I wrote earlier about how Plexus exposes misplaced priorities in the American church. We value health and wealth more than Jesus and a phenomenon like Plexus exposes that.
Living in a foreign country that has less wealth than America, I often see people enjoying life and working hard while at the same time dealing with major physical obstacles such as crippled feet, chronic disease and other health issues. Then I hear American’s groan and moan about not having enough energy or wanting to lose weight and I can’t help but puzzle at the irony. An incredible amount of money and time is poured into health products and weight-loss programs, while millions of people around the world are struggling with all their energy to make just enough for supper that night. Yet, they don’t groan near as much.
There is no doubt that we value our health and wealth, and the emotions that surface when they are threatened expose the fact that we value it more than we should. Prayer meetings across our nation are deteriorating, while health campaigns are increasing. Something is out of order.
But what about those who do struggle with chronic illness? If you are living in constant pain, is it wrong to seek relief?
I didn’t really address this aspect of the discussion in my post about what Plexus exposes. The point of that post was to call us to evaluate our priorities and realign them with God’s heart. The feedback I received from it confirms to me that it is a deeply needed exhortation. But what about the person who hardly has enough energy to get out of bed in the morning, the man fighting chronic arthritis, or the lady that struggles with thyroid issues? If they desire to be over their sickness and if they pursue supplements and medicine that help them, does that mean they worship their health?
For the most part, I’ve been blessed with tremendously good health. But since a working accident when I was seventeen years old, I have wrestled with almost constant back pain, mostly in the form of tight muscles and regular headaches. Two years after that working accident, I tore my ACL. Because of insurance procedures in California, I wasn’t able to have surgery on it until six months after the tear. That meant I spent all that time limping with excruciating pain. Walking with a limp for six months made my back issues even worse.
To this day, I fight tightness and pain in my back and neck. Is it wrong that I take Tylenol periodically to alleviate the pain? Is it wrong that I visit a massage therapist and chiropractor several times in a year? Does that mean I worship my health more than Jesus? Should I be taking the money I spend on pain killer and chiropractors and give it to the poor?
What does it mean to seek first the Kingdom of God when you are faced with chronic pain?
Perhaps what intrigued me most with the feedback I received from the post about how Plexus exposes misplaced priorities is that those who actually face chronic illness affirmed the central theme of the post: in America we value our health more than Jesus.
My aunt has had rheumatoid arthritis since a young age. She doesn’t just “face a lot of pain”–she lives with constant pain! At fifty-nine, no less. Yet, when I talk with her, I don’t hear about the arthritis. I would have to pull it out for her to complain about the pain she feels. But she lives with it every day. Because she is increasingly losing function in her hands, she finds it difficult to hold open a bobby pin when she is coming her hair. Yet, she is a lady of radiant joy. That doesn’t mean she ignores the pain or denies it. It doesn’t mean she always has a smile on her face. It simply means that her focus is on something other than her health.
She is an example to me of someone seeking first the Kingdom of God because relationships with people and caring for them are more important to her than the fact that she doesn’t have enough “energy.”
It seems to me that those who have struggled at length with health issues understand something about God that the rest of us don’t.
What is it? What do they know that we don’t? What do they have that we don’t have?
For the remainder of this post, I’m going to share some scriptures that speak to suffering and sickness that I discovered in my own attempt to wrap my head around how to handle ongoing illness if I was faced with it. Then I’m going to open it up to hear from those of you who actually do struggle with chronic illness.
I don’t consider my back pain to be “chronic illness.” I live a normal life in spite of it. It makes me feel like a fake to claim “chronic pain” because of back pain that I feel when I can continue working as any other person. I play sports alongside perfectly fit athletes. Meanwhile, others I know aren’t able to work anymore because of the constant pain they live with.
When I eat anything I want and, at worst, simply experience a low in energy the next day while someone else eats the same thing and can’t get out of bed because of messed up sugar levels and so forth—I don’t have chronic illness.
But if I did. What would I do. How is a disciple of Christ supposed to handle ongoing health issues?
What to Do When We Are Sick
Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working. –Js. 5:14-16 (emphasis added)
When you have a cold what is the first question people ask you?
Have you taken anything for it?
Only in countries wealthy enough to afford medical research and the production of medicines and supplements will people ask that question first. Right there, our dependency seems to have shifted from calling people to pray for us to taking a pill.
James tells us to “call for the elders.” How vulnerable. That means we’re asking for healing, but what if we’re not healed? That could be embarrassing if we called for the elders (which will be likely be publicized) and nothing happens after their prayer.
Could it be our lack of faith that causes us to feel more comfortable with Benadryl than Jesus?
When our health isn’t good, our first response ought to be a cry to God. He cares for us (1 Pet. 5:7) and wants us to be well (3 John 1:2), and it is He who is the great and perfect Physician as Creator of our bodies.
But that doesn’t necessarily mean we will be physically healed. In fact, when we look at the Greek of the passage quoted above, we realize that it’s talking almost more specifically of a spiritual healing than a physical healing. We are to ask anything of God (John 15:7), but what He cares most about is our spiritual wellbeing. There is more to this life than what we see with our eyes. If all we care about is this fleshly life, we will actually lose it in the end (Luke 17:33).
I think we often read the miracle healings in scripture the wrong way. Either we get overwhelmed by it and conclude God doesn’t work that way anymore today, or we get obsessed with it and see miraculous healings as the primary evidence of the Holy Spirit in our lives.
Let me suggest that healings in the Gospels should not be read as examples of what James is talking about. James addresses healing as primarily a spiritual need. Healings in the Gospels are primarily for the purpose convincing men to believe that Jesus is the Anointed One of the only true God.
If we look at these passages and conclude that as a follower of Christ our only recourse when sick should be to pray for healing, then we are missing the point. Yes, pounding Heaven with requests for healing is our first reaction because God can do anything (Matt. 19:26), He cares about us (1 Pet 5:7), and it reveals our dependency on Him. But if we are then disappointed when the sickness is not removed, it exposes that we don’t understand what all God is doing when we pray to Him.
God cares more about our spiritual healing than our physical healing.
Am I suggesting that sickness is the result of sin in our lives? Absolutely not. Although there may be cases that is true. But not always (John 9:3).
Just as we should not revert to “taking a pill” as soon as we have bad health, we also need to be careful not to become cultic in our approach by only praying for healing. God uses direct healing, but He also uses doctors, nutritionists, supplements and so forth to bring about healing (I think of Paul telling Timothy to drink a little wine for his stomach ache).
God cares about our well-being. He wants us to ask for healing. He invites people to be apart of his healing work as intercessors and doctors. But experiencing physical healing is not the end of the matter. That is not God’s greatest goal.
Through him (Christ) we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. –Romans 5:2-5 (emphasis added)
God is primarily concerned that you and I abide in His love.
Suffering is physically burdensome, but spiritually up-building. When we suffer, in whatever way that causes anguish and pain, we build endurance, and when endurance is built, so is character, and character leads to hope in God’s love.
God loves you. He loves me. That’s what we cling to when our bodies ache with pain. That’s where we go when our hearts are heavy with anxiety. That is the end of the matter. Because we live in a fallen world that will have sickness and death, we must be constantly connecting again and again with God’s love for us.
The Place of Praying for Healing
Prayer should be our first resort when seeking healing, but that is not the only way God heals. Furthermore, healing throughout scripture always resulted in great glory being given to God. A few examples include the paralytic who was let down through the roof (Matt. 9:1-8), the Ruler’s daughter who was healed by Jesus simply saying she was (Matt. 9:18-26), and the man who was muted by a demon (Matt. 9:32-34). But Jesus did not choose to heal everyone (Mark 1:35-30). He had a clear purpose for the direct healings he performed: to cause people to believe that He is the Christ sent by the only true God.
Healing may be miraculous, or someone using their knowledge of God’s design of the body to help bring healing. Either way, God is to be glorified!
We should not hesitate to ask God for healing, but we should remember these three truths:
- He is able. (Eph 3:20)
- He is not required. (Ro. 9:19-21)
- His ways are good and right. (Ps. 18:30, Ro. 8:28, Jer 29:11)
Jesus or Healing?
Do we love God or His blessings?
When they found him on the other side of the sea, they said to him, “Rabbi, when did you come here?” Jesus answered them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you are seeking me, not because you saw signs, but because you ate your fill of the loaves. Do not work for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you. For on him God the Father has set his seal.” Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” –John 6:25-29
Remember God’s Sovereignty
No matter what the result of our sickness, whether we are miraculously healed, the doctors make a successful operation, we discover a supplement that saves our lives, or we live with chronic illness until the day we die, we must remember that God is in control.
Be still, and know that I am God.
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth. –Psalm 46:10
I know that you can do all things,
and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. –Job 42:2
Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us… –Eph. 3:20
Each of us have sorrows to bear in life. For some it is chronic pain. For others it’s infertility, the loss of loved ones, shattered dreams, or personal pain. But God is renewing us day by day, despite the outer decay in our lives, bringing glory and beauty.
So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. -2 Co. 4:16-18
Tell Your Story
There are more qualified people to share on how we seek first the Kingdom of God in the face of sickness and pain. To close out this post, I invite those of you currently struggling with long-term illness to share what it means for you to seek first the Kingdom of God in the face of sickness and pain. How do you know when you are worshiping your health? When do you seek out health solutions and when do you leave it in God’s hands?
