Why, God, Why?

"Just think 'too good to be true,' and that is our loving Father, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit."

SOMEONE BECOMES SICK with something incurable and then another person asks why God doesn’t just heal them. Then another says, Well, it’s about having faith. As if, since they don’t, God is hard-hearted. Faith has become a price affixed to healing. For the low cost of $19.95, God will reach down and touch you … but only once. A second try is even more expensive. Faith is not pocket change nor something earned and put in the bank for possible use later. And healing is not something purchased. Next, textbook answer is “Jesus paid the price.” And He did. His death and the bruises on His back paid the price for our healing. There is no amount of money we can pay for it because it’s part of our salvation. Which circles us back around to the main question—Why isn’t that person healed? Why won’t God just “do it”?

I have learned something through my experience which someone without such an experience wouldn’t know. Sometimes, you have to faceplant to see things clearly. First, God (Father, Son, and Holy Spirit) is the most gentle, loving Spirit. Never judgmental, never condemning, never any of the things we dread. He does not give men and women fear but infinite everlasting love with every word and every gesture. Everything He does shows His love for you. He is of infinite patience. Whenever I thought He’d run out (because I had), He didn’t. We, humans, are continuously impatient. We can’t wait two minutes for water to boil in the microwave, whereas God waited thousands of years to send His Son to earth.

If I could paint the most perfect, loving Helper to be with me forever and help me be a better person, I could not have made God as wonderful as He truly is. Just think “too good to be true,” and that is our loving Father, our Savior, and the Holy Spirit. They are beautiful. We can’t pin any comparisons to them. What we expect of men, how we would react to people and situations, they will never be like that. Even if it’s a good reaction, God’s is way better. He never acts based on His opinion. For example, there are many styles of music, some I like, you may not; some you like, I may not. God sees our praises and our worship. He’s looking at our hearts and sees what He can do in us and through us. He never judges anyone because He just can’t take any more of “that.”

Second, we are allowed to choose between life and death. God has given the choice entirely up to us. Everything we decide to do or not to do is seen by God, He is aware of all our actions and reactions and knows everything we say before we say it, but He isn’t a Grand Puppeteer pulling our strings. We can actually do the wrong thing, and if our hearts are hard and we aren’t listening to Him, He will not stop us. This is not to say He abandons us to our destruction. If we believe in Him for our protection, then He provides it. If we speak words of faith over our finances, then He will make a way where there doesn’t seem to be one. But in converse, if we continually say we’ll die “broke and poor,” then most likely, we will. If we say we’ll grow older and more forgetful, then we will have what we believe in. Whether it’s positive or negative, our words result in our life choices and hold sway over our future. God wants us to speak like Him, to choose life.

Take Pharaoh, for instance. Pharaoh didn’t care two cents for the suffering of the Israelites, and he didn’t pay attention to the words of Moses and Aaron, nor the plagues they called forth upon Egypt in God’s name. The Nile River turned to blood. They slept with frogs in their houses and everywhere else they turned. Their crops were destroyed. Not until all the firstborn males of Egypt died, both young and old, did Pharaoh decide to let Israel go from their slavery, and even then, a day later, he changed his mind and chased after them. God loved Pharaoh. He wanted to be God to Pharaoh, but Pharaoh made his own choices, despite all he had seen the Hebrew God do.

Consider also the apostle Paul. He was “circumcised the eighth day, of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, an Hebrew of the Hebrews; as touching the law, a Pharisee (Philippians 3:5).” And full of zeal for the Jewish law. Yet not until Christ appeared to Him on the road to Damascus was he saved. Despite his ancestry and heritage and determination, none of that cleansed his heart. He’d spent his time killing those who believed in Christ. He held the garments of those who stoned the martyr Stephen. God did stop him that day, but Paul had made his own choices until Christ spoke. And even after what happened on the road, he could have disobeyed and not gone to Damascus and waited for what to do next.

If I sit down to study in the morning, God might direct me to read Exodus, but I can say no and go read Acts. If I decide to drive to work on a particular route, He might suggest another if that road is dangerous (He knows what I do not). But usually, He offers no opinion, and if I drive that way and get stuck by a train for a half hour (or feels like), it is not God’s fault for not warning me. He loves us. He doesn’t control us. He provides the way for us, the wisdom we need, the knowledge and understanding, the power to do it, the finances if they are required. Everything I need to drive to work is mine through Christ, the car, the car payments, money for gasoline, health, knowledge (although I have to undertake the get a driver’s license of my own choice). However, I can choose to stay home. I can choose to leave without much gasoline (but I won’t get far). I can go even if I have the sniffles. But God wants me well and prosperous, and if I believe Him for those things, they are mine.

God wants us well. We choose to walk by faith for our healing, and the more we do, the more we lean into Him, the more we confess His Word, the more we trust His love for us, then healing is ours. Faith and patience always inherit the promises. God is merciful. In His mercy, He will heal us because we are His. Or because we are not. God healed King Nebuchadnezzar, a foreign king, when he looked up to heaven and repented. He’s healed many people because of the prayers of their friend, the friend’s faith. It is always His will to heal, but we have a part to play in it with our choices and decisions.

We expect God to shake us awake and drop a note, dangling in front of our eyes. “You ought to read and pray this morning.” And sometimes, He does. But often, we are not listening. We’re distracted by the cares of this life, by our job, or entertainment, or simply by complaining. We expect Him to do for us out of His mercy, but our heart is selfish. “If He would just take care of this, then I wouldn’t have to expend the effort.” But you can expend the effort. You can walk by faith. And He will heal you when you do. Neither laziness nor lack of knowledge is a good reason to carry our cares around. That’s really what we’re doing. We refuse to roll them over on Him, which includes not speaking the problem.

We cannot lay on God what is our responsibility. We cannot lay on Him the results of what we did not do. It is sad that one passed away from an illness, which God could have healed them from. And not just COULD HAVE, but WOULD HAVE. God mourns the result of our choices and decisions. He mourned Jerusalem’s destruction, through the prophet Jeremiah’s words. But for that one who is now with Him in heaven, He rejoices because He loves them, and they are in His presence. He doesn’t condemn them for it nor us for our unbelief.

We are to submit to God THEN resist the devil. Submission means making Jesus Lord and giving Him all our choices. It means choosing to hear the Holy Spirit’s instruction when we are in need. It means walking in God’s “frame of mind” every minute of every day. When we do so, then we resist the devil, and we place our trust fully in God. In God for the answers, in God when we don’t have the answers, in God when to our minds it looks like He didn’t answer. Because John 3:16 says He loves us. 1 John 4:8 says God is love. And 1 Peter 2:24 says, By His stripes we are healed. So that is who He is and what He says about healing. Words which never change but will do what they are sent to do every single time. If we will choose to believe them.

“For God loved the world so much that he gave me, his One and only Son, so that all who open their hearts and trust me will be healed, and therefore not perish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16 Remedy)

“Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.” (1 Peter 2:24)

“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.” (1 John 4:8)

Photo by Anna Yenina on Unsplash



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Suzanne D. Williams, Author
www.suzannedwilliams.com
www.feelgoodromance.com