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God sometimes cures. God always heals.

written by Michael McBane

God sometimes cures. God always heals. Remember Jesus. We know God by Christ alone we know ourselves by Christ alone. When I read something similar to this thought I said thank you. I immediately saw the difference and saw how our prayers are interesting in the language we choose. I saw the various ways this could be applied to our life in Christ. I remembered how many times over the years that people were sent to us or we to them to pray for healing when in truth it was to be cured but what actually occurred was a healing that connected to the eternity of God. Both instances that I remembered brought a silence to my understanding at the time. I saw God differently. Questions that I had asked were at times met with a cross look or a rebuke that demanded I retract my unbelief. To which I would say, this is not unbelief but greater belief. I was dismissed for being short sighted. I was growing in my perceptions, I was growing in my understanding to knowing God has my substance.

I once felt the Lord told me that just because a person had been raised from the dead would not mean that they would turn to Him. I could not explain but I knew this was so. I would bring this up in conversation at times and most would question my words. Then one day a man came to our house who had gone to visit a ministry that had been repudiated to have seen the miraculous hundreds of times concerning the raising of the dead. This man had gone to interview people who had been raised from the dead. He affirmed the miracles to us. He had spoken to many who had in fact been dead but now were alive through the prayer of this ministry. I asked my question. If I may, did you find any who had been raised from the dead not walking with the Lord? He looked at me astonished. He said, in fact a high percentage. It stunned him. I offer that at times to cure is temporary. To heal has the signature of God on it.healing is the way of God but it is defined by Him. He interacts with us according to the plans that He has for us which are for our good, always, not destruction. We see life from a short perspective often. God sees the beginning and the end.

I bought a pair of shoes through an on line catalog many years ago. When they arrived at my home, I felt the Lord say I don’t want you to wear them yet but take them with you in the box on this trip you will be going on. So I did. During this trip our life got rearranged through a series of circumstance that jostled us because of the way that these events crashed down upon us. But God knew this and that is why He had asked me to wait on wearing the shoes. We went back to our room that afternoon and began to process the events that were imploding around us. I heard the Lord say look at the shoe box. So I did. He then asked what is the name given to this style. I thought what? God persisted. So I looked to find the name to be Crazy Ivan. I thought “Crazy Ivan” I have heard that saying before what is it. It stuck with me until it surfaced in my mind. Crazy Ivan, yes from the movie ‘Hunt for Red October’ it meant to change coarse abruptly, a ninety degree turn from where you thought you were going. I thought oh my, Lord these shoes are a sign You purposed this upheaval of life. He then told me to take the shoes out and look at the bottoms of the soles. I did written on the soles were the following. In the center it said, repent. On the toe it said, go forward. Wow, wow, wow is not God intricately involved in our lives? I buy a pair of shoes because I feel nudged to do so, and then I am instructed to when and where I will wear them. This had the signature of God on it. I was being healed. I could have cried to be cured asking for something to intervene and prevent the change being forced upon us. But God in His grace had allowed us the ability to see beyond that day. We saw that He was changing the direction we were headed which many around us would have endorsed but He saw that that would have destroyed His greater purpose in who we were. He saw that we desired the best more then the better in how we related to Him. He had given us ears to hear in the storm. He is insurmountable nothing can prevail against Him. But we must ask for the grace to know Him like this.

My back is in tuff shape. When I was in my twenties and thirties I ran long distance, I generally ran about eight miles a day. I was healthy and thin and lean. Then one day my body began to break down. I had knee surgery, so I then ran with no cartilage, bone on bone. But I was young and I thought what could stop me? Then my hamstrings began to snap because of the misalignment. My back began to compress and I had to stop. I thought I would run into my seventies with no problem. I had vision for that. God had been using me in the world wide running world. So why would I break down? But by my late forties I was finding it hard to walk on some days. I prayed and prayed to be healed. I have not been cured. Many would say to me God is going to heal you. But I was crying in pain. So as I sit today. I hurt. I have been reduced tremendously in what I can or can’t do not my hope or vision. So what am I saying. In this stifling of life I have changed. I have been challenged almost daily to step into Christ and out of myself. Since I have no medical care I must rely on God but not only in if or how He would cure me. Beyond that. Healing is not defined in a cure, it is in Christ and how we apprehend how He is asking us to know and see Him in a particular moment. I must see into eternity and take hold of the thread that He is weaving into a garment that I am being provided with. That is healing.

In my health I had an arrogance, I thought it was confidence, that I thought was good. But I was limited in my sight, in how I perceived who God was and how He wanted to be known. God so wants to expand our ability to understand His ways, His language. In my life He has been patiently unwinding me from cultural perceptions that reduce Him, ones that I thought proclaimed Him. Do I think He wants to cure my body, yes and I ask Him to do so almost daily. Am I discouraged when He has not? Not discouraged and only perplexed when I reduce my vision. I get exhausted emotionally at times thats what back pain does. When you get tingling and numbness and a bunch of other characteristics that bark they agitate you and circumference of pain enlarges. Some might argue and say to me that my vision is reduced if I am not walking in the victory of a manifested physical healing. Perhaps they are right but only in my pain do I want to lean that way. But then my peace is sequestered within a box.

God is allowing us to know who we are in Christ and out of Him. This is a privilege that can change us to draw towards Him. When we see the Lord we will be changed. I am so grateful that God has allowed me to partake of His mercy in His grace of spiritual sight. I pray that I could see its measure increased so that I would not get poked at through lesser things. But that is part of the healing. When He continually returns His love and I don’t deserve it. When have I? God loves us beyond what we deserve. That as we know is the wonder of Jesus.

Jesus, to remember Him beyond the things that beset us. To remember Him in the night and to call forth the memories of His goodness. There is a hope at times deep within that goes way beyond today. This allows us to leap over the walls that seem to enclose us in the impossible. We are upon a great precipice where we will see God reveal Himself in ways that will cause us to bow quickly.