Spiritual Healing First

Jehovah Rapha - the God who heals.  This has to be one of my favourite names of God.  We're going through the names of God in a series at church and this was the name we learned more about on Sunday.  My friend also loves this name and named her farm "Rafa Place" (I suppose the English spelling of it).  I love that she did that as it signifies all the healing that has gone on in her life.  She never wants to forget and she wants others to know.

Many Scriptures were used to show how God is a healer, but the one I loved the most was the one in Mark 2 about the healing of the paralytic.  This has to be the craziest story.  There was no room in the house where he was preaching, so, in the most amazingly creative way, these 4 friends of the paraylzed man, cut a hole through the roof (how they did that without disturbing the entire event is amazing in itself).  Then, they lowered him down right in front of Jesus.  But Jesus doesn't heal him. At least not right away.  It's recorded that Jesus noticed not the man, but the faith of his friends. Maybe the man had lost his faith and had given up hope.  Maybe that's why the friends had to step in and take such desperate measures.  It says nothing of the faith of the paralyzed man.  How we all need to be friends like that and pray that God gives us people in our lives that will step in and help us when we have no faith!

Next, Jesus shocks the crowd....by not healing him.  At least not physically.  Jesus said, "Son, your sins are forgiven."  Ok.  That's not actually why we brought him.  Uh, a healing, please?  This is where the pastor said, "Isn't this what we do all the time?  We beg God for a healing of our disease or our marriages or whatever it is we need healed, but God says, 'Your sins are forgiven'."  That really struck me.  God is more concerned with our spiritual healing than our physical healing.  I immediately thought of the prayer we've prayed for many years.  Heal our debt.  Make it all better. No, make it go away.  Yeah, make it go away, so I don't have any worries in life.  But God says, "Your sins are forgiven."  God has been more concerned with all the spiritual lessons we've needed to learn.  He absolutely could have healed our debt and made it all go away the second we started to pray, but He knew we needed healing in other areas of our life first.  I need to be so grateful that He knows what is best for me.  One day, I could be the richest person on earth, but it wouldn't matter...eventually I will die and then I have an eternity ahead of me.  I would rather stay in debt and learn all the lessons He wants me to learn than have no debt, but be spiritually corrupt.

However, the story doesn't end there.  Jesus then knows the thoughts of the scribes around him, "questioning in their hearts, 'Why does this man speak like that?  He is blaspheming!  Who can forgive sins but God Alone?'"  In order to show them that He had authority to forgive sins, "he said to the paralytic, 'I say to you, rise, pick up your bed, and go home.'"  The man was instantly healed and "all were amazed and glorified God saying, 'We never saw anything like this!'"  This gives me hope that one day, God may see fit to heal us in the way we hope. Perhaps once we have learned the lessons we need to learn, but I have a feeling if He does do this it will be so amazing, in such a way that all will say, "We never saw anything like this!"  That is definitely my hope and prayer.  In the meantime, I am grateful that God has a plan for my life and that He is more concerned about my eternal soul than my temporal life.  I have to rest in that knowledge.  He is still answering my prayers and has been all along, just not in the way I thought.