I was sick and then I became well because Jesus healed me.
I have thought about this statement numerous times throughout the last few weeks and I have questioned its truth. For the last few years I have struggled with a stomach problems and I never knew exactly what was wrong. All I did know was sometimes when I would eat certain food my stomach would hurt for hours. I would feel uncomfortable and slow, I was constantly tired because my body was being drained simply trying to digest food. One solution we found was to stop eating certain foods, and the main food I stopped eating was gluten because it helped. My stomach started to feel better, I had energy again, I could digest things and I wasn’t getting stomach pains. But then I went to training camp.
At training camp I had assumed that I would just avoid bread and flour, I figured I would be able to mainly eat vegetables or rice. I was wrong and I realized this the first night when our dinner was a sandwich with a tiny piece of turkey and cheese. I ate the sandwich because I was pretty hungry and by the next few days I realized I was hungry enough to eat whatever was given to me, gluten or not.
By mid-week I was feeling extremely uncomfortable and I could tell that my body was not digesting food properly. I was excited because I didn’t have the same pains I normally would but I did feel uncomfortable. I was sluggish, bloated and all together feeling gross. It burdened me the first few days and I finally shared with a few people my problem. I won’t go into detail of that day but I will say they prayed for me, a few times, and I felt uncomfortable and I didn’t like that they were praying for healing over something so little in my mind. But God started to make himself bigger at training camp and one of those ways was through prayer.
At one point the day that my squad mates prayed for me I felt like I was going to throw up so some of my squad gathered around me to pray. Eventually someone started singing and even though I was doubtful I was reminded that ultimately Jesus wants us to focus on his face. So I focused on Jesus and later that day I felt better. I felt so good that I realized that my stomach was healed!
Now fast-forward a few weeks to after I returned home. I continued to eat gluten because I felt that if God had really healed me I should continue to have faith that it wasn’t just for training camp but it was for life.
Eventually I started to question this healing. I started to wonder if I really was healed. I asked myself if my stomach ever really hurt, I questioned whether I had simply made up my stomach problems before and if I had, then I never truly was healed. It felt like it was all in my mind.
I brought up my doubts with some of my squad one night when we were discussing healing. I told them that I thought maybe I had made up my sickness to begin with. But one friend pointed me to Genesis 3 reminding me how the serpent had deceived Eve.
The serpent sought to deceive the woman by instilling doubt in her. He tried to trick her into believing a lie and in my situation I wasn’t allowing myself to see the truth. I didn’t see the healing that Jesus had done in my life because the enemy sought to deceive me and convince me I was never sick. He is very crafty, the enemy, but God is smarter. The enemy doesn’t want me to believe that Jesus is healer because that would allow God to be bigger and more powerful in my life. That would mean Satan and sickness would become smaller and less powerful. He got angry and tried to raise doubts in my heart. But you know what, He failed.
This is what I know, I felt sick when I used to eat bread, now I eat bread after having called on Jesus’ name for healing and I don’t feel sick. Satan cannot take that fact from me.
Jesus heals and brings restoration. God desires to pour out his love on his children but we put him in a box so easily. We limit his power and his love. But God is bigger than our boxes that we create and he is showing me that every day.
Have you put God in a box? Do you need to let him out? I can tell you that if you do let him out, just watch what he does. He will pour so much love and life out onto you that you will be unable to deny his goodness and power.
Stop limiting God, let him lead.
