Here is yet another benefit which flies in the face of the facts. Christians have cancer. Saints continue to have surgery. Ministers take medicine. The faithful flood pharmacies. The righteous have renal failure. Still, we read God heals all of your diseases. We must be missing something and we probably are.

Let’s begin with the word “heals.” Typically, when we run across the word heal, we only consider one form of healing. That is complete physical healing where whatever ailment or condition which existed is conquered and removed. In this case, a person’s cancer is not just in remission, their body is cancer free. Here, diabetes is not just under control, but eliminated. In this way, those without sight can say: “I once was blind, but now I see.” However, complete physical healing is not the only form of healing. There is also functional healing. In this instance, a person’s physical health may not be completely restored, but they are healed enough to function. They can’t walk fast, but they can still walk. They can’t eat everything, but they can still eat. They can’t drive, but somehow, they can still get around. Another form of healing is spiritual and emotional healing where there may be little to no evidence or experience of physical healing. Nevertheless, the “sick” person has a sense of wholeness in spite of their diagnosis and disease. An example of this happens when occasionally the person laying in the hospice bed is doing better than the loved ones standing around them in tears.

Then there is, of course, eternal healing which only and always come through death. Death is the ambulance which ultimately delivers each of us to the place where “God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.” Nothing short of this is complete healing. God reserves the right to heal in any one of these forms and either way we come to be grateful.