Faith Healing

I believe in faith healing, but I don’t believe in faith healers.

I really have no choice but to believe in faith healing, because I have witnessed it. My son was born with something called meconium aspiration, which means he had a bowel movement in the womb and then inhaled some of that fecal matter into his lungs. That stuff is sticky and nasty and toxic, so when he was born he was very sick. Doctors told us he had only a 50-50 chance of surviving, and would be in the hospital for weeks, or even months. I was in the Navy at the time, stationed at Pearl Harbor, and they told us they might have to send him and my wife to San Diego where they had better medical facilities to care for him.

We quickly contacted our friends and relatives, at home and in Hawaii, and started everyone praying for our son.

He was born very late on a Tuesday night and was almost immediately put on a ventilator, breathing 100% oxygen. Each day thereafter my wife and I came to the hospital to spend the day with him, and each day was pretty much the same—until Saturday morning. On Saturday morning when we arrived at the hospital the ventilator was gone and he was breathing something close to room air in an oxygen tent. Within an hour or two the tent was removed and he was breathing normally.

The doctors later showed us X-rays of his lungs which were taken each morning. Those from Wednesday through Friday revealed his lungs full of gunk, which showed up as white on the X-rays. But Saturday morning’s X-ray revealed two healthy lungs, with virtually all of that white gunk gone. We got to take him home a few days later. The doctor had no explanation for this overnight healing. He called it “remarkable.” We call it miraculous.

I believe God heals us. I’m currently recovering from a broken leg I suffered on May 27^th in a bicycle accident, so I am experiencing his healing as I write this. Lots of people are praying for my recovery, and it seems to be going pretty well so far.

God’s healing can occur overnight, as it did with my son, or over time, as is happening with my leg. But I do not believe God heals on demand. And that is why I do not believe in faith healers.

A prayer is a request, not a command. One of the reasons idolatry was so attractive and popular in Old Testament times was that it put humans in control—just say the right words, and provide the right offerings at the right times, and the gods would give you what you wanted. Indeed, they had to. In a sense, they were obligated.

But God doesn’t work that way. He never has. God is always in control; we never are. He decides whether or not he will grant a prayer. We don’t.

So the whole premise of the faith healer is flawed. The idea that he can get God to heal a specific person, at a specific time and place, effectively puts the faith healer in control of God. And I consider that to be nonsense.

Does God heal? Of course, oftentimes without even being asked.

Does he sometimes do miraculous healings? I believe he does.

Does he always heal on our timetable? Not at all.

Does he always heal? If he did, the cemeteries would be empty, or nearly so.

God is a loving parent. And like any loving parent, sometimes he grants his children’s requests—and sometimes he doesn’t. But he decides, not us. And not the faith healer.