When God Answered

Hebrews 2:1

When God Answered

Several year ago my shoulder began to hurt for seemingly no reason at all, and I had difficulty getting my arm into my coat sleeve. I had not had an injury to my shoulder and expected it would be well in a few days, but it wasn’t. I did everything I knew to do—pain pills, liniment and other arthritic creams, and went to an osteopath, physical therapy and anything else I heard of that I thought might help. I experienced pain every day and nothing helped. The professionals would ask, “What is your pain level” to which I replied that it was pretty high up on the scale of one to ten. I was prayed for repeatedly and used heat on the shoulder about every day. I was anointed with oil and prayed over at church whenever there was a healing line. I was x-rayed and was told I had a tear in the rotator cuff in my shoulder. Week after week went by and I didn’t see any improvement, but I didn’t know what else to do. The weeks turned into months and I still went to the osteopath on a regular basis. I still went through tubes of pain cream and took prescription pain pills. I tolerated the pain and had learned to live with it, but I still prayed and expected to get better.

One day the osteopath asked me what my pain level was and I thought about it for a while and answered,” “a 3.” He didn’t believe it but the pain had been gradually subsiding almost to my surprise as well. One day the pain was gone and has never come back to this day. Without fanfare the pain cleared up and the healing took place. I did not require surgery but over a prolonged time I could put my coat on as good with that arm as with the other. I don’t know why it took so long but it did. I wish I could say it cleared up rapidly. Sometimes healing takes place quickly and sometime over a period of time. The good news is that it did clear up and healing took place. I think too often we learn to live with pain and tolerate all kinds of inconveniences needlessly. We accept things and invite them to stay longer than we realize that months have gone by and they are still there. Scriptures throughout the Bible tell us that healing is available to us but we do not receive it for one reason or another. We go on year after year allowing sickness and disease to plague us. It is time for us to be free from the chains of sickness and debilitating disease. Satan would like nothing more than to deceive us into thinking that is is maybe not God’s will to heal us and that we have to accept things that come on us just as a part of life. There are many statements of faith in scripture that we let slip right by us thinking that they do not apply to us. Hebrews 2:1 says, “Therefore we ought to give the more earnest heed to the things which we have heard, let at any time we should let them slip.”

Too often we don’t listen. We don’t count what God says in His word very important an we only half hear because we only half listen and we as a result forfeit the blessings God has for us. The devil often wins out with his lies because it is his businesses to “steal, kill, and destroy” ( ). We must learn not to let him put these things on as if they are just to be expected as we go through life. We do not have to take on pain and sickness and disease although we often do. Jesus said, “I come that you might have life and that more abundantly”—it is not life when our bodies are wrecked with pain that nags us day and night. Many time we don’t know what to do about situations in our life. James 1: say, “If any many lack wisdom let him ask of the Lord and he will give it liberally.” If you have a health problem that you are not seeing any progress being made, ask God for a fresh word about it.

I asked the Lord for a fresh word and expected to hear from him but I didn’t immediately. Do we say, I guess he is not going to answer me? Often the answer does not come immediately, the minute we say Amen but rather days later there will be a specific thought that flashes through our mind. Do you ever get into a pattern of praying where you ask for the same things over and over and over and you still don’t see the slightest hint of an answer? I dare say that is exactly what happens. We have to make some adjustments in our requests. We may need to reframe what we are asking for because we may be asking amiss. James 4:1 says, “and when you do ask you do not receive, because you ask amiss.”