Speedy Healing
Testimony: My ankle was killing me, and it should have been well weeks ago. I had stepped out of the motorhome and twisted my ankle when we were in Texas. Thinking my ankle would be all right in a couple of days, I didn’t have it x-rayed, but when I got back home and back to school my ankle hurt a lot every day by afternoon. I finally listened to my friends who were convinced I had chipped a bone, and had it x-rayed. Nothing showed up in the x-ray, but it still continued to hurt. One day at the Christian school where I was working it was my turn to have hands laid on me and prayed over. They asked me what I wanted prayer for that day and I said my ankle. They gathered around me and laid hands on me and prayed for healing. Nothing visibly happened when they said, “Amen,” and I finished my day at work as usual. I didn’t think any more about my ankle hurting although it usually id by time to go home. Y 10:00 that night it dawned on me that my ankle was not hurting at all. The healing had come speedily and it was healing that lasted and the problem did not come back the next day. Isaiah 58:8 NIV says, “Then your light will break forth like the dawn, and your healing will quickly appear; then your righteousness will go before you and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.” The King James Version says, “Your health shall spring forth speedily.” In this particular case this is exactly what happened.
Other times healing is a much longer process before it happens. I suppose there are many reasons why it happens that way. Do not give up on your healing too quickly. It might come speedily or it might be a longer process. Habakkuk 2:3 says, “for the vision is yet for an appointed time, but at the end it will surely come, it will not tarry.”
How long are you willing to wait on a prayer request to be answered? Sometimes I think that in our age of instant technology we are not willing to wait very long. If you have a need for healing, do not give up until you are satisfied with the answer. Don’t accept a partial answer and allow people to tell you to just accept things because it not going to be any better now. There are examples of healings in scripture that occurred years after their time to occur, but Jesus made it happen. John 5:5 tells of a man who had been disabled for 38 years sitting by the pool. I imagine this man had about given up after that long a time especially when someone jumped in the water ahead of him when the angel came by to trouble the water. Jesus asked him if he wanted to be well, and the man told him someone always jumped in ahead of him, but Jesus did not leave it at that and walk away. Jesus did something speedily for this man and when Jesus told him to get up and take up his bed and walk, he did it. He had enough hope left that he tried to get into the pool and he had enough hope left to stand on his feet and try to walk. This man didn’t even know who had made him well when people asked him. Often we pray about a sickness and time goes by and things don’t happen as we expected. Do we get discouraged and say, “I guess He is not going to do it for me and then just learn to accept it? Do we learn to live with it and continue to deny ourselves the results? They may be just around the corner. Although things look slow, our speedily can come in just a short time. There was an old song we used to sing. I Would Not Be Denied.
1. “When pangs of death seized on my soul, unto the Lord I cried; Till Jesus came and made me whole, I would not be denied.”
Refrain: “I would not be denied, I would not be denied, Till Jesus came and made me whole, I would not be denied.”
2. Old Satan said my Lord was gone and would not hear my prayer, but praise the Lord the work is done and Christ my Lord is here.
Verse two is exactly what happens to us when the devil sneaks around and tell us that Jesus is not going to hear a prayer about our needs of long standing. Friends reinforce that thought and it doesn’t take much persuading for us to buy into it. And what tops it off is when a medical professional tells us the same thing. How can we dispute that? When the slightest doubt comes through people telling us that God will withhold good things from us, refer to Psalm 84:11 which tells us that “No good thing will he withhold from them that walk uprightly.” Healing for our bodies is a good thing, and we should not be denied because of our own doubts or what people ell us can or cannot happen. Jeremiah 30:17 KJV says, “For I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds saith the Lord…”
The Word of God is solid footing for us to stand on in spite of disappointments and delays. A delay is not a denial. The Word of God is “settled in heaven” (psalm 119:89). The Word of God is more reliable than the opinions of people. Train yourself to take God’s word above all else. When doubts come, be quick to reject them. Say, “No, I am believing what God says because His Word is “settled in heaven.
Verse 3 of this old song speaks of our wrestling with the Lord like Jacob of Old.
3. As Jacob in the days of old I wrestled with the Lord, and instant with a courage bold I stood upon His word. (Charles P. Jones 1865-1949).
The verse points to our standing on the Word of God above all else no matter what circumstances tell us. Have the courage to stand firm and do not be denied whether the healing comes slowly or speedily.
