Yesterday I had another struggle with a terrible headache. It might have been a migraine because of the nausea, but it was very untypical of migraines. What was typical was that the pain was horrific and lasted all day.
When I finally started feeling better I looked up migraines in the book A More Excellent Way to be in Health by Henry Wright. What it says about migraines is that migraines are caused by guilt, inner conflict and self-hatred, and fear.
This planet has been infected with sin. And the longer that we have spent on this infected planet, the more that sin’s infection affects our physical bodies. Sickness and death were never part of God’s plan. God made us as immortal beings. He designed our bodies in divine perfection: all our parts to fit together perfectly, to function perfectly, and to last forever. But sin gave the devil the right to put disease on us: disease in our bodies, disease in our minds, disease in our relationships.
For a long time I have struggled with the problem of why everyone is not healed. I had thought that it was a matter of faith, and in part I believe that. But there is more to it than faith because lots of people pray in great faith for themselves and for others, and some are healed and some aren’t. There is not one single instance in the Bible of someone asking God for healing and being refused healing.
Some people point to Paul’s “thorn in the flesh” as an instance of healing refused, but a careful reading of that passage (2 Corinthians 12:6-10), particularly verse 7, which spells it out as a messenger of satan. Messengers in the Bible are angels. I believe that they get confused and spiritualize the thorn as some kind of illness because verses 9 and 10 use the word infirmities is used in the King James Version. But the more reliable NIV translation has it properly translated as weaknesses.
So since the Bible doesn’t show God refusing to heal people or giving them diseases to teach them patience in suffering, why do we accept illnesses? As children of God, we are heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ. Sickness and death are not part of our inheritance, so why do we accept them?
According to Henry Wright 80% of disease has a spiritual root. As with migraines, that root is a separation from God (and accepting sickness in the belief that it’s just life—think about how people say something about “my cancer,” for example), separation from self (self-hatred), and separation from others (bitterness, envy, unforgiveness, etc.).
So this morning after a good night’s rest, I spent time in prayer and meditation on all this. I was reminded of what God did for me a few years ago. I was going through a hard time, and I happened to see a sermon on God.tv about how very, very much God loves us. The preacher said, “Think of God’s love continuously falling, falling, falling on you like Niagara Falls.” I’ve been to Niagara Falls, and pictures don’t do it justice. There is a place on the Canadian side where you can go through a tunnel and see the falls from underneath. From that vantage point, you can see how much water is continuously going over the falls. From above it looks like a lot, but from underneath, you can see that it is really a spectacular amount of water—like a whole lake—going over every single minute of every day. So when he said that, I closed my eyes and thought about God’s love falling on me like Niagara Falls. Immediately I felt the sweet weight of that love falling on my body. In fact it was too much to take sitting up, so I laid myself down on the couch and basked in His love, feeling it in my physical body. And I laid there for a full two hours, feeling the weight and force of His love. It was amazing.
As I meditated on all this, I realized that God loves me as tenderly as a doe with her fawn and as fiercely as a she-bear with her cub. When people mistreat us, it’s easy to forget that even if they are people who love us, they do not accurately reflect God’s love. Other people’s love is conditional. So is God’s love, but I’ve already met the condition: accepting His Son, Jesus Christ. And nothing can ever separate me from that love. Nothing! God is good!
Walking By Faith in Europe 