Why Won’t God Heal Amputees? is a popular website and one-time viral YouTube video. The basic premise of the content is that God doesn’t answer prayer since God has never healed an amputee, and by extension doesn’t heal every person of every infirmity. God, therefore, does not really exist.

 While there are obvious false assumptions made about God, prayer, and healing (how does one know that in the whole world God has not healed an amputee, for starters) many who do pray for healing often fail to experience it in the way they expect. Healing rarely parallels a conventional or traditional sense of that word. Loved ones die of cancer, friends are killed in car accidents, economic catastrophe befalls even the most frugal, and people in much of the developing world die from diseases long cured in the West. Beyond the realm of physical healing, many experience emotional and psychological trauma that leave open and festering wounds. Or, there are those perpetual personality ticks and quirks that seem beyond the reach of the supernatural. Given all of this contrary experience, what does it mean to receive healing, and should one hold out hope that healing can come in this world? Specifically, for those who pray, and for those who believe that God does heal, how might the persistence of wounds—psychological, emotional and physical—be understood?    

 In a recent New York Times article, Marcia Mount Shoop writes of her horrific rape as a fifteen year-old girl.(1) A descendant of three generations of ministers, she ran to the safest place she knew—the church. Yet as she stood amid the congregants singing hymns and reciting creeds, she felt no relief. Even her favorite verse from Romans—”And we know that in all things God works for good with those who love him”—sounded hollow and brought little comfort. How could she ever be healed of this horrific act of violence perpetrated against her will?   

Once at home, alone with the secret of her rape, Marcia Shoop found something that enabled her to survive. “I felt Jesus so close,” she recalled in an interview. “It wasn’t the same Jesus I experienced at church. It was this tiny, audible whisper that said, ‘I know what happened. I understand.’ And it kept me alive, that frayed little thread.” (2)

 The hope that Jesus was physically close to her in her pain led Ms. Shoop to become a minister herself more than a quarter century after her horrific rape. It also led her to more deeply connect her body with her soul and mind. This reconnection of the body with soul and with mind is where she experienced what she would call “healing.” God was with her in the living, breathing, physical reality of Jesus who likewise continued to bear the wounds of his own crucifixion and torture after the gospel writers testify to him having been raised from the dead. 

The gospel of John records the risen Jesus as inviting Thomas to “reach your finger and see my hands; and reach your hand, and put it into my side.”(3) Jesus was not a disembodied spirit without flesh and blood as a result of his resurrection from the dead. He was a body, and a body that was wounded. Even the resurrection did not take away his bodily scars! This reality can bring great hope to those who follow Jesus and to those who wonder about how they might find healing at all. For healing did equate a lack of wounding, or physical perfection—being untouched by the sorrow and suffering of a world gone horribly wrong—even for Jesus.

 For Ms. Shoop, healing didn’t mean the total erasure of the pain and horror of her rape, as difficult as it was to bear that wound. But it meant that she encountered the wounded God in the person of Jesus who continued to bear the scars and wounds of his crucifixion. As she recalled, “What happened to me wasn’t “for the good,” referring again to her favorite passage in Romans. But God took the garbage, the stench [of that horrible event] and gently, tenderly, indignantly wove it into this moment of redemption. What a gift.”(4)

 Healing is not a gift that comes instantly, nor does it always look like what we expect. It is often a slow, painful journey through the void and desolation of suffering. It will not erase our wounds. Yet, the promise of resurrection, of new life that comes even with wounded hands and sides, offers another picture of healing where our humanity is honored and redeemed.

Margaret Manning is a member of the speaking and writing team at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries in Seattle, Washington.

 (1) Samuel G. Freedman, “A Rape Survivor Now Ministers Body and Soul,” The New York Times Online, June 29, 2012, accessed June 29, 2012.
(2) Ibid.
(3) John 20:27.
(4) Samuel G. Freedman, “A Rape Survivor Now Ministers Body and Soul,” The New York Times Online, June 29, 2012, accessed June 29, 2012.

Morning “They shall go hindmost with their standards.” / Numbers 2:31

 The camp of Dan brought up the rear when the armies of Israel were on the

march. The Danites occupied the hindmost place, but what mattered the

position, since they were as truly part of the host as were the foremost

tribes; they followed the same fiery cloudy pillar, they ate of the same

manna, drank of the same spiritual rock, and journeyed to the same

inheritance. Come, my heart, cheer up, though last and least; it is thy

privilege to be in the army, and to fare as they fare who lead the van. Some

one must be hindmost in honour and esteem, some one must do menial work for

Jesus, and why should not I? In a poor village, among an ignorant peasantry;

or in a back street, among degraded sinners, I will work on, and “go hindmost

with my standard.”

 The Danites occupied a very useful place. Stragglers have to be picked up upon

the march, and lost property has to be gathered from the field. Fiery spirits

may dash forward over untrodden paths to learn fresh truth, and win more souls

to Jesus; but some of a more conservative spirit may be well engaged in

reminding the church of her ancient faith, and restoring her fainting sons.

Every position has its duties, and the slowly moving children of God will find

their peculiar state one in which they may be eminently a blessing to the

whole host.

 The rear guard is a place of danger. There are foes behind us as well as

before us. Attacks may come from any quarter. We read that Amalek fell upon

Israel, and slew some of the hindmost of them. The experienced Christian will

find much work for his weapons in aiding those poor doubting, desponding,

wavering, souls, who are hindmost in faith, knowledge, and joy. These must not

be left unaided, and therefore be it the business of well-taught saints to

bear their standards among the hindmost. My soul, do thou tenderly watch to

help the hindmost this day.

 

Evening “Neither shall one thrust another; they shall walk every one in his path.” / Joel 2:8

 Locusts always keep their rank, and although their number is legion, they do

not crowd upon each other, so as to throw their columns into confusion. This

remarkable fact in natural history shows how thoroughly the Lord has infused

the spirit of order into his universe, since the smallest animate creatures

are as much controlled by it as are the rolling spheres or the seraphic

messengers. It would be wise for believers to be ruled by the same influence

in all their spiritual life. In their Christian graces no one virtue should

usurp the sphere of another, or eat out the vitals of the rest for its own

support. Affection must not smother honesty, courage must not elbow weakness

out of the field, modesty must not jostle energy, and patience must not

slaughter resolution. So also with our duties, one must not interfere with

another; public usefulness must not injure private piety; church work must not

push family worship into a corner. It is ill to offer God one duty stained

with the blood of another. Each thing is beautiful in its season, but not

otherwise. It was to the Pharisee that Jesus said, “This ought ye to have

done, and not to have left the other undone.” The same rule applies to our

personal position, we must take care to know our place, take it, and keep to

it. We must minister as the Spirit has given us ability, and not intrude upon

our fellow servant’s domain. Our Lord Jesus taught us not to covet the high

places, but to be willing to be the least among the brethren. Far from us be

an envious, ambitious spirit, let us feel the force of the Master’s command,

and do as he bids us, keeping rank with the rest of the host. To-night let us

see whether we are keeping the unity of the Spirit in the bonds of peace, and

let our prayer be that, in all the churches of the Lord Jesus, peace and order

may prevail.

Let not one of them escape. 1 Kings 18:40 

When the prophet Elijah had received the answer to his prayer, and the fire from heaven had consumed the sacrifice in the presence of all the people, he called upon the assembled Israelites to take the priests of Baal and sternly cried, “Let not one of them escape.” He took them all down to the brook Kishon and slew them there. So must it be with our sins—they are all doomed; not one must be preserved.

Our darling sin must die. Do not spare it because it cries. Strike though it be as dear as a beloved son. Strike, for God struck at sin when it was laid upon His own Son. With stern unflinching purpose you must condemn to death that sin that was once the idol of your heart. Do you ask how you are to accomplish this? Jesus will be your power. You have grace to overcome sin, given you in the covenant of grace; you have strength to win the victory in the crusade against inward lusts because Christ Jesus has promised to be with you even unto the end.

If you would triumph over darkness, set yourself in the presence of the Sun of Righteousness. There is no place so well adapted for the discovery of sin and recovery from its power and guilt as the immediate presence of God. Job never knew how to get rid of sin half as well as he did when his eye of faith rested upon God, and then he abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes.

The fine gold of the Christian is often becoming dim. We need the sacred fire to consume the dross. Let us fly to our God. He is a consuming fire; He will not consume our spirit, but our sins. Let the goodness of God excite us to a sacred jealousy and to a holy revenge against those iniquities that are hateful in His sight. Go forth to battle in His strength and utterly destroy the accursed crew: “Let not one of them escape.”

Family Reading Plan Jeremiah 13 Matthew 27