It's a Long Story... Part 3.

If you want to start at the beginning, here's Part 1.

The next day was Sunday. My wife and I volunteer every other week teaching a preschooler class, and I wanted to let our children's pastor and her assistant know what was going on. We got prayed for by the whole team of children's volunteers, and as a bonus, the assistant gave me what turned out to be really great advice. "Christ the Healer by F. F. Bosworth is on YouTube for free, the whole thing," she told us. "Google it up and listen to it!" I did Google it up, but here it is so you don't have to:

I grew up in churches that believe that God still heals people today, and much of what is in this 100+ year old book was familiar territory... in fact, there was a copy of it in my house when I was a teenager! But if I ever read it, I didn't read it with my mind open to what it was actually saying, rather than what I expected it to say. There were no Scriptures in the book that I hadn't heard, but there were some concepts that I don't remember ever being part of messages about healing when I was a kid (or an adult). For example:

• The Bible never says that every ailment will be healed instantly by a miracle. It says that you should lay hands on the sick, and they will recover. Have you ever been in "recovery" after a hospital procedure? I have... it doesn't happen instantaneously. Usually it takes days to fully recover. There are miracles that are instant, definitely, but there is also a slow steady recovery. Bosworth tells this funny story about promising a child you will buy her some new clothes: "Suppose again, that after you promise her the new dress, she runs to the mirror to see if she looks any more 'dressed up.' She then says: 'I cannot see any difference; I do not look a bit better'; and then gives up the idea of having a new dress." Just because you might not see the answer in an immediate miracle doesn't mean it doesn't belong to you!
  
  
• Healing for your body is exactly as much a promise from God as salvation of your soul. Romans 8:11 says "If the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit who dwells in you." In Psalm 103:2-3 it says "Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits, who forgives all your iniquity, who heals all your diseases..." Forgiveness of iniquity is placed on the same footing here with healing of diseases. It's one of the benefits of putting your faith in God! (I've blogged about this before... check it out here.)
  
  
• Symptoms and diagnoses exist. They are not imaginary, and it's not faith to pretend they are not there. When a doctor, who is a scientist, tells you what he observes in your body, there is no reason to think he is being dishonest with you. However, those real things that exist are the actual liars! The symptoms that exist in your body are liars, because they are trying to convince you that God's healing isn't available to you. I think this is a key idea that a lot of  "faith people" have missed. If you have a cold, and you say "I do not have a cold," then you become a liar. But if you have a cold and you say "Lord, I thank you because Your healing of this cold belongs to me, and I am ready to see it happen in my body!" then that is faith! Don't let your symptoms lie to you!

The next week we visited with the oncologist again, and found out what my chemotherapy treatment schedule will probably be like. We don't believe in ignoring a health problem just because you prayed about it... I'll talk more about that in the next post. We also asked him whether it was okay for me to continue to teach the class and also volunteer on church worship team, and he said as long as I am physically up to it (chemo can make you very tired) and as long as I am careful to keep clean around the kids (for my safety and theirs), it's okay to continue to do those things. I've been told by several nurses at the treatment center that it's important to continue to do the things that give you joy if you can, and nothing gives me more joy than sharing Jesus with others!

More to come...