Menu
Oooh, tricky question. I suppose that depends upon the power of your mind or the power of your faith. Let’s talk about faith, (we can focus upon the power of the mind another day) and what a loving god might do for those who can’t afford to treat their illness.
Let me preface this with an experience I had while house-sitting in the rainforest of Costa Rica last year. This experience gave me a bit of insight into how I believe that God works in the lives of those who cannot afford, or don’t have access to, healing remedies.
Take what I’m about to tell you with a pinch of salt. We all have a different experience of God and my perspective is only one of many, but perhaps it will encourage you, if your god thinks anything like I believe mine does!
While house-sitting, I had no access to organic food. Prior to the beginning of my stint in the forest, one of my energy therapy practitioners had muscle-tested me and told me that it was important for my healing that I eat organic food. Hence, I’d been eating organic up until my arrival into Costa Rica. Not only that, but my diet had been severely restricted in order for my energy treatments with her to work; no eggs—only egg whites, for example. So when I, in despair, told her that I couldn’t follow the diet as long as I was in the rainforest, she muscle-tested me and said, “I’m getting the message for you to bless your food, and it will be OK.”
I thought, What? Really? Even the eggs? Yes, even the eggs. God wanted to make sure I got my morning protein.
I began to bless every meal, something, which in hindsight, I wished I’d been doing anyway.
My practitioner tested me periodically and, to my delight, my body never reacted negatively to the change, as it would have back home.
I once had an encounter with a man who had seen food multiply in Africa. Yup, just like in the Bible. He’d had a cooler of meat slices, whose layers just kept coming off, one by one, to feed a group of people he’d come to visit. The number of people far exceeded the portions, but somehow, there was enough meat for all. On another occasion, a woman from Guatemala shared with me how a bag of rice and beans had lasted her a year during a time when she was unable to find work. In their opinion, God was there, providing supernaturally for them when they had no other way of providing for themselves.
I’ve often wondered how those who have no resources can ever heal from illness, short of a miracle. And truthfully, many don’t. Just look through a World Vision magazine and you’ll see children dying by the millions, from preventable illnesses such as diahrrea and AIDS.
But then I consider my experience in the rainforest, and recall the incidences of those in Africa and Guatemala (not to mention the supernatural healings I’ve witnessed), and wonder if God often provides for those who cannot afford expensive treatments.
Can He bless the means that are available to us, or perform a supernatural act of healing in our bodies? Or are supernatural, or unexplainable, healings supposed to be an infrequent thing in today’s world–the exception to the rule?
When I once asked a pastor friend in Colombia about why he thought God supernaturally healed some and yet expected others to rely upon man’s medicine, he said, “Where there are no doctors, where there is no medicine, God supernaturally heals.”
What about the millions of suffering in Africa, then? I don’t know. If I had God figured out, I’d be able to write bestsellers to the never-before answered question of why God doesn’t always heal. But since I don’t, I can only relate what my personal experience has taught me; faith counts and God is able and willing to do some pretty cool stuff if we keep an open mind.
Where man’s medicine fails; when the bank funds run dry; when a Lyme disease sufferer doesn’t know what to do anymore to heal and is backed into a corner, God often steps in to provide…in ways we hadn’t dreamed of. By blessing the herbs we take, by shifting our biochemistry with a divine hand, and by speaking discernment to us about how to spend our last $100, even though we might not recognize the voice of our subconscious as being His.
Countless times, I have tied my neurons into proverbial knots, as I wonder whether I am performing the proper treatments to heal from Lyme disease. Often, I have worried about not having enough money to treat this darned illness, and have not believed in God’s provision for me.
When I am able to look at life rationally, however, I am convinced that my god is a loving god. He intervenes in His childrens’ lives, to help them to heal in the best manner possible, in His time. But He asks for faith for it to be done. For His ailing creatures to offer Him a thread of trust, of belief, in His ability and willingness to give. Then He shows up, in the most unexpected of ways.
If you can’t afford to treat your Lyme disease, and your god is a sovereign, loving god, ask for help, believing that it will come to you. You may not be given a donation from a loved one, but that sea salt which you take to kill borrelia might suddenly become more blessed than ever before. You might be led to a Lyme practitioner who offers you a discount on supplements. Or you might one day simply feel better, without remembering the request you’d made to God for healing two years ago, when the funds ran dry and you were no longer able to spend another dime to treat your illness.