One of the things that Christians who have long-term or ongoing illnesses have to wrestle with is the issue of unaswered prayer. I can remember reading through the Gospels about how Christ healed everyone who came to Him and wondering, “What’s wrong with me that He doesn’t heal me?” You go over those prayer promises and pray in faith, yet continue to have problems. Well-meaning friends imply that if you were just praying right or had enough faith, you’d be healed in a jiffy. You read verses on God’s healing that sound like they were written just for you. Yet, though you experience some degree of recovery, you’re not completely healed.
Of course, sin can hinder answers to prayer (Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59: 1-2), so it is important to examine yourself and confess any sin the Holy Spirit brings to your mind.
But there are other reasons for seemingly unanswered prayer.
We live in a fallen world. When sin entered, so did sorrow, suffering, and death. Those will all be taken away one day in heaven, but we’re not there yet.
It is so important not to get bitter, to realize that God allowed this for a reason. In A Path Through Suffering by Elisabeth Elliot, she has an appendix in the back of several reasons given in Scripture for suffering. It would take too much space to list them all but here are a couple:
1. Once when Jesus was asked whose sins caused a man’s blindness, He answered, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:3). Sometimes the Lord allows suffering to occur in our lives so that both we and others observing us will see Him in and through it.
2. In John 15, Jesus says, “I am the true vine, and my Father is the husbandman. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away: and every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.” I am not a good gardener, but I do know that with many plants, if you don’t cut them back occasionally, they won’t grow. or at least they won’t grow as well. Sometimes those “pruning” experiences in our lives are a means of growth, growth we wouldn’t otherwise experience.
There is a fuller discussion of this subject with other Scriptural reasons for suffering here.
Whenever I start wondering why I have to suffer I always hear this little voice inside me saying, “To show people that you can still love and honor God even when you are in pain.” That’s enough for me.
So true, Jenn. Reminds me of 1 Peter 1:7: “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honour and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”
I just want to say thank you for verbalizing what I have been struggling with these last few months, and most especially these last few days. Your words are so much more understandable than how i wrote it
But the truth is, you are so right, the trials that I am going through are for Gods praise, so others might see how I through the love of God will stay the course. I have no doubts he will heal you, me and everyone, in his time. To God all praise for every single moment, I would rather suffer and have his love, than to have never known him.
thank you for your blog, you have helped me much.
God Bless you
you are so right .It is christ that has strengthened me through my time of trial.With out christ I would not have made it this far.Iknow and believe that after the storm comes the sunshine.Praise be to God.