I am grateful for…by Lisa Burkhardt Worley
- Deliverance
Each year I ask for God to give me a word to live by, so when my word was “deliver,” I was confused. I felt like I’d been “delivered” from a difficult childhood and some of the subsequent bad choices I made. I never dreamed that I might be delivered from disease this year.
Before we go any further, I want to give you one of the Merriam-Webster definitions of the word “deliver”: to give results that are promised, expected, or desired. I was confident and expectant that God could heal me of a suspected auto-immune disease because He promises healing in His Word and had used me in a healing capacity with others. Now it was my turn.
I think half the battle in healing is believing that God still heals. We either trust His Word or not. Psalm 119:19–20, is one of many passages about God’s promise of healing. It says that when we cry out to the Lord for healing he often answers. “’Lord, help!’ they cried in their trouble, and he saved them from their distress. He sent out his work and healed them, snatching them from the door of death.”
In my initial bloodwork, the suspected auto-immune disease was “Scleroderma.” When I would tell friends about this possibility, they would scrunch up their face in worry and share horrific stories about people they knew with the disease. I deduced it was progressive and fatal.
But my word for the year was “deliver,” and now I believed He gave me that word to perhaps test my faith and see if I would worry in the midst of this potential trial. He let me know far in advance that He would deliver me, and I was confident that He would.
I was referred by my doctor to a Rheumatologist, but could not get in for a couple of months, so I prayed a bold prayer: Lord, by the time I go to the specialist, will you please heal me of any disease that might be trying to take over my body? Over that stretch of time between the prayer and the doctor’s appointment, I progressively felt better. I had been feeling “inflamed” and stiff, a couple of the symptoms of Scleroderma. So the day came to go to my Rheumatologist appointment. After examining my frame, the specialist was already skeptical that I had this particular disease because there were no outward physical symptoms of it, then after running every test imaginable on my blood, everything was within normal range. I did not have any disease whatsoever.
Delivered and not surprised!
This morning, I came across a couple of passages that speak about healing and deliverance, one in Psalm 118: “I shall not die, but live and declare the works of the LORD” (Psalm 118:17). I believe God has more for me to do before I’m called home. Then in 2 Corinthians, Paul talks about his own deliverance from trouble that he experienced on his missionary journey through Asia: “Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead. He has delivered us from such a deadly peril, and he will deliver us again. On him we have set our hope that he will continue to deliver us” (2 Corinthians 1:9–10).
I also believe that every once in a while, the Lord allows these scenarios so we understand the fragility of our lives and how we are totally dependent on Him for our sustenance. He will say “no” to healing, but He often says “yes.”
Today, I am grateful for the Lord’s healing. If you are struggling with some kind of infirmity, won’t you claim the Bible’s promises of healing over your life as well? Before I close, I want to say a healing prayer over you:
Lord, only you know what people are dealing with today concerning their health, but we believe that you are our Jehovah Rapha and that you still heal. I speak this scripture over the lives of those who are reading this blog: “I will give you back your health and heal your wounds,” says the Lord. We call forth your healing and we thank you in advance for how You are going to work. It’s in the powerful name of Jesus we pray this, AMEN.