Evening Prayer 2-14-11

Reading:
John 5:1-18

"Do you want to be healed?"

People are always looking for a miracle.  You can see it society today, if a person thinks they see an image of our Lord or the saints in some object thousands upon thousands of people will flock there to hope to see it.  People make pilgrimmages every year to holy sites around the world for the hope of being healed or the hope of being close to God.  Sometimes they go a lifetime looking for the miracle without getting what THEY were looking for.

Jeremy Camp who is a very good Christian singer and ordained Pastor has an incredible testimony.  He married a young lady early on after they found out that she had cancer.  She was in remission and they were married and while on the honeymoon she began with pains in her stomach.  When they returned from the honeymoon they found out that it had spread and was throughout her body.  She ended up dying a few months after they wed.  Tragic story.  He speaks openly about how he could not understand that God did not heal her.  They did all of annointings, prayers and things.  Why did she have to die?  He healed others why not her?  These are all normal questions to ask in times like this.  The answer is what he came to find out.

God is still God.  Despite what we want, despite what we are looking for, God is in control.  Though his wife passed from this life, she passed into the arms of the savior, Jesus Christ.  He wrote a song called, "I still believe" and it states:
    "I still believe in Your faithfulness, I still believe in Your Truth.  I still believe in Your Holy Word.  Even when I don't see, I still believe."
  This is faith that we cling to God despite all else that may be going on around us.  We may not get the healing that the man received in today's story, but despite the fact that our physical body will breakdown because of our sin, we have hope in the resurrection because of Lord and Savior Jesus Christ overcame death and the grave.  Because He lives we too shall live and we will experience joy beyond our wildest notion when we see Him face to face.