As we mature in age, and become indoctrinated in modern technology and its amazing powers, especially in the medical field------we lose our practical, child-like faith in the omnipotence of God. In our heads we know God is omnipotent, omniscience and sovereign. But experientially, we don’t know Him as such because we do not exercise our faith in these areas.
In our prayers for the terminally ill where there is no known cure, we ask God to please give the doctors the knowledge to make the person well. How come we won’t ask God, who created the human body to heal the individual? Why do we confine God to working through doctors and medical research only?
We read scriptures that we say we believe, where handkerchiefs and aprons were taken from Paul’s body and placed on the sick and they were healed. But, when challenged to do that today we say, “God doesn’t work like that anymore, that was for then not now.”
Four years ago, following the birth of her baby, my youngest daughter called to tell me she and the baby were coming to visit----she said she wanted to cook dinner for me. While she was in the kitchen preparing the meal I held my infant grandchild in my arms, walking and singing spiritual songs to her. My daughter sat down next to where I stood and touched the hem of my dress. A week later she called me. “Mom, remember when I touched the hem of your dress?” “Yes.” “Well, the doctor told me I had cancer and needed to think about having my uterus removed. I remembered the woman in the Bible who touched the hem of Jesus’ robe and she was healed (Luke 8:43-48). I know you are a woman of God, so I asked God if He would heal me if I touched the hem of your dress. I just came back from the doctor, the cancer is gone!”
I believe the reason we don’t experience God’s miracles in our presence today is because many of us don’t believe He can, or want to grant miracles as He did in the Bible.
In 1974 my family of three was in a personal famine after my husband was laid off his job. All we had in the house was a half a bag of pinto beans. Believing the scriptures that tell of God multiplying meal and oil for a widow, her son and the Prophet Elijah during a famine (1 Kings 17:11-16); I asked God to multiply my pinto beans. For a week, my husband, daughter and I ate pinto beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The pot never ran out of beans. Our famine ended on the seventh day.
At another time I prayed, asking God to multiply the gas in our car so we could pick up a family member who was in trouble and make it back to our house. We didn’t have any money to buy gas, nor did the relative we were helping. Remembering the woman, whose sons were about to be sold into slavery to pay a debt left by her deceased husband, and how God multiplied her small pot of oil to many pots of oil to sell, to get out of debt (2 Kings 4:1-7)--------------I asked God to multiply the gasoline in our car. He did.
Have you ever wondered about the two fish and five barley loaves the Lord multiplied to feed the five thousands (John 6:5-12)? It’s true. When unexpected guests stopped by my house to visit while I was preparing dinner (fried catfish) for my family, God multiplied the fish making enough to go around for everyone to be filled.
Child-like Faith in God believes God can do everything He says in His Word He can do. Child-like Faith in God enables us to practice what we read in scripture when our circumstances mirror what we’ve read.
My own healing from breast cancer was a result of my child-like faith in God. Well intentioned friends who had lost relatives to breast cancer tried their best to prepare me for certain death, especially after the chemotherapy didn’t work. But I held on to my child-like faith in God and His Word (John 9:3, 32) and He brought me through. The Lord worked through the surgeon to remove the cancer, but He healed the damage chemo did to my heart solo of the doctor’s hands.
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