A Social Anthropologist’s Analysis of Contemporary Healing, Part 2
Whom Does God Heal?
We do not know why God seems to heal some people but not others. Why did Jesus heal one man at the pool of Bethesda and apparently leave other invalids alone? Wimber suggests that a clue is given in John 5:19, when Jesus says that the Son can do nothing by himself but only what he sees the Father doing, but this still leaves unanswered the question of why some are healed when others are not.
The fact that some 57% of my sample reported a sustained and noticeable physical improvement following prayer has been regarded by some as a surprisingly high percentage. Others, however, ask why the remaining 43% did not receive such healing.
Presumably there is a purpose if God does grant physical healing in this life. Might it be in order that the person healed might fulfill a particular role on this earth, for which the healing is necessary?
Such ideas may account for some but by no means all cases in which no healing was received. A good example is that of Jennifer Rees-Larcombe, who between 1982 and 1987 had five serious and life-threatening attacks of encephalitis, an inflammation of the brain and meninges, further complicated by inflamed nerves. Between these acute episodes of illness, the inflammation of the brain, meninges, nerves and muscles seemed to remain in a chronic form and was labeled by the neurologists as Myalgic Encephalomyelitis. Her continuous pain, loss of balance, muscular weakness and fatigue meant that she had to use a wheelchair when she needed to go more than a few yards. Doctors had recognized their inability to provide a cure, only alleviate some of the symptoms. Jennifer was receiving the highest level of State disability allowance and was told that her condition had deteriorated to the point where regular assessments would no longer be necessary—that is, they did not expect her to recover. She had also been to many Christian healing meetings but had not been healed. In fact, she even wrote a book entitled Beyond Healing, and the Lord gave her a ministry of encouraging those who were suffering. However, when the Lord eventually did heal her, he chose to use not a well-known person such as John Wimber but a recently converted young colored woman who, on account of her own past sins, had felt she was “not good enough” to pray for Jennifer. When she did pray, it was a simple and sincere prayer of faith through which God healed Jennifer.42
Category: In Depth, Winter 2009