Listen to Audio Devotion
As a Pastor I often get requests from people to pray for their sickness; either mental or physical. I get requests often to pray. I witnessed God answer prayers and heal people and some prayers weren’t answered.
The question that comes is, “What if people aren’t healed ?” What if the sickness that I am praying for doesn’t change but remains? Often when prayers go unanswered we become extremely worried.
But what does the Bible say,
2 Corinthians 12:7–10 NIV
7… Therefore, in order to keep me from becoming conceited, I was given a thorn in my flesh, a messenger of Satan, to torment me.
8 Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me.
9 But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.
10 That is why, for Christ’s sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong.
In this passage, Paul shares his experience and the challenges that he is walking through. He writes He was a given a thorn in my flesh.
What is the thorn in my flesh? It was his way of describing the sickness that he was battling. So he pleads with the Lord to heal him, to take it away but God did not instead God him to strength to bear that suffering.
This may surprise us, we may wonder if someone was more deserving of healing it was Paul because of all the ministry work that he did. But God doesn’t heal instead gives him the strength to bear with suffering.
Why? Why does this happen?
Here’s what we must understand, whether we are healed or not. It is all for the glory of God. If we are healed it is so that we can be a testimony to God’s miraculous power but if we are not, then it’s a testimony to how God can strengthen us in the midst of severe pain and sickness.
So, do not be worried if you are not healed because God has a purpose even in your sickness.
Let’s pray.
Lord, sometimes it’s hard to understand how you work. Because we are human beings who desire to have everything we ask or pray for. But Lord thank you for reminding us that there is purpose even in the midst of sickness and pain. In Jesus’ name.
