“I have one word for you,
‘H-O-P-E’.”
I didn’t know Larry well but we both served on the board of our local humane society. He had heard of my diagnosis with a form of pancreatic cancer and quietly approached me after a meeting with the word hope….stating it and carefully spelling it out. I thanked him and said, “You seem to be speaking from experience.” He told me of being wounded in combat in Viet Nam and having the evacuation medics tell him he probably would bleed to death before reaching base by helicopter.
Larry said he had looked to heaven at that point and found himself saying, “I may die but I will NOT bleed to death before reaching base.” As he spoke, there was something all knowing about the look in his eyes. Instantly, Larry taught me that I would not die of my prognosis……I had “H-O-P-E”.
This blog is the flower germinated from the seed Larry planted that day several years ago. The roots and stem and leaves of this “flower of hope” are the prayers and experiences of healing–spiritual, mental, and physical. This “plant”, of course, exists of nutrients, water, loving care of the “gardener’s touch”……..However, like any living thing, this “plant of hope”–this blog of hope is God caused and God sustained.
From the healing of our umbilical cord at birth; the healing of every cut finger and skinned knee; the mending of every broken bone; as we consider the intricate and complex processes that occur in our bodies many times each hour–indeed minute, health is undeniably “miraculous”. The world persistently brings physical, spiritual, mental “insults”–doctors often actually call them “insults” to us. But we are “wonderfully made” (Psalm 139:14) to be well when we work “with” rather than “against” our Creator’s design.
H-O-P-E, however prevails–yet hope is a future tense verb. “…Faith is the SUBSTANCE of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Heb 11:1) and faith is a present tense verb. Children seem to be given an amazing ration of this faith as they never doubt their healing. With maturity and cumulative “insult” from a fallen world, we “see” things and “hear” things that cause us to believe healing requires man’s intervention and, certainly, the intervention of pharmaceuticals. Systematic cumulative de-sensitization to the “lies of the enemy” erodes our hope (indeed our faith) and we hand our healing over to man–to “the wonders of modern medicine”….believing that “they can do so much more now than they used to do.” Sometimes they can and sometimes they cannot. We then “hope against hope” that we will beat odds and, after we get medical opinion, we often “add a little prayer for good measure.” All the while faith (necessary for healing) is simply being confident in what we hope for. And that faith is always available as Romans 10:17 instructs, “…faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.”
By contrast to “the wonders of modern medicine”, our Creator is the same yesterday, today, and tomorrow. He gave us His WORD and He even pulled on an earthly flesh and became His own WORD revealing His compassion for every single one afflicted physically, mentally, spiritually. Jesus healed individually, not en masse, and He is the same today. This blog is about divine healing but it is more about divine health. It is about H-O-P-E that is rooted in the soil of our wonderful creation. It is about “re-creation” which, after all, is healing–new tissue, new function, new life. Hope and faith must exist together. The enemy tries to erode our hope to kill our faith. Don’t let him.