And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

James 5:15‭-‬16 NIV

Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Romans 5:3‭-‬5 NIV

On the day of my latest scan, my church was praying and fasting for many in our church going through health challenges, including us. Many of these prayers were for healing; complete healing. A few days later the results came back and my Cancer had returned!

If looked at through the lens of “cause and effect”, in that, when we pray for healing, healing should always happen, we could conclude prayer doesn’t work. Indeed, how is it that I’m still not healed when so many faithful men and women, all of whom believe that God can and does heal, can pray in good faith and seemingly nothing changes? This is a question I’ve pondered a lot these last couple of weeks.

The verses above may seem to contradict each other. On the one hand it says prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. On the other hand it talks about glorying in our sufferings. So often when it comes to prayers like this, we look for the right words or some kind of formula to say, if I say this or do this then it will somehow open up heaven and healing will come. But it doesn’t seem to work like this.

I could get lost in some theological rabbit hole with this and I’m not qualified to do that, but my experience of this is that God knows what is best for us. He sees the big picture, the long game. It’s so hard to see this when you’re in the middle of it, when all you want is the healing and an end to the pain for you and those around you. But there is something about the struggle that God uses to reveal so much to us about the depth of his love for us.

That is not to say healing won’t come, but sometimes how we get there isn’t always obvious and doesn’t follow a set formula. Nobody would chose the struggle but, while we wait for the healing, God reveals things to us that build our character and give us hope.

My son had a great illustration of this…
“in the TV series Lost, the character Locke explains that the moth in a cocoon is struggling to get out and he could gently use a knife to help the moth get out but it wouldn’t be strong enough to survive. The moth gets its strength and muscles from the struggle to get out of the cocoon. He said he knows God could heal his Dad straight away but actually being in the cocoon is what strengthens us to rely and be close to God.”

I’ve believed from day one that God could heal me and believe ultimately, he will. There is often great mystery when it comes to praying for things like healing and we don’t always get to understand God’s timing. Our job is to keep praying until we have the breakthrough.
Nicky Gumbel says “A river cuts through rock not because of its power but because of its persistence” (@nickygumbel)
In the same way our persistence in praying will produce a breakthrough. We may struggle and suffer until then, but God continues to strengthen us, reveal his love for us and increase our reliance on him.‬‬