I am Healed

I grew up in a Christian home and church has been a big part of my life, but the thing that makes me the most uneasy is when people want to pray for me. When people want to pray for me to be healed, I immediately get extremely uncomfortable and nauseated. It’s not that I believe that God is incapable of healing me; it’s that I don’t think He needs to heal me in order to use me to further His Kingdom here on earth. He could certainly heal me if that was His will for my life, but what people fail to think about is that perhaps I am a more powerful tool in His capable hands with my disability than I would be without it. From my point of view, I’ve already been healed of something much bigger than my disability: the wages of sin. Christ redeemed me with his life-saving work on the cross, and when God looks at me He sees Christ in my place. So, I may not be healed in the earthly sense, but that’s okay. God is big enough to use me just the way I am. After all, we are all broken in some form or fashion.

The Bible doesn’t say “All those with disabilities must be healed.” The heart of the issue is that most people’s definition of “disability” is narrowed to physical or mental disabilities. In fact, that’s one of the main dictionary definitions of the word: “limitation in the ability to pursue an occupation because of a physical or mental impairment.”

A better definition of “disability” is “anything that limits an individual’s ability to pursue the calling placed on their life by God.” That is, anything that limits our ability to “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19-20a, ESV). If we define disability in this way, it becomes obvious that we are all disabled, not just those of us with physical or mental limitations. But, as I mentioned before, God can still use us. One of my favorite illustrations of this comes in the form of a list written by an unknown author. Here are a few of the highlights:

· Moses stuttered.

· Hosea’s wife was a prostitute.

· David had an affair.

· Lazarus was dead.

· Paul was a murderer.

· Noah got drunk.

And the list goes on, in fact, God wrote a whole book about how He uses disabled people for His glory…It’s called the Bible. 😉

We’re all disabled in some way, but if we believe in the life-saving work of Jesus on the cross, we are healed. So, people can still pray for God to heal me physically, but even if He doesn’t, He can use me anyway. For, “I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.” (Psalms 139: 14, ESV).