are his child and he holds you in the palm of his hand!

I’ll end with an encouraging quote I read this week:

“Faith raises the soul above the difficulty, straight to God himself, and enables one to stand still. We gain nothing by our anxious and restless efforts… It is therefore true wisdom, in all times of difficulty and perplexity, to stand still—to wait only upon God, and He will assuredly open a way for us”.  – C.H. Mackintosh

God bless you all! May his peace and strength inhabit your life and soul!