Sometimes, if a healing is slow to come, it might feel as though goodness and spiritual perfection are far off. Yet the psalmist asks, “And now, Lord, what wait I for? my hope is in thee” (Psalms 39:7).

Christ Jesus’ ministry didn’t require anyone to wait for healing or redemption. And he didn’t simply give his followers coping skills with which to manage the desperate situations they found themselves in. He restored each individual to life and health right in the moment, removing the discordant condition to the point of what must have felt like a completely fresh start for the person healed. 

For example, after Jesus cured a woman “which had a spirit of infirmity eighteen years, and was bowed together, and could in no wise lift up herself” (see Luke 13:11–17), the ruler of the synagogue rebuked the woman for coming to be healed on the Sabbath and Jesus for healing her. But Jesus defended her right to immediate freedom. He knew that the spiritual reality he was demonstrating isn’t true or relevant only at some point in the future but is always true—always present and active—right here and now.