Day 1, IHOP - KC

So we’re here in Kansas City, MO. We drove through the night and arrived a few minutes before 3, local time. That’d be Central Time, so our bodies felt like it was really a few minutes before 4, Eastern Time. The time change was real nice coming, but going back will take a bit longer.

I’m sitting here in the Prayer Room at IHOP. The question that I continue to ask is, “What is it to know God for these next few days?” I can’t tell you how amazing it is to have absolutely no schedule, no expectations placed on me, to be completely free to do whatever I need to do to know God.

But what is that? I have no responsibilities – what does it look like to know Christ in a time of freedom like this? So far, it has included, 1). singing some with the always-playing worship team, 2). Sitting silently, thinking, 3). Being asleep, and 4). Thinking about healing.

IHOP includes an emphasis on healing. They have several healing rooms to my left and slightly behind me. The worship leader during the last set brought to us a prayer request for a man who had a stroke.

This led me to ask, “Why do we ask for healing? What’s the goal in seeking healing from God?” Certainly he must be able to heal, for He is God, the same God of the Old and New Testaments, who healed. Jesus healed people. God does not seem to be opposed to healing at all.

And yet, at the same time, I read verses about rejoicing in trials, about God being glorified in weakness, about weak people being those God can use. Just this past Sunday I heard some more of the story of a man in my home congregation who has had debilitating back pain for the past five years. I had taken part in a prayer meeting where we asked God for healing for his back.

This man would gladly work at the job he has had his whole life. He doesn’t to be in such a state that he is unable to work. He is not a slacker. Yet God does not enable him to work in this way.

Instead, he has been volunteering at a soup kitchen, with clothing drives, with all sorts of ministries aimed at people who have been dealt a bad hand in life. He is busier now than he ever was working. And he loves it.

The pain that kept him from working at his job, God used to put him in this ministry opportunity. He would not have started volunteering if he had been able to work, if he had been able to continue has he had all his life.

Something that it seems like I hear very often here at IHOP and its functions is that God desires for all of us to be whole, and healthy. Maybe I am merely misunderstanding what they mean by that, and I look forward to a chance to talk with someone here. But I don’t feel like I can quite agree with that statement, that God desires health for all of us.

That would be making health the goal of this life. I don’t agree that the point of life is health. If it is, God has been failing for quite a while now at that task. There are sooooooo many people both now and before our time who have been sick, diseased, hurt, and not ‘healthy.’ No, I don’t believe that the point of life is health. Not from God’s perspective.

If, however, the point of life is knowing God as who He is, however I am (whole, sick, weak, broken), then indeed that goal has been accomplishable.

“He is not far from each one of us.” (Acts 17:27)

“For since the creation of the world God’s invisible qualities, his eternal power and divine nature, have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse. (Romans 1:20)

And so much good can come out of being broken, not being whole. Like the example of the guy from my congregation, so much good is being brought out of his terrible pain. This good would not have happened had he not had this back trouble.

So should we just accept whatever infirmities we get? Should I just accept my physical state as a gift from God that will help me serve other people, serve Him?

Maybe.

So why this emphasis on healing?

Is it because disease goes against the Very Good way that God created us? Is it because we are seeking to return to the way of living before the Fall, where we are in communion with God as with a friend – and sickness did not have a part of that?

Maybe.

Is it because I feel like I can serve better if I am not weighed down by this infirmity?

Maybe.

I was watching a man walk around here, who was a bit overweight. It’s not hard to be overweight in America. But you can work at losing weight, right? And, if you’re working at something, you’re going to talk about and share that goal/process/progress with the people around you who care about you, right? This would include God, it would seem. God cares about me, deeply. I am going to share with Him things that I’m working toward.

What about a cold? I can work toward getting rid of a cold – Vitamin C, sleep, Chicken Noodle Soup, etc. Now, I would share that with Jesus too – it’s something that is concerning me, so I share it.

How about a broken bone? I am going to go to a doctor, get it set, get a cast, and try to heal it up. That also is something that I’d share with Jesus; “Jesus, my arm is broken, I’m trying to help it heal. It hurts, it’s inconvenient. I’d like it to be healed. I know that I was not created to have a broken arm.”

How about cancer?

A stroke?

Once you start sharing your life with Jesus, there really isn’t a place that you stop. There’s no part of my life that just doesn’t concern Him. Including health, healing, and wholeness.

But, God can bring such good out of physical brokenness, too.

What to do?

Maybe both?


The Christian Churches/Churches of Christ often get a bad rap on healing. We pray, “God, if it is your will, please heal this person. But, you know better than we do, so do whatever you want.” (You’re going to anyway, so just do it.) And, that rap is deserved. I know MANY people who pray that type of prayer because they simply don’t believe that God either can or will heal people.

The fear is that the person won’t be healed. If they’re not healed, and I asked and had faith that they would be, what does that mean? That my God is too weak? That my faith is too weak? What happened?

I myself was that way for quite a while. It’s kind of like wishing – I’d sure like for this person to be healed, but I’d rather not risk my (almost non-existent) faith in case they aren’t. I’d rather give God an out, so I can continue believing in Him.


Well that’s no good! If my God could fail, how good is that God? He’s no better than the idols of gold and silver of the Old Testament. I believe in Him, sure, but He may not do anything. I make my offering so as not to make him angry, I do the right stuff – but I don’t believe that he truly has power.

If my God has no power, then there is no reason to fear Him. If I do not fear my God, if I don’t believe that he is both real and active, then I don’t have any reason to change. There is no reason (or power) to be reformed, to be changed, transformed by the renewing of my mind (Romans 12:2).

Oh, look at that!

The second half of that verse ties right back in!

Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you may be able to test and approve what God’s will is – his good, pleasing, and perfect will.

If my mind is transformed because my God is powerful, I will be able to test and approve (find, see, and acknowledge) what God’s will is, what God is doing. This must relate to healing as well.

If my God is powerful, if I am changed by Him, if I am seeking to know who He is, what He is like, then I will be able to find His will for health and sickness.

Yes, we are created to be healthy. Yes we receive sicknesses, infirmities. Yes God uses both. Through knowing Him, then, I can know whether I am to accept illness, or seek healing.

Thus, in faith, is it possible that the seemingly wavering prayer that my church background taught me is acceptable before God? In faith, truly seeking and trusting, is it possible that I am indeed to say, “I don’t like this pain, this hurt, this unwholeness. The good I see is that it be taken away from me, (2 Corinthians 12:8-9. Yet if it is not taken away, I accept it and rejoice in how You will be glorified in it, and how I can seek and know You through it.

Maybe.