Planning, nurturing, waiting, and holding firm to a vision can be hard, even exhausting. As we wait for the promise to be fulfilled, weeks can turn into months and months into years. Think of Sarah and Abraham who had to wait 25 years for the promise of a son to be fulfilled!
Waiting for Healing
When my husband had cancer and was undergoing treatments, we held fervently to the hope of his healing. Groaning inwardly, we prayed daily, confessed Scripture out loud, believed it, and fought back fear and uncertainty with radical faith. Waiting is very hard work! God rewarded our endurance and after many intense battles we were eventually blessed with his complete healing. The experience was so life changing that I felt compelled to share what we’d learned. My book “Healed, Healthy and Whole, How We Beat Cancer” (www.healedhealthyandwhole.com) is the result of that passion to help others. Since its release, hundreds of people have shared with me how it has given them a road map for healing and brought them strength, courage and hope. Many of them are now also being healed!
What is Your Hope?
What are you holding out for today? Galatians 6:9 encourages us to not beome weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
To help us endure, Isaiah 40:30-31 reminds us that strength and refreshing come from the Lord. Please understand: you cannot do this alone! Your strength and hope and courage will run out. You must turn to God and ask Him for stamina. For even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint. My husband I can attest to how God keeps this promises!
Understand That It’s a Process
Instant healing or “spontaneous remission” as the doctors call it, rarely happens, but sometimes God does choose to bless in this way. However most of us find ourselves have to walk through our healing process one step at a time. That’s when holding on to the hope of healing becomes really hard. Every vision will be tested and sometimes that testing can be very fierce. Ephesians 6 even warns that part of the struggle is even supernatural! We wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places. This is why winning this war requires spiritual weapons and not just medical ones.
War-time Walkie-Talkie
Pastor/author John Piper offers this instruction: Prayer is a walkie talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls on God for courage (Eph. 6:19). It calls in for troop deployment and target location (Acts 13:1). It calls in for protection and air cover (Matt. 6:13, Luke 21:36). It calls in for fire power to blast open a way for the Word (Col. 4:3). It calls in for the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers (James 5:16). It calls in for supplies for the forces (Matt. 6:11, Phil. 4:6) And, it calls in for the needed reinforcements (Matt. 9:38). This is the place of prayer—on the battlefield of the world. It is a wartime walkie-talkie for spiritual warfare, not a domestic intercom to increase the comforts of the saints. And, one of the reasons it malfunctions in the hands of so many Christian soldiers is that they have gone AWOL.
Prayer is a Weapon!
Just as soldiers use powerful physical equipment to overcome their enemies, Christians must also “dress” themselves with the armor of God (Eph. 6). My husband and I used prayer as a weapon during his cancer treatments. Not only did we pray daily, together and alone, but we mobilized prayer teams of family and friends all over the country. We held prayer sessions in our home, sometimes for hours, with people coming and going like Olympians in a relay race. At one point, we had over 100 people praying for us from all over the world!
I teach in my book (www.healedhealthyandwhole.com) about the many kinds of healing prayers we used as we battled for my husband’s life. Through them, we found supernatural strength, instruction, provision, assurance…even peace during the most challenging season we had ever walked through together.
Hold Tight to Your Vision
Though you may be tempted to give up—perhaps even now— hold tight to your vision. Draw near to God by reading His Word. Scriptures are God’s way of talking to us, and prayer is how we talk back. Search the Psalms and God’s promises about health and healing. When you experience the Holy Spirit affirming a piece of Scripture just for you, it’s a promise about your situation. Believe it, confess it over your circumstances and hold fast to it though the storms rage! God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all you ask or imagine. Trust in Him for He keeps His promises! In due course, you will reap the rewards of waiting well.
Surrender All
If you do not know God, cry out to Him with all your heart. Confess your need of His strength, provision and guidance. Surrender everything to Him. Ask Him to guide your life and your steps from this moment forward. Do this all in the powerful name of Jesus.
Remember that we have a Healed, Healthy and Whole CD full of the healing scriptures we used in our journey (www.healedhealthyandwhole.com). Listen to it, let His promises seep deep into your soul, experience the strengthening, be encouraged, and trust our great Healer and Physician with whom all things are impossible.
