June 20, 2020  (Post #42)

(From Journal #3:  February 12, 2006)

This morning I saw a pastor on TV who had been diagnosed with Hepatitis C.   Treatment options had been presented to him, and none without side effects and risks.  He believes in divine healing and found himself thinking his choices were:  “I either have to go through treatment OR trust God to heal me.” In his mind he felt that treatment would make him a “faith-failure.”  His very wise mother told him that medicines are for healing and the enemy is about death.  He realized that he had put You in a box by thinking he could only be divinely healed in a certain way, and saw that You give us many tools to use for healing, like medicines, supplements, diet, etc.  It wasn’t a question of medicine OR trusting God; it was treatment AND trusting God.  

Oh, can I relate!  I just went through this myself.  Last week I finished my 4th and last treatment of my 2nd round of immunotherapy.  I thought about how in Deuteronomy 30:19, You told Moses and the Israelites “… I have set before you life and death; choose life…” I chose to see this treatment path as a part of Your healing and took it in faith.  I also thought about Naaman and how his pride and stubbornness almost cost him his healing.  

2 Kings 5:1, 10-15:  Now Naaman was commander of the army of the king of Aram. He was a great man in the sight of his master and highly regarded, because through him the Lord had given victory to Aram. He was a valiant soldier, but he had leprosy.  Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go, wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.” But Naaman went away angry and said, “I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, wave his hand over the spot and cure me of my leprosy. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” So he turned and went off in a rage.  Naaman’s servants went to him and said, “My father, if the prophet had told you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he tells you, ‘Wash and be cleansed’!” So he went down and dipped himself in the Jordan seven times, as the man of God had told him, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a young boy.  Then Naaman and all his attendants went back to the man of God. He stood before him and said, “Now I know that there is no God in all the world except in Israel…”