Theology 101: Great faith is not trusting God to heal, but trusting God when He doesn’t.
I once saw God instantly heal a woman of a golf-ball-sized brain tumor in response to a prayer so pathetic that it would have made the faith of a mustard seed look like the muscles of a mountain-mover. Though it wasn’t the most confident prayer of my Christian life, God instantly and permanently healed her. I’ll never forget that bona fide, medically verifiable miracle. I was there. I was an eyewitness to God’s astonishing healing power.
But that was over fifteen years ago, and since that time I’ve prayed, fasted, and petitioned the same God for others suffering from similarly hopeless plights . . . to no avail. The God who answered my call on the first ring fifteen years ago has let most of my subsequent requests go to voicemail. I’d be lying if I didn’t say this has been a bit frustrating, especially since I know that He can and does heal.
Yet God’s silence has called me to an exercise of even greater faith. It has taken me more faith to continue to trust the goodness and greatness of a mostly silent God than it did when He healed the tumor. If faith is the “conviction of things not seen” (Heb. 11:1, ASV), and if God wants to nurture a community of sojourners on a walk of faith (2 Cor. 5:6), then I need to trust Him even more when He seems to rarely return that trust with mind-blowing miracles.
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