As one who’s begged God for healing over many years of progressively worsening illness, Job feels like a chronic illness friend to me. Check out chapters 2, 7, 16, 19, 29, and 30 for gruesome details. Stories like Job’s remind me that it’s God’s healing mercy when we experience moments of relief.
Now, only three months after lifesaving brain surgery but not with “total healing,” I’m continuing to ask for His future healing mercy while re-pondering a weighty question.
Trusting Jesus for who He is, as God the Son
Jesus asks,
“Do you believe that I am able to do this?” (Mt. 9:28 ESV, emphasis added).
Can Jesus heal me? Of course! All of us have experienced Jehovah Rapha’s healing (Ex. 15:26). He’s healed our tiniest paper cut, a headache, or the flu. And He just did another miracle by providing this second brain surgery!
But He also teaches us to humbly ask for God’s perfect way and will, resting in His beautiful purpose, with everything in our future, praying:
“Thy will be done” (Mt. 6:10 ESV).
And whatever this looks like? It’s God’s promised abundant life for those in Christ!
It’s a daily pondering.
For me, I’m questioning my heart…Am I trusting God’s “total healing” of my body? His giving me a suffering-free future?
Or am I trusting my loving Father? Am I trusting Jesus my Savior, who took my place on the cross? Am I trusting my comforting and empowering Holy Spirit living within?
Can I trust my God’s always-good and always-loving purposes for my earthly life and anything in its future? Can I rest quieted in my faithful God’s tender care as He unfolds His glorious “abundant life” plan for me and those I love? As I pray for so much, can I trust Him with His outcomes?
“Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (Jn. 14:1 ESV).
Trusting Jesus for healing-saving
God has gently taught me that “healing,” in the original Greek, means “being saved,” made whole, kept alive, delivered, rescued, brought safely through. He’s already done this! He has not only kept me physically alive for a longer earthly time, but He’s saved me from eternal death, fully forgiven of all my sin, now clothed in the righteousness of Jesus.
There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to people by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12 CSB, emphasis added).
For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but it is the power of God to us who are being saved (1 Cor. 1:18 CSB).
Can I trust Jesus to bring me safely through as one who is “being saved?” My entire being (body, mind, heart, and soul)?
O how sweet to trust in Jesus,
just to trust his cleansing blood;
just in simple faith to plunge me
‘neath the healing, cleansing flood!
(“’Tis So Sweet to Trust in Jesus,” Stead, L. M. R., 1882)
Trusting Jesus with “total healing”
Jesus healed as mercy (Matthew 20:30), with pity (Matthew 20:34), to show people that He is indeed God who has authority over all (Mark 2:1-10; Luke 4:31-37). Although Jesus compassionately healed many, multitudes clamored for miracle healings…and yet…He didn’t heal everyone.
As just one example, instead of healing Lazarus, Jesus let him die. Then He created Lazarus anew when He called him out of the tomb (John 11)!
It’s tough to ponder, but our Lord and King sometimes has a far grander kingdom purpose than bodily healing. For what is “total healing” anyway?
Yes, ’tis sweet to trust in Jesus,
just from sin and self to cease;
just from Jesus simply taking
life and rest, and joy and peace.
So I’m asking Him to help me trust His sufficient grace as He saves-heals me, by the Holy Spirit’s powerful work. Daily. Hourly.
Perfectly.
Progressively perfecting me into Christ’s holy likeness.
Bringing me safely through…all the way to my future home with Him.
By His grace, start to finish, trusting Jesus.
This is His healing gift of abundant life!
“My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness” (2 Cor. 12:9, emphasis added).
‘Tis so sweet to trust in Jesus,
just to take him at his word;
just to rest upon his promise;
just to know, “Thus saith the Lord.”
Can I trust Jesus with my future?
You may be suffering from something different than chronic illness and pain, as I have for over thirty years. Perhaps you’re praying in agony for a child or struggling to care for a loved one.
You might be living through ongoing financial hardship or relationship pain, like Louisa, the hymn-writer this week, a widowed single mother.
Or maybe the fears of coming tribulations, incessantly drilled into our thoughts by the media, are eating at your soul. Perhaps you’re already living through persecution.
It’s so difficult, for all of us! Let’s all remember our healing God’s promises to bring us “safely through” when our minds drift to the future, by His sufficiently saving grace!
I’m so glad I learned to trust thee,
precious Jesus, Savior, Friend…
and I know that thou art with me,
wilt be with me to the end.
See what kind of love
the Father has given to us,
that we should be called children of God; and so we are.
The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Beloved, we are God’s children now,
and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears
we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is (1 Jn. 3:1-2 ESV)!
Jesus, Jesus, how I trust him!
How I’ve proved him o’er and o’er!
Jesus, Jesus, precious Jesus!
O for grace to trust him more!
Material adapted from Singing the Gospel to Job: Finding Hope in Suffering, Lauri A. Hogle, © 2022
Singing to Jesus helps!
More and more, I now see that singing truths of the Word of God, to our Lord and our hearts helps us trust Him with the future. Especially when anxiety and depression take hold. For It’s His healing gift to us!
This week’s playlist gift for subscribers is crafted to help calm our bodies and brains when we hurt, and our minds race ahead. I’m actively singing through it, trusting Jesus, and praying it will be His gift of rested peace to you too. If you’d like weekly music therapy-inspired worship music playlists (or other resources that might help), see below.
2 Comments
Mandy Farmer · February 20, 2024 at 4:19 am
This could not be more timely for me . We just learned yesterday that my husband has pancreatic cancer.
Lauri Hogle · February 20, 2024 at 6:14 am
Oh Mandy. I’m grieving with you. I’m praying continually for God to strengthen you by His Spirit, giving you the Scripture and songs that carry you. That His healing mercy will destroy this cancer. That He will give you and your husband His perfect wisdom at each step in this hard journey. That our eternal hope in Christ will bring a glorious peace and joy in the midst. That God will work mightily to accomplish His kingdom purposes in it all and that many will surround you both with all the help you need. Oh dear sister, I’m so sorry. Tonight’s playlist has calmed me in my pain and I’m praying it does the same for you, with the pain you’re still having after surgery and this new suffering journey. So thankful you got that all done. Much love to you.
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