“Praise” Coaching–Part 3: Healed
“Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits…who heals all your diseases…”
In my first church, I was a young assistant pastor serving a church with a large percentage of older people–our largest three adult Sunday school classes (that’s what they were back then) were 65 years old and up–with the upper two classes being the “older” and the “much older” widows (men in that third class knew that they were in their last one). My senior pastor believed in getting me connected to people, and that included visiting in homes, hospitals, and senior care facilities. From that time onward, familiarity with the presence of weakness, illness, and death were a part of my ministry life.
I wasn’t always the most effective in my care. One time, I had not had breakfast and been rushing around before making a hospital call around 1 pm, still not having eaten. My parishioner friend, Ruthie, was a sweet older lady who was hospitalized again in a losing battle against her disease. She smiled when she saw me, and we started talking together. However, I soon started feeling light-headed, and apparently looked rather pale, because she said, “Pastor, I think you need to sit down.” I did. And then she said, “I’ll just buzz the nurse and have her take a look at you.” She did. Other than my injured dignity, there was nothing wrong. For the rest of her days, Ruthie would give me a hard time about my ministry to the sick!
Sickness and disease are a continuing part of the fallen human condition, and while we don’t believe that every sickness is a direct judgment from God, the existence of sicknesses is a part of God’s judgment on all creation due to the rebellion of Adam and Eve that brought such ruin to us all. It isn’t just physical ailments that have come either. Emotional breakdowns, mental illness, and spiritual attacks are all our lot, as well as the diseases and afflictions of the body. Sometimes these are intertwined as well–emotional suffering can have powerful negative effects on our bodies.
When suffering comes to us, what are we to think? Psalm 103 tells us that our gracious Lord not only forgives all our iniquities, but that he “heals all our diseases.” These words hold great treasure for us, but also a few pitfalls to avoid.
Whole religions and philosophies have tried to convince us that we could exercise mind over matter and fix our brokennesses. But the truth is that the founders of all such programs got sick and died. And some of them had horrendous relationships and lived delusional lives. Their ideas didn’t work for them, or for anyone else.
Sadly, some Christians have misunderstood this and other verses in scripture that speak of healing and assumed that, if we just trust God we will always be healed of any sickness and disease that comes our way. The dark side of this way of thinking or teaching is that when we don’t get well, the assumption is that either God is a liar or we don’t have enough faith.
The context of this phrase is very helpful to us, as it speaks of this healing of diseases right after the forgiveness of all iniquities. This is a parallel structure we will see in the next verse as well that relates two phrases.
That word inquity, as was mentioned in the previous post, speaks of all that is broken and corrupted in us–primarily morally, but all of our brokenness results from sin. The healing of “all” our diseases cannot be just about never having to deal with a cold or cancer in this life. It is so much more.
First, we know that our being forgiven of our iniquities means that we will stand without guilt before God’s judgment, having had our guilt and our punishment borne by the Lord Jesus. That will result in being welcomed into the presence of the Lord forever in glorified, perfect bodies–all physical and mental brokennesses will be gone, and our spirits will be purified of all defilement.
But more than this permanent future and complete healing, the kindness of our God pours out healing grace even now–sometimes giving us a taste of our physical restoration through temporary but powerful physical healings now in answer to prayer. Other times when our spirits are overwhelmed he uses means of every stripe to bring his healing touch–discovering comfort in the Scriptures, hearing a friend’s perceptive word, listening to a worship song, or a season of prayer alone with the Lord. The list could be endless of the ways that a wound can be salved by the Great Physician.
That healing touch of comfort is something that my older friends used to regularly reference. One of the ways we would share that comfort in those days of hospital visits was through singing hymns together. Interestingly, I just heard a poem written by a blind eight year old that revealed God’s healing touch in a condition that would not go away before death.
Oh, what a happy soul I am,
although I cannot see!
I am resolved that in this world
Contented I will be.
How many blessings I enjoy
That other people don’t,
To weep and sigh because I’m blind
I cannot, and I won’t!
Those words, along with thousands of other poems, hymns, and stories, were written by Fanny Crosby. Another time, she responded to a well meaning minister who expressed his wish that God had given her sight along with her other gifts, “”Do you know that if at birth I had been able to make one petition, it would have been that I was born blind?” said the poet, who had been able to see only for her first six weeks of life. “Because when I get to heaven, the first face that shall ever gladden my sight will be that of my Savior.” Eventually, that is just what happened as she experienced the start of her forever healing.
Some of us older saints have found God’s healing of our brokenness through some of Fanny’s hymns, like “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is Mine,” “Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It, “Jesus Keep Me Near the Cross,” and a few dozen others in just about every hymnal you might find.
Today, as you may experience some recurring brokenness or some physical or spiritual attack or weakness, bless the Lord as the one who has already done what is necessary for your future wholeness, and will give you the grace that is sufficient to let you thrive in the strength you have or draw on his power in the weakness that is yours.
