The God Who Made Us Can Make Us Healthy

When you aren’t feeling healthy or well, what is the first thing you do? Go to the medicine cabinet? Make an appointment with the doctor? Or, suffer through it and hope it’s nothing serious?  Most of my life I did all of the above. It wasn’t until a number of years ago when I saw people healed in revival meetings in Africa that I started to look at health and wellness differently.  I learned that the God who made us can make us well, and that he made the things that can make us well.

In many parts of the world, people who are ill have no access to drugs and doctors. If a person in a third-world country is not a Christian and they aren’t feeling well, then they either head to the hut of the medicine man for traditional remedies risking additional problems related to witchcraft, or they get worse and die. However, if the person is a Christian, their first response to sickness is to pray as God really is their only hope. Those who have rejected the witchcraft of the shamans have nowhere else to turn except God.  Their hunger to be touched by God is tangible as they pull powerfully on Heaven above for mercy here on earth below.

There is a reason supernatural healing is far more common-place in other parts of the world and not so much here in America or the West. As wonderful as medical access and availability is in nations like ours, there is a prevailing arrogance and spirit of disbelief among the Western medical community that, in effect, causes God to leave us to ourselves. In other parts of the world, these mental and philosophical strongholds are not as present and God seems more inclined, or free, to respond to those who cry out to him for help.

Though we may look on third-world people with pity, many of them have something we have lost – faith in God to heal. It was inspirational for me to see third-world people whose first reaction to sickness was to pray, not to call a doctor or drive to a pharmacy. Things we do first are things God notices because they reveal priority and what’s important to us.  It says volumes to the One who made every intricate detail of our body if He is the last one we consult when things aren’t right.

My testimony in this matter is that back in the days when we prayed for no one to get healed, no one was healed. However, when we started praying for some people to get healed, some were healed. My eyes were opened to the importance of going to God first, not last.  When He sees we trust in everything else, He is hands off to help and allows us to learn the hard way how those things we have turned to are very limited.  Yet, when we turn to Him first, He responds. Sometimes He responds with supernatural healing, other times He leads us to natural remedies as He did in healing me of chronic acid reflux problems.

For years, I struggled with acid reflux and a hiatal hernia. My wife would often joke about how we should buy stock in Tums because I ate them like candy throughout the day. Eventually, the Tums were not enough and my doctor started me on a dose of Nexium.  At first, two or three pills a week were sufficient.  Before long, I was on Prilosec daily and still having regular episodes of discomfort. Things got worse until I got on my knees and prayed God would touch this part of my body. About this time I was talking about my heartburn problem with Joe Barton and he shared with me that there are serious negative side effects from these medications I was taking. He  also mentioned that there were natural remedies.  This really made sense to me in light of what I had learned in Africa, that the God who made us can make us well and that He makes the things that make us well.

Joe told me about his father finding great relief just eating a slice of an apple before he went to bed at night. I did that and a few of the other things Joe recommended, and before long I didn’t need Prilosec. When I stopped doing what Joe recommended the problems started again. The moral of my story is that the God who made us can make us healthy and He ought to be our first call to be healed.

In the Creation account of Genesis 1:30, God says He gives us “every green plant for food.” The Hebrew word used there for “food” is bigger than just what we eat.  God is saying He has made all the things that we need (take in, consume, and ingest) in our bodies to keep us alive, healthy and well. It was my own experience with natural healing and natural remedies that opened up what I have found to be a great big world that God has created to keep us healthy and whole.

People sometimes ask me why God allows sickness.  My response is that there are a variety of reasons, several of which are beyond our understanding. However, I have come to believe that one of reasons God allows sickness is because He wants to reveal himself as Healer (Jehovah-Rapha is the Hebrew name for God our Healer).

Ask God to reveal himself as your Healer.

Ask the one who made you to lead you to the things he made that will make you healthy and well.