Why If

"We need to let God be God."

Why if God CAN heal doesn’t God heal? I’ve said not to answer this question if you haven’t been specifically asked it, yet indulge me for a moment. The answer is usually aimed at a particular person who suffered too much, and in that case, God is who needs to be asked. He is the God of all comfort (2 Corinthians 1:3) who will provide unlimited peace. He loves people so very much. But approaching it without a particular situation in mind, the largest portion of the answer involves OUR MATURITY.

We:

• Lack knowledge of WHO HE IS and WHAT HE HAS PROVIDED.
• Are MISINFORMED about the devil.
• Lean on the flesh during pain or frustration and not on the Spirit of God.
• Give up.

No one’s throwing stones at anyone in any of these cases, and I’m not saying God uses suffering to teach us things either. God sent Jesus to heal the heart (spirit), the mind (soul), and the flesh (body) of anything that will ever harm us. He is a gentle, loving Father who adores us. Hurting people so they might learn is so far from who He is, so please don’t ever allow that thought to set up camp in you.

But there are times when the devil comes against us, and we need to grow up.

Imagine, for a moment, an extreme. What if God allowed everyone who did anything in any manner they wanted to have everything they asked for? So sinners and saints alike, just ask and God gives you your desires. Yeah, we don’t like that image. Some people do bad things and so they don’t receive a good reward, to put it simply. When God told Noah to build a boat, all the world had become violent. Only he and his family of 8 souls were saved. Yet, though God knew Israel would sin against Him between Egypt and the Promised Land, He set them all free, every person, in a great deliverance with supernatural signs and the wealth of the Egyptians in their grasp. At the same time, those who complained against Him when the ten spies returned from spying out Canaan, walked around in the desert for 40 years until only their children were left.

We need to let God be God. That’s a huge thing in our human mind. There are some things we must tell ourselves we don’t understand yet. We then must focus on God’s nature and see Him AS HE IS, realizing that He never lies to us, He is only truth, He is completely holy, and the fairest justice. In fact, He died on our behalf though He did not technically have to. He DID have to because that’s who He is. He keeps His word, and He’d promised to do so from before the foundation of the world. But God’s shoulders are big enough to carry the weight of all these things and events which look awry to us.

Take Job for instance. People misinterpret the book of Job all the time. Chapter 1 makes God look complicit with the devil. Yet we know from the book of James God is not tempted by evil and does not tempt anyone (James 1:13). The devil is evil. Jesus said so in the gospels. The devil’s behavior is further described in the epistles. We know His nature is to hurt people. We know disease and sickness and accidents hurt people. So two plus two ought to equal four in our heads.

“Yeah, but Suzanne, it says in Job …”

I know what it says. I also know the New Testament is where the light shines. God opened the mystery of the gospel to us (Colossians 1:26). Jesus fully revealed the Father and the Spirit. We have complete access to Them and can come boldly to the throne (Hebrews 4:16). So whatever image of Job makes them look like They hurt him is a WRONG ONE. Tell yourself it’s wrong and ask God to reveal the truth.

That’s where we must stand on all these issues.

We must know Him, and we must commit to maturing. We can’t stay infants. The apostle Paul corrected the church for still needing milk. He wanted them to go deeper into spiritual matters. This includes why people die who we think don’t deserve it, why it looks like God didn’t bother to heal them, and a dozen other similar matters. One huge answer to them is that HE SENT JESUS who REMOVED THE FEAR OF DEATH. We haven’t realized the size of this really. Before Jesus, there were some beliefs about the “afterlife,” but Jesus made it clear that when you accept God’s salvation, you need not ever be afraid of death because He has gone ahead to provide a place for you.

“Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father's house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you.” (John 14:1-2)

In John’s Revelation we are given a view of the throne and of God’s control of time and events that is meant to encourage us, not scare the willies out of us. God is not the Spirit of fear (2 Timothy 1:7). 1 Thessalonians describes the second coming of our King. This is our greatest hope. Romans mentions it as well, in chapter 8 talking about the remaking of creation, which groans for deliverance. We must read the Word and put all the pieces together to see the full picture God wants for us.

We must COME UP HIGHER. This is an instruction to us. It means, in short, to grow up and turn aside from childish ways and gain God’s perspective. It does not mean to stop being childlike. We are to trust God as children trust their parent. This is actually being mature. But to be childish means we are petty and foolish, walking in the flesh and the reasoning of our minds instead. Our minds will always lead us astray until we give them to the Spirit to renew.

We are not to walk as fleshly people, but we are to walk in the flesh through the Spirit. There is a difference. God can handle whatever our bodies need, whatever our minds come up against. He wants us to make Him Lord completely. We tend to give Him some and to retain our independence. But the unity of the Father to the Son to the Holy Spirit is complete. They are always in complete agreement. Yet They speak separately or They speak in unity, depending on what is being said. We are to unite with them on this same level. That’s what the Scriptures say, and only when in unity of that nature, will we know certain truths because we will have matured so that God knows we treat His truth correctly.

You can’t give a toddler the keys to the car, and you can’t give knowledge of some spiritual things to those who will not hold fast to them and walk in them as He has designed us to do. God’s mercy is everlasting. So many things we face that we do not understand, He simply applies His mercy, and we can call on Him to be merciful. He has been very merciful to me on a scale I cannot fully express. But there are situations where we find ourselves that He can and will (intends to) sustain us so that we will see ourselves and alter our default behavior.

That is the bottom line. Am I inclined to blow up every time that happens to me and now that I am where I am, do I see it, and will I commit it to Him? He is our patience and self-control. On our own, we can’t handle life. But with Him, we can do all things. I love the Remedy translation of Philippians 4:13 in this regard because it says Christ gives us the perspective to handle whatever happens, and that brings me comfort in all that I don’t yet know.

Knowing I don’t know is half the victory. Knowing He will show me is the rest.

“The secret to real peace and contentment is an abiding trust in Christ—realizing that my strength comes from him; and through the peace, strength, wisdom and perspective that Christ gives me, I can handle whatever happens.” (Philippians 4:13)

Image by Mohamed Hassan from Pixabay


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