God Knows Best

"He never refuses to save, to heal, to deliver, or to bless. That's not who He is."

FACED WITH a man or woman who is on the wrong page, he or she is asking God for something He will provide but they don’t fully believe it (and there are many reasons why), but faced with that man or woman, some have written them off and moved on. The statement is commonly made, “There is no faith, so God will not answer.” Understand I’m using the word “faith” to make my point. As I have said many times, faith is more of an emotion. It is our trust in God’s love. But something must be said about the idea God will not answer.

Don’t buy into this. God is not inflexible and hardnosed. He never refuses to save, to heal, to deliver, or to bless. That’s not who He is.

Our worry plays into our trust in Him. Worry is doubt evidenced as fear about the solution. Worry DOES prevent us from receiving an immediate answer (and note I said “immediate”). But God being callous is not why anyone does not seem to hear from God (note again I said “seem to”). God never refuses to answer. Instead, it is that when we have fear or worry, when we do not fully believe we will see the solution to our need, He always turns to our mental and spiritual growth first. He will have us prepared, knowledgeable, and walking in His Truth.

“But Christ gives each one of us just what we need in each circumstance for our good and our development.” (Ephesians 4:7, Remedy)

God knows best. We must accept this without grumbling, without being angry at Him. He always has the solution, He always works to provide it, but often, to be where it is best for us to receive, there needs to be change in us. Thinking along this line, there are too many stories of people who were saved after years of God working Truth in them. God never stopped showing them who He is in the manner they needed to see it. I remember one Muslim man said, “Allah asked us to kill our enemies, but this Jesus said to love them,” and for him, that was the change in his heart. In another story, a Jewish man finally trusted Jesus as Messiah after he cried out to Jehovah for his son, and his son was miraculously healed. The healing came in the manner it did to assure Him the God of the Torah was Jesus. Applying these to answered prayer, sometimes that person isn’t believing correctly at first, but if they will commit themselves to God, He will keep working in them, and they will soon trust Him completely. That is always what God wants.

“Commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass.” (Psalms 37:5)

We need to stop teaching that God isn’t answering. We need to stop saying that God won’t heal because someone “lacks faith.” Even if someone has no faith at all, if they will keep their gaze on Jesus, God will continue to reveal Himself and the manifested answer will come.

Thinking now in this of sudden death: Jesus came to remove the fear of death. We don’t have to worry when or how it will happen. We don’t have to worry where we go when we die. When someone is saved, Jesus is Lord of their life, and they will know heaven is home. But of any fear of sudden death, we must know our God will prevent sudden death when we walk in the Spirit. Whether it is from accident or diagnosis. We must learn to walk with Him 24-7 and apply His promises. It is by hearing Him speak daily, hourly, minute-by-minute, by our spiritual maturity that we know when not to travel, how not to eat, where not to visit, and conversely, where to do these things instead. The apostle Paul is one example. He knew the ship he was prisoner on would encounter a storm and warned them of it (Acts 27:10). They didn’t believe him. Then the storm came, and they relied upon him to survive (Acts 27:36). When they were on the island after the ship sank, he was bitten by a snake, another sudden death possibility, but he was spiritually prepared, being without fear, and shook it off (Acts 28:5-6).

As to pending death, it needs to be removed from our thinking as an option in any diagnosis. Even the most fatal diagnosis. Yeah, it may happen, but “so what.” We know where we are going after death. Even greater, WE KNOW WHO WE ARE IN CHRIST. By leaving death as an option in our thinking, we allow it a foothold to work. It stays as an option, and so we will keep thinking on it, and eventually accept it. “For as [a man] thinketh in his heart, so is he (Proverbs 23:7).” We become our thoughts. Pain twists us toward accepting death. We are tired of suffering, so we make death reasonable in order to escape it. But by leaning on God and saying “no” to death, God can and will do the miraculous.

Minister Barry Bennett was given thirty days to live. At one point, he couldn’t get out of bed and cried out to God, fearing how his immobility affected his healing. And God said to keep believing. When Minister Bennett said “no” to death, despite what it looked like, despite how he felt, he took away the power of death and gave God his complete trust. He is alive today. There are many others who have done the same. A doctor told me my migraine headaches would eventually kill me. But I refused to listen. I refused to talk of death by suicide or illness. Even while in pain, just as Barry Bennett was unable to walk or do normal activity, I kept my eyes on life. I replaced the thought of death with what God says about joy and peace. I mediated on His love for me, and on happy things, and have not had any headaches since that day, nor any symptoms of diabetes, or drug interaction.

There is no judgment from God to those who died early, for whatever reason and in however they were thinking. The thief died beside Jesus, justifiably condemned. But in heaven, he saw the truth. In heaven, clarity is given, and they know why and what they should have done on earth. In heaven, we see Him as He is.

“Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

“I know a Christian, who—fourteen years ago—was taken to the third heaven where God is. I am not certain whether it was an actual physical transportation to heaven or only a vision of heaven occurring in the mind—only God knows that—but even though only God knows whether this man was physically transported to heaven or experienced heaven as a vision in his mind, I know he was taken to paradise where God is. While there, he heard wonderful truths—truths beyond earthly comprehension; truths human beings are currently unable to explain.” (2 Corinthians 12:2-4, Remedy)

On earth, we know Him. This is what the Father wanted when He sent Jesus to be with us. Jesus removed all the mystery of God—why and how He does things (Ephesians 1:9). He showed us God’s heart to rescue and revealed His methods of healing. He defeated death and dissolved all the works of the devil (1 John 3:8) then commanded us to go and do as He did (Matthew 16:17-18). When death did all it could do to His human body, when it had nothing left, then God’s life came, and Jesus is alive today. And through Him, so are we.

“Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me: or else believe me for the very works' sake.” (John 14:11)

“I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.” (Revelation 1:18)

Photo by Evi Radauscher on Unsplash


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