On heaven and healing

“Heaven’s so wonderful. Why do we see it as a bad thing to go there?”

Her words made sense. She was making the point that, if we really meditated on heaven, if we really could comprehend how glorious eternity would be, then we wouldn’t get so up in arms about sickness and death. Cancer? Who cares! It just means we get to go to heaven sooner!

In her view, any terminal diagnosis was just a fast-track to glory.

True. Sort of.

Again I find myself stuck with trying to fit a novel on a post-it-note. But, this slightly skewed line of thinking leaves us limping along in powerless prayer.

Heaven is awesome. Let’s study up on heaven. It’s going to be glorious. No pain, no sin, no sickness, no funky relationships and disappointments. Food and music for eternity–a party! Super fabulous bodies–no flab, wrinkles, or thick ankles (ok that might be my wishful thinking). It’s going to be great. Our ultimate hope is most certainly in heaven.

But, quite frankly, we have work to do here.

Sometimes we act as though our desire for healing is because we just don’t understand how awesome heaven is. It’s exactly the opposite!

BECAUSE I understand how awesome heaven is, I want to take as many people as I possibly can with me there. I want to display the power of God here on this earth, doing the works Jesus did, so that countless throngs will see His power and bow the knee to the King of Kings. The result of Jesus’ miraculous work was that throngs of people followed Him. In Acts, when the disciples were preaching and performing miracles, thousands of souls were added to the Kingdom. Surely, some of those would fall away once they learned the hard way of following Jesus, a way of trial and hardship, but there was no denying the power of God.

Can God add people to the kingdom without signs and wonders? Of course! Can He save people without our help? Of course! If we stay quiet the rocks will cry out! But we miss out. If we ignore His mandate and His promises, we miss out on the greatest adventure of the ages, the epic rescue of souls for the eternal glory of heaven.

Never in scripture does God “heal” someone by taking them to heaven. Jesus never answered a cry for healing by letting them die, He never responds, “If you only understood how good heaven is, you wouldn’t be asking me for healing.” That’s not to say God doesn’t bring good out of sickness and death, God can bring good out of anything (Hallelujah!) and He always does, but let us not dilute our prayers by allowing that lurking doubt remain in our minds. When Jesus healed it was real, physical, observable, and complete.

Ok, Kari, but are you actually SEEING this? Where’s the proof?

I’m glad you asked. No, I’m not. While I have seen some “small” miraculous healings in the last month (a broken leg re-aligned where it had been mis-aligned, and a severe blood-sugar problem completely corrected), if I only look at my own experiences, I will quickly lose all hope.

When Peter looked at the waves, he immediately sank.

But I will not lower God’s Word to the level of my experience, I will continue to believe and pray and obey and repent and trust God to raise the level of my experience to His Word.[bctt tweet=”I will not lower God’s Word to my experience, I ask Him to raise my experience to His Word. “]

What does this mean for my mundane? When I pray in faith for my children’s sore throats, I am simply taking every ordinary opportunity to display the power of God. When I pray for my mom for the gazillionth time, I am simply practicing how Jesus said to pray and not give up. When I pray for Kara, I am standing on the promise of God and asking for His power to be so miraculously displayed in her life that thousands come to faith in Him.

Sacred Mundane? You bet! The power and presence of God invading our ordinary days:

Heaven on earth.

 {Thanks for reading.}