The answer is a resounding – yes! The Father cares about us with a burning passion. He wants us to find His peace, His joy, His love and healing touch. I think I’m a typical Christian in that my thinking about healing has been shrouded in my conformity to the world’s patterns. It has taken many years but I see God totally different than I did almost thirty years ago. I’ve added layers and layers of conformity to my character but as I begin to shed these ill-fitting ideas I’ve begun to see the world through His eyes.
Take for instance suffering. The world has taught me to run away, avoid and even hide from suffering. I complain and ask God why must I suffer? But look at it through His perspective. In God’s economy, suffering is not negative. We see it that way but He doesn’t. He uses the negative effects of the fall from our lofty heights in the Garden of Eden and turns them into something very useful. He is shaping our character so that we become like Jesus. This is not an easy process; considering the lump of clay that we have become, into something that is beautiful and glorious – just like His Son.
We have conformed to the world’s standards that says suffering is bad, therefore avoid suffering. But the Father says yield to suffering, embrace it, learn from it, and eventually find joy in your suffering. If we deny Him this part of our lives we are denying His sovereignty. We are saying that we do not believe He is here in our pit of despair when all the time He has never let go of our hand. If we can go through that process we will find that nothing can ever again disturb our peace that we have in Christ.
I’ve found that once I’ve yielded myself to suffering, healing takes place on all levels; physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. It takes His Spirit down into the darkest areas of my being, where I’ve hidden myself from His loving hands since the beginning of my life.
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Totally agree with you my brother! Any of the Yogic religions (Hindu, Buddhist) will say that human suffering is illusion-nonexistant and yet they see charitable giving as a dharma or duty-why if it’s all a sham. Christianity says the true God identifies with and participates with suffering thus elevating Mankind’s plight to the place where God can work with our suffering to turn it into something it does not appear to be!
And I have seen family members and others healed by God’s mercy and it was associated with prayer and other things done at the human level usually originating out of the community of believers.
I have also seen Sovereign God do other things than answer the prayer prayed the way the person desired! That never meant God stopped caring!
Great comment Steve. Christians have tried to deal with suffering in many ways but i think if it was accepted and used as God intended it would not only benefit us greatly but, and maybe more importantly, it would bring us closer to understanding our relationship with Him.