Why won't you pray for my healing? (9/21/2007)

Hello to All,

On the one hand life seems kind of "normal" now. Ann went to Matt's football game, Drew's soccer game and Hannah's volleyball game this last week. She spent a good part of last Saturday shopping with Hannah. She cooked a few meals and did the grocery shopping. As the oncologist recently remarked, "Boring is good."

On the other hand the cancer still has its grip on Ann's liver. Toxic chemicals are dripped into her veins twice every three weeks. Ann's body was unable to sufficiently recover from Round 5 so she required a transfusion. The additional activities cause increased fatigue. Despair and hopelessness rule some days.

On other days Ann has a measure of rest and hope. A big factor is encouragement from the Word of God. Ann and I are working through a study on God's attributes. Ann, Laurie, Joan recently started Beth Moore's Believing God: Experiencing a Fresh Explosion of Faith. This incredible study has confirmed many of the things that we have learned this last year. I've been analyzing James 5:13-20, a significant passage on healing.

It seems that this journey of ours is best described as a paradox.


"Why Won't You Pray for My Healing?"
When the oncologist reported the preliminary diagnosis after Ann's surgery last year, I think the news sent Ann into some kind of shock. She didn't show any emotion at all for several days. What does a man say to his wife who just learned that she has aggressive, incurable cancer? With nowhere else to turn, I turned to the Psalms. I began with Psalm 1 and just read out loud while Ann silently lay in her hospital bed with her eyes closed.

We continued the practice after returning home from the hospital. I would read Psalms to her each evening and pray for her strength, grace, and endurance. After a week or so, Ann pierced me with the question, "Why won't you pray for my healing?"

I don't remember exactly how I responded that time, or the several subsequent times that Ann asked me to pray for physical healing. Basically, I was rightly committed to not promising something to Ann – or to the kids – that I didn't think would happen.

Looking back I've identified the following barriers to my willingness to pray for Ann's physical healing.

Experiential Barriers:

• Life is tough. When I was laid off after 9/11 and had to drop out of seminary for a semester, I experienced the truth that Christians are not exempt from hardships.
• Endurance takes great faith. While I was fruitlessly searching for work, I learned firsthand the difficulty of trusting God when he seemed absent. The primary question I wrestled with was, "Is God really good?"
• God uses suffering. The conference speakers that I respected the most were those who had endured incredible suffering.
• God heals naturally. If a person recovers from a disease, God generally uses doctors and medicine to bring about deliverance.
• Godly people die. C.S. Lewis' wife, Keith Wilhite (my preaching professor), Matt's kindergarten teacher and my Grandma all died "prematurely" of cancer.
• Presumption is ludicrous. I refuse to be so arrogant to think that we are more righteousness or have more faith than godly people who have suffered and died before us.

For the record – I still hold to each one of these "barriers." Each accurately reflects the experiences of life in a fallen world.

Theological barriers:

• Miracles were different then. The healing miracles performed by Jesus and the apostles were instantaneous (except Mark 8:23-25) and always effective (except Matt 17:14-20), even in the hardest cases. Therefore, God only rarely intervenes miraculously now, especially in developed nations.
• God is honored through suffering. Therefore, we should only pray for endurance in trials – not deliverance from them.
• We must accept God's will. To live is Christ and to die is gain. Therefore, we should assume that it's God's will for a person with aggressive, incurable cancer to die. I must prepare myself for Ann's imminent death.
• God is sovereign and knows the future in advance. Therefore, his will is set and we pray only to grow in our relationship with him. Prayer changes us; it doesn't really impact the circumstances of life.
• The Word was written to specific historical audiences. We must understand both the biblical culture and ours before making application. Therefore, we cannot claim passages on prayer, deliverance or physical healing as promises from God for us today.

Each of the theological barriers listed above contain two elements. The first is the basic assumption and is identified prior to the "therefore" statement. The second element is the conclusion that I derived from that basic assumption. It is described in the "therefore" statement and is italicized.

For the record – I still believe each basic assumption. Each accurately reflects the biblical data.

However, I have reevaluated and rejected each of my conclusions. Although each may accurately reflect the experience of life, each is erroneous with regard to the biblical data.

This last year has been a journey in evaluating my experience in light of biblical data, rather than evaluating the Bible in light of my experience.

Prayer Requests:

• That the "Mack Truck" side effect would again pass Ann by this coming week. Her next chemo treatment is Tuesday.
• That we would find hope and rest in the character of God as we study his Word in the coming weeks.
• That God would physically heal Ann so that she can teach our kids and grandkids that "there is nothing our God cannot do."
• That God would demonstrate the reality of the resurrection from the dead by delivering Ann from the grip of death.
  

James 5:14-16:
Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up.


Thanks for praying and caring.

Love,
Howard & Ann