Article February 18, 1985 Issue

After the healing, what to notice

NATHAN A. TALBOT

Think of the last time you prayed and were healed. Maybe a falling out with a neighbor led you to turn to God. Perhaps an illness made you reach for freedom. Or bills may have been piling up, and there was a real need to break away from a constant feeling of lack.

When the healing came, what did you most notice? The fact that a friendship had been restored? That pain in the body had disappeared? That the bills were more easily being paid now? How natural it is to be grateful for such changes. In fact, it would be unnatural not to feel happy about them. But is this the sort of thing you mainly noticed about the healing? That probably depends on your motive when you began to pray.

If you were thinking of healing primarily in terms of human improvement, then that's what was probably most apparent and meaningful. But there are limitations to thinking of healing along these lines. If we view healing chiefly as a shift in human circumstances, this may mean we have started with the premise in our prayer that God is going to make material things better. There's a more legitimate premise.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Revolutionary? Yes!