Latest / Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers / #112: Does God Still Heal?

Transcript

#112: Does God Still Heal? · Deep-Grace Diving with Tim Wright and Terey Summers

• 0:00
  [music]
• 0:18
  SPEAKER_00: Hey friends, Tim Wright here, along with John Burgess.
• 0:23
  SPEAKER_01: Hey there.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: I want to tell you a couple of stories as we start today.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_00: Years and years ago,
• 0:32
  SPEAKER_00: my wife and I,
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: and the senior pastor of our church and his wife,
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  SPEAKER_00: Walt Mary Callestead, went to a seminar at the Crystal Cathedral.
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  SPEAKER_00: It was Robert Shuler's church at the time.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: And a guy named John Wimber was doing a two-day seminar on healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it was a very, very interesting seminar.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: He was one of these guys who was not,
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  SPEAKER_00: sometimes you think of healers as being quite dramatic and they huff and they puff
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  SPEAKER_00: on stage.
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  SPEAKER_00: He was just very low key, matter of fact.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we would break into groups and just pray for each other.
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  SPEAKER_00: And something happened in my wife and something happened in Mary where they just
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  SPEAKER_00: For lack of better word, could feel sort of electricity when they prayed.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we went home and we started adding healing prayer to our Sunday night service.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I'd love to tell you that a lot of people were healed.
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  SPEAKER_00: I do know that when Jan and Mary would pray for people, something would happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: Not necessarily healing, but something would happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: So Two stories out of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: One is there was a woman, a young woman, young mom who had breast cancer.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they were going to do a double mastectomy on her.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we prayed with her and prayed for her.
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  SPEAKER_00: And they ran one more scan and the cancer was gone.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: I We were doing a little prayer thing at church one day and a guy came limping in
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  SPEAKER_00: and he sat down and I said, what can I pray for you, buddy?
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  SPEAKER_00: He said, there's something wrong with my leg.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's something wrong with my leg.
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  SPEAKER_00: I said, well, I'll pray for you.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_00: And so I and I don't claim to have the gift of healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: All right.
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  SPEAKER_00: I don't claim to have the gift of healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I just laid my hand on his leg and immediately he jumped up like a shock
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  SPEAKER_00: of electricity had gone through his leg and the pain was gone.
• 2:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I hadn't even prayed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now fast forward to 2026.
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  SPEAKER_00: My wife has had cancer for four and a half years.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it's now moved into her liver.
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  SPEAKER_00: And she dies.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: God didn't heal her.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I have some mixed feelings about that.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm grateful that we had four and a half years to be together and there were moments
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: in between our therapies that We could enjoy life.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_00: I know that she was tired.
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  SPEAKER_00: She'd been through therapies for four and a half years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Her body had had enough and that the liver just was not going to clear out.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: And then we discovered she had a brain tumor on top of it.
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  SPEAKER_00: So it was it was it was time for her to go.
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  SPEAKER_00: But she was only 69.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: We had a lot of years left.
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  SPEAKER_00: I just retired a year ago.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so I understand it, but I can I could get angry at God for not healing her.
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  SPEAKER_00: And probably all of us have some real wrestling that comes when we think
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: about God healing,
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  SPEAKER_00: whether it's healing a mental illness,
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  SPEAKER_00: it's healing a physical ailment, it's healing emotions.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's kind of this expectation amongst us Christians Especially in certain parts
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_00: of Christianity.
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  SPEAKER_00: A, that God still heals to this day.
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  SPEAKER_00: B, if you're not healed, it's because of you and your lack of faith.
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  SPEAKER_00: And C,
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  SPEAKER_00: that the only way that God heals is through something miraculous where the disease,
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  SPEAKER_00: the illness, whatever it is, miraculously disappears.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we really limit
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  SPEAKER_00: How God can act in our lives, how God can heal, and what healing looks like.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, the Gospels don't help because every time Jesus touched somebody or talked
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  SPEAKER_00: to somebody, they were healed miraculously.
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  SPEAKER_00: The disease went away.
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  SPEAKER_00: On the other hand, none of those people are still alive.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right?
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  SPEAKER_00: They all died from something eventually.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: Even the healers like Oral Roberts and Catherine Coleman, John Wimber, they're all gone.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, do we wish that God would heal us?
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  SPEAKER_00: Do we wish that we could grow to an old age and then just wake up dead one day?
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  SPEAKER_00: Of course, it's what we all wish and pray for.
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  SPEAKER_00: And that's why it's really important for us to understand the miracles of Jesus
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  SPEAKER_00: in context and what those miracles were saying.
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  SPEAKER_00: And then we can kind of talk about, does God still heal to this day?
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  SPEAKER_00: So let's just remind ourselves that when Jesus broke into human history,
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  SPEAKER_00: he said, the kingdom of God has come near.
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  SPEAKER_00: Repent and believe the good news.
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  SPEAKER_00: What he meant by kingdom of God is not a place.
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  SPEAKER_00: He meant the reign of God Has entered into human history in a unique way.
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  SPEAKER_00: And God is present in this world through me.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so that you can see that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm going to show you that I have power over sickness.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have power over death.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have power over leprosy.
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  SPEAKER_00: I have power over mental illness.
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  SPEAKER_00: And these are signs That God is doing something unique through me.
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  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean that now that Jesus has come, everybody will be healed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Because what Jesus showed us is we live in a now not yet world.
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  SPEAKER_00: The world right now is filled with brokenness, illness, death, pain.
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  SPEAKER_00: Of course, there's joy and happiness and all of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And the kingdom of God is present.
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  SPEAKER_00: God is alive and well.
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  SPEAKER_00: But these two worlds coexist.
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  SPEAKER_00: And until the day comes when Jesus comes back and completely eradicates the world
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  SPEAKER_00: as it currently is, there's going to be death.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there are going to be times when people aren't healed.
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  SPEAKER_00: Probably more times than not.
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  SPEAKER_00: More people are going to be healed in ways that don't seem miraculous at the time,
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  SPEAKER_00: but really are.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, so when Jan,
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: when we first got Jan's scans back and she had black dots all over her whole body,
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: man, that looked like a death sentence.
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  SPEAKER_00: We were able to get her treatments,
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  SPEAKER_00: difficult treatments at times that extended her life for four and a half years.
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  SPEAKER_00: I'm so grateful for that.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's a gift of healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: There are people who are depressed and they're on a medication that helps their depression.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's a healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's an act of grace and love.
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  SPEAKER_00: People on anxiety meds or people who have diabetes and they're using medications
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  SPEAKER_00: to manage their diabetes, cancer treatments.
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  SPEAKER_00: All of these are ways that God heals or extends life or improves life.
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  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes they, you know, like some of those cancer treatments can be pretty brutal.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: And so we sort of have to live in the now, not yet.
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  SPEAKER_00: That, yeah, life for all of us will end in death.
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  SPEAKER_00: Life for all of us will have hardship.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the presence of God holds out a promise that this isn't going to be
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  SPEAKER_00: the final word in our lives.
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  SPEAKER_00: That the ultimate word in our life will be a word of healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a word of life.
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  SPEAKER_00: It'll be a word of grace.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we live in that tension.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it is not easy sometimes to be disappointed when God doesn't heal
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  SPEAKER_00: or answer our prayers the way that we
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  SPEAKER_01: want.
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  SPEAKER_01: Tim, I don't want to miss something that you said a couple of minutes ago.
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  SPEAKER_01: You said that it's really hard and sometimes the Gospels don't help because
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  SPEAKER_01: when we look at the Gospels,
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  SPEAKER_01: it seems like every time Jesus turns around, there is a miraculous healing.
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  SPEAKER_01: And it does look like that.
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  SPEAKER_01: But we've also talked about,
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  SPEAKER_01: I believe on this podcast,
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  SPEAKER_01: when we talk about miracles,
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  SPEAKER_01: that the Gospels represent this sort of
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: highlight reel from three years of ministry.
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  SPEAKER_01: In other words, was there not plenty of time?
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  SPEAKER_01: And I think there's a lesson in this,
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  SPEAKER_01: but was there not plenty of time Where Jesus and
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  SPEAKER_01: the disciples were just doing life together,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: and it was Tuesday, and someone burnt the fish.
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  SPEAKER_01: There was just a lot of ordinary living and loving and learning who Jesus was
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  SPEAKER_01: that doesn't seem to make the Gospels.
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  SPEAKER_01: I can't imagine there wasn't times when the disciples at least went out and said,
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm praying for healing for this person.
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  SPEAKER_01: And maybe the person was not healed the way that everyone thought the person would be.
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  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we just don't have stories like that.
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  SPEAKER_00: We do have a story where the disciples try to cast a demon out of a boy and they can't.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so Jesus has to do it.
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  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the thing is that every story we have of healing, someone is healed.
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  SPEAKER_00: What we don't have.
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  SPEAKER_00: Are all the people who weren't healed in those three years.
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  SPEAKER_00: Now, Jesus didn't come in contact with everybody,
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  SPEAKER_00: but there had to be people,
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  SPEAKER_00: Jewish people,
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  SPEAKER_00: who were praying for God to heal their children, their spouse, whatever it might be.
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  SPEAKER_00: But the point of the Gospels is not that.
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  SPEAKER_00: The point of the Gospels is God is doing something new in the world,
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  SPEAKER_00: and these are visible signs of that.
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  SPEAKER_00: And so we have to be careful to take that and make it into a whole theology
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  SPEAKER_00: of healing that everybody should be healed and everybody who asks
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  SPEAKER_00: to be healed should be healed.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's not what the stories are about.
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  SPEAKER_00: These stories are about a God who is broken into human history in a new way
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  SPEAKER_00: to bring goodness where there is pain, to bring hope where there is despair.
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  SPEAKER_00: And we live with both.
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  SPEAKER_00: It's a both-and.
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  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and you just answered my next question.
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  SPEAKER_01: I take a little bit of consolation in looking at the Gospels and realizing
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  SPEAKER_01: that there was a lot of normal life happening between these miraculous events,
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  SPEAKER_01: but also How many of us are thinking to ourselves,
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  SPEAKER_01: I will lower my friend on the mat.
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  SPEAKER_01: I will get you close enough to Jesus that you can touch the hem.
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  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready.
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  SPEAKER_01: So it is some consolation having this perspective.
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  SPEAKER_01: And also at the same time,
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  SPEAKER_01: in this in-between time, who of us have not said, we just need one of those?
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  SPEAKER_01: If I could just find the hem, I'm there.
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  SPEAKER_01: If I can, I will put my friend on the mat and break away the roof and lower down, I'm ready.
• 12:42
  SPEAKER_01: And honestly,
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  SPEAKER_01: some of the sermons on this topic are a little bit like,
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_01: you need to take action if your friend needs help.
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  SPEAKER_01: And I'm ready.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: I'm ready to take action.
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  SPEAKER_00: Right.
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  SPEAKER_00: Again, we need to remember that taking action, surely we're going to pray for people.
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  SPEAKER_00: I took action with Jan.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jan and I took action by taking her to a cancer clinic because she had cancer.
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  SPEAKER_00: Did I pray for her?
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  SPEAKER_00: I prayed for her every day.
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  SPEAKER_00: And at night I would lay in bed and I would just imagine the Spirit of God starting
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  SPEAKER_00: at the top of her head and the light of the Spirit just going down
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  SPEAKER_00: and removing all those tumors from her body.
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  SPEAKER_00: I prayed that prayer many nights.
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  SPEAKER_00: And it just didn't happen.
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  SPEAKER_00: And I will say that I haven't been angry at God.
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  SPEAKER_00: I knew Jan was tired.
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  SPEAKER_00: She'd done as long as she could.
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  SPEAKER_00: But there are times when
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_00: can just go there and be angry and God's okay with that.
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  SPEAKER_00: I mean, he knows that my anger is really because I just so desperately miss my wife
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  SPEAKER_00: and I want her here.
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  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, the thing is for Jan, she's not feeling any pain anymore.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_00: So in some ways, death is the ultimate healing, but it doesn't help me.
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  SPEAKER_00: So I have to go through my own process of healing, which I'm doing.
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  SPEAKER_00: You know, I'm seeking therapy and doing some other forms of therapy to kind of help me deal.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: And that's how God's going to heal me, right?
• 14:26
  SPEAKER_00: It would be great if God just would drop down peace into my grief brain and say,
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: it's okay now, Tim, you're okay.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: Life just doesn't usually work that way.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: Sometimes, but not normally.
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  SPEAKER_01: No, which makes me mad.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: But before we talk about
• 14:46
  SPEAKER_01: that, I know this is still raw for you.
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: You're doing some really incredible writings on grief.
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  SPEAKER_01: So I want to ask this question carefully.
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  SPEAKER_01: But I think this is really important for us because here's some of the things that
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_01: when I'm praying,
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  SPEAKER_01: and I think for all of us when we're praying and we don't get the miraculous result
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: that we want, here's things that I think.
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  SPEAKER_01: I didn't pray well enough.
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  SPEAKER_01: I didn't pray often enough.
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  SPEAKER_01: I didn't develop my spiritual gift of healing or something else.
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  SPEAKER_01: There's too much sin in my life, so my prayers are no good.
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  SPEAKER_01: I have a real lack of faith.
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  SPEAKER_01: And then here's the final one.
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  SPEAKER_01: If it didn't work for Pastor Tim after 40-some years of ministry,
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  SPEAKER_01: what hope do I have with my little prayers?
• 15:45
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_00: Well, this again is where we tend to put all the pressure on ourselves for our healing.
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  SPEAKER_00: If God is like a Santa Claus that we can manipulate and if I'm just good enough,
• 16:02
  SPEAKER_00: then God will answer.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: We have a couple stories in the Bible where people didn't even have faith at all
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  SPEAKER_00: and God healed them or Jesus healed them.
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  SPEAKER_00: We have a story from the Old Testament where a guy was healed who He had no interest
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_00: in the God of Israel at the moment until after he was healed.
• 16:21
  SPEAKER_00: So healing is not dependent on us.
• 16:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not dependent on our prayers.
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  SPEAKER_00: I would guarantee you that most people who have been in crisis,
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: who are Christian people,
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  SPEAKER_00: who've been in crisis, a loved one's dying, someone's challenged with something,
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  SPEAKER_00: They prayed enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: They prayed more than enough.
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  SPEAKER_00: They begged God.
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  SPEAKER_00: They pleaded with God.
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  SPEAKER_00: They bargained with God.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not that they don't have the faith.
• 16:59
  SPEAKER_00: If they didn't have faith, they wouldn't keep coming back to God in prayer.
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  SPEAKER_00: So we got to let go of that for ourselves and stop punishing ourselves.
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  SPEAKER_00: There's nothing we could have done.
• 17:12
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have a daughter who is sick and dying, And all you do is pray.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_00: You don't take her to the doctor.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, then you got a problem.
• 17:21
  SPEAKER_00: But what I'm talking about here are those of us who have done everything we can do.
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  SPEAKER_00: We're seeing all the therapists.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've seen all the doctors.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_00: We're praying.
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  SPEAKER_00: We've done everything we can do.
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  SPEAKER_00: And there's no healing or healing not quite what we had hoped.
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  SPEAKER_00: That's just what real life looks like for everybody.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And the gospel comes and breaks in and says, yeah,
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_00: but as painful as this is,
• 17:53
  SPEAKER_00: as disappointed as you are in God right now, this isn't going to be the final word.
• 18:01
  SPEAKER_00: This isn't going to be the final word.
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  SPEAKER_00: There will be grace.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_00: There will be hope.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And the problem is sometimes we don't live long enough to see it.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: Or sometimes The people we love don't live long enough to see it.
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  SPEAKER_00: Jan didn't live long enough to see it on this side of heaven.
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  SPEAKER_00: Does that make sense?
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: She too, I'm sure, was praying for healing because she fought so hard.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I think, to be fair to Jan, because we didn't talk about this so much.
• 18:41
  SPEAKER_00: We just did what we thought we needed to do.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: She was a person who pretty much lived in the moment.
• 18:49
  SPEAKER_00: Her saying was, it is what it is.
• 18:51
  SPEAKER_00: Cancer, it is what it is.
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  SPEAKER_00: I can get upset about it.
• 18:56
  SPEAKER_00: I can worry about it.
• 18:57
  SPEAKER_00: Or I can just do what I got to do and just make the most of each day.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think that was her attitude.
• 19:04
  SPEAKER_00: In some ways, it was my attitude as well.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not as crazy about it is what it is.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_00: I always feel like, well, yeah, it is what you make it.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: But she's right.
• 19:13
  SPEAKER_00: She was right, of course.
• 19:15
  SPEAKER_00: She said she just learned to live each day.
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  SPEAKER_00: And what else can you do?
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  SPEAKER_00: Worrying doesn't help.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: So I think for both of us in this case,
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, we wanted Jan to be healed,
• 19:35
  SPEAKER_00: and she experienced some healing over those four and a half years,
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: enough for us to travel to Israel at one point.
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: We traveled to Hawaii several times in between treatments.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_00: We went to Mexico.
• 19:45
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we did a lot of stuff in those four and a half years,
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: even though she was undergoing treatments.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: That's a form of healing, right?
• 19:52
  SPEAKER_00: Those are memories that we're able to build.
• 19:55
  SPEAKER_00: But it wasn't the healing that I wanted for her.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so there
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, some disappointment,
• 20:03
  SPEAKER_00: but for me, at least it's, it's, it's cushioned by the fact that she was tired.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_00: Her body was done.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_00: And, um,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 20:14
  SPEAKER_00: the only recourse would have been to do some sort of serious invasive surgeries
• 20:18
  SPEAKER_00: and be, she didn't want that.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:22
  SPEAKER_01: She had fought a good fight.
• 20:23
  SPEAKER_00: She fought a good fight.
• 20:24
  SPEAKER_00: She fought a long fight and did it gracefully and graciously.
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe not so much.
• 20:33
  SPEAKER_01: Well, that's a great way for me to just say one more time,
• 20:38
  SPEAKER_01: for those of you who are listening that are desperately praying for healing
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_01: for yourself,
• 20:44
  SPEAKER_01: for another,
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_01: know that this self-condemnation of you didn't pray well enough or often enough,
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_01: just let that go.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_01: And know that even in those moments where you just sigh,
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Because you've already said it a million times and you just don't know what to add.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_01: Can we say the Holy Spirit is filling in those blanks and helping with that time for you?
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_00: Yep, absolutely.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: You've got enough on your plate.
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_00: You don't need to keep blaming yourself, although I know how easy that is.
• 21:24
  SPEAKER_00: It's okay.
• 21:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I think there may be some wisdom
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: I want to be careful with this, but there's some wisdom to say, Jesus, please heal my wife.
• 21:44
  SPEAKER_00: Please heal my daughter, my son.
• 21:48
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus,
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_00: in the end,
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: just keep holding us and giving us the grace to get through this day we have and
• 22:02
  SPEAKER_00: to be grateful for it.
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know,
• 22:06
  SPEAKER_00: when you're in the midst of it,
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_00: it's pretty easy to get so caught up in the disappointment of
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_00: the healing not happening immediately or that your loved one is in pain
• 22:17
  SPEAKER_00: that you sort of miss where are those small moments where God shows up
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_00: or even just
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_00: to sit in the sense of forsakenness as Jesus did on the cross,
• 22:32
  SPEAKER_00: which is where God met him.
• 22:35
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, these things are not easy to do.
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_00: They're not easy to do.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_00: And you've got anxiety and you've got fear and you're desperate.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_00: But the promise,
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_00: and you mentioned this last week in the podcast and I skipped over
• 22:56
  SPEAKER_00: because it wasn't really the part of the podcast.
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus said,
• 22:58
  SPEAKER_00: I will never leave you and I will be with you through the end of the age or through
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: the end of the ages.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_00: Which means he's never going to leave us nor forsake us.
• 23:08
  SPEAKER_00: So sometimes it's maybe just good to remind ourselves
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: when it doesn't feel like God's doing anything to just sort of say,
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: you promised you'd never leave me nor forsake me.
• 23:17
  SPEAKER_00: You promised you'll never leave me nor forsake me.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_00: You promised that you were with me.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_00: Just to remind ourselves that we're not alone.
• 23:25
  SPEAKER_00: Whatever that means, we're not alone.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: And that somehow in some way God God's going to get us through these normal parts
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_00: of life that are very difficult.
• 23:38
  SPEAKER_00: And I wish I was more like some of my other Christian brothers and sisters
• 23:42
  SPEAKER_00: who just believe if you think it, it'll happen.
• 23:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you believe hard enough, good things will happen for you.
• 23:49
  SPEAKER_00: That's just not the experience of most people living life.
• 23:54
  SPEAKER_00: And you move sort of beyond us to people who are living in war torn countries.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: People who are living in just desperate poverty.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: People who are giving birth to children and the life expectancy
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_00: of those children is just minimal.
• 24:12
  SPEAKER_00: And life is painful.
• 24:14
  SPEAKER_00: Life has been corrupted by whatever we want to call it.
• 24:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the story of Jesus is that God breaks into that to bring life and hope and to,
• 24:28
  SPEAKER_00: in a sense, change our viewpoint
• 24:32
  SPEAKER_00: From despair to hope,
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_00: from fatalism to promise
• 24:43
  SPEAKER_00: that the only way to resurrection is through death.
• 24:48
  SPEAKER_00: It's the only way.
• 24:51
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, the cross is the ultimate expression of the pain that human beings go through.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_00: And God was there.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus sensed his presence in that last moment or two.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_00: So it's not as easy to hang on to.
• 25:07
  SPEAKER_00: It's sort of like picking up water.
• 25:10
  SPEAKER_00: But in the end,
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_00: God shows up
• 25:20
  SPEAKER_00: and brings grace and brings hope.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_00: But man,
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: that three days in the grave,
• 25:30
  SPEAKER_00: That three months in the grave, that three years in the grave, ufta, ufta, ufta.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 25:38
  SPEAKER_01: As my Norwegian grandmother would have said, ufta.
• 25:41
  SPEAKER_00: Just ufta.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: That's right.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_00: God's even there, right?
• 25:45
  SPEAKER_00: Jesus went to the death.
• 25:54
  SPEAKER_00: I encourage people to keep praying for healing.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_00: I prayed for Jan's healing until she was no longer here.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_00: Why not?
• 26:03
  SPEAKER_00: But also with an understanding that it may not happen the way I want it to.
• 26:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I don't even want to say, God, your will be done.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think it's God's will that people die.
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_00: I think it's God's will that people live.
• 26:16
  SPEAKER_00: But in this world that we live in right now,
• 26:22
  SPEAKER_00: death has a word to say to us, to say to all of us.
• 26:26
  SPEAKER_00: But that word is ultimately overcome by the word of life that shouts from the empty tomb.
• 26:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think that that gives us hope,
• 26:37
  SPEAKER_00: not just for life after death, but even now, just that there can be meaning.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not alone.
• 26:44
  SPEAKER_00: God is there.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: And it's hard to put into words.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: You just sort of have to surrender to it.
• 26:57
  SPEAKER_00: Because it is what it is.
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Jan. Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Some days it just is what it is.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: My grief is what it is.
• 27:08
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_00: Mental illness.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: It is what it is.
• 27:10
  SPEAKER_00: Thankfully,
• 27:11
  SPEAKER_00: there are a lot of good things we can do around that with therapy and medications
• 27:15
  SPEAKER_00: and so on.
• 27:17
  SPEAKER_00: But sometimes it just takes longer than we hope.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know,
• 27:25
  SPEAKER_00: when my son I was kind of diagnosed with clinical depression years ago
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: when he was still in high school.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_00: Man, we went through hell for over a year trying to find a med that would help him.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_00: It was one of the longest years of our lives.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: We felt so hopeless.
• 27:43
  SPEAKER_00: Every time a med didn't work, you just felt hopeless again.
• 27:46
  SPEAKER_00: But we didn't give up because we loved our son.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_00: And that not giving up is an act of faith.
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_00: Praying for healing, even though it doesn't look like it's going to happen.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: That means you're still connected to God somehow.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_00: That you still have hope.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_00: You haven't given up.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_00: And then, you know, when something happens, good.
• 28:07
  SPEAKER_00: You celebrate that.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: When something doesn't quite work out the way you want,
• 28:10
  SPEAKER_00: then God comes and helps you recalibrate and you just keep living.
• 28:18
  SPEAKER_00: And sometimes you just live with a lot of pain and grief.
• 28:22
  SPEAKER_01: And God's provision of healing is not based upon my mastery of English in the toughest moments.
• 28:30
  SPEAKER_00: Nope.
• 28:31
  SPEAKER_00: It's not based on anything that you have to do.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why does God heal some people and not others?
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can't answer that.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: It's just
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_00: everybody who's sealed by God dies, right?
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_00: Healing gives us more time.
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_00: There are a lot of things that healing does.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_00: But in the end, none of us are healed.
• 29:08
  SPEAKER_00: Because we all die.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe all of us are.
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes, after we die.
• 29:15
  SPEAKER_00: But the fact that we die means that we weren't healed this side of heaven.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, this would have been quite an upper of a...
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: So I want to circle,
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_00: you know,
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: because most of us are concerned about that question,
• 29:31
  SPEAKER_00: what happens when God doesn't heal.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's really the issue for all of us.
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, why didn't God heal Jan?
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_00: That's the question.
• 29:43
  SPEAKER_00: But God brings healing in so many other ways.
• 29:51
  SPEAKER_00: You know, for me,
• 29:52
  SPEAKER_00: in my grief, it comes in moments of relief where just the pain stops for a while.
• 29:57
  SPEAKER_00: The anxiety stops for a while.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I can just kind of remember us.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of times what that does is bring tears, but it's, you know, it's a good grief.
• 30:09
  SPEAKER_00: For me, grief and a lot of anxiety and just feeling unbalanced and lost.
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, lived 51 of my 69 years with Jan.
• 30:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's not going to go away fast.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_00: So when I get those little moments where I can just sort of sigh of relief and okay,
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_00: maybe I'm going to be okay.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: And then 10 minutes later, I'm not okay anymore.
• 30:35
  SPEAKER_00: That was a moment.
• 30:38
  SPEAKER_00: And then I can say to myself, you know what, that moment will come back.
• 30:42
  SPEAKER_00: This moment won't last forever either.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: So these are the things that kind of hold us and you say,
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_00: okay, God, you haven't completely let me go.
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: And I do think sometimes,
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: you know, one of the things my therapists tell me is I have to take grief breaks.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_00: I got to do something else.
• 31:03
  SPEAKER_00: I got to distract, read a book, watch a TV show, do some writing.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: Otherwise, I'm in my head on this all the time.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_01: Sure you are.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 31:14
  SPEAKER_00: And one of the ways that God heals us is by giving our brains a break,
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: our hearts a break from that.
• 31:21
  SPEAKER_00: Letting our brains reboot for the next round.
• 31:25
  SPEAKER_00: Those are all acts of healing.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_00: Sleep is a healing act.
• 31:30
  SPEAKER_00: Going out for a walk is a healing act.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: Seeing a sunrise and just for a moment,
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_00: for a moment, you kind of forget and you see the sunrise.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_00: That's a healing moment.
• 31:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then there are going to be those times when just all you can see is,
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know how it happened, but my son was healed.
• 31:57
  SPEAKER_00: Doctors can't explain it.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_00: They checked and checked and rechecked.
• 32:04
  SPEAKER_00: That cancer is gone and there's no explanation for it.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_00: It happens.
• 32:08
  SPEAKER_00: It does.
• 32:10
  SPEAKER_00: And those are moments that we celebrate.
• 32:12
  SPEAKER_00: And for some of us, those are moments we're really jealous of.
• 32:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, exactly.
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_01: That's right.
• 32:19
  SPEAKER_00: But that's a part of living in the real world with real faith.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: So let me say that again.
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_00: That's part of living in the real world with real faith.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_00: Real faith lives in the real world.
• 32:31
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't live in la-la land.
• 32:34
  SPEAKER_00: It doesn't live in the land of magic pills and magic thinking.
• 32:39
  SPEAKER_00: It lives in the world of death and resurrection.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's always death before there's resurrection.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: And it's the chutzpah To keep taking a step forward when you know that
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_00: that step forward is another step into death or disappointment for that day or pain.
• 33:05
  SPEAKER_00: So let me close.
• 33:06
  SPEAKER_00: So we've got in Psalm 23,
• 33:10
  SPEAKER_00: even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.
• 33:17
  SPEAKER_00: Even though I walk through the valley of grief,
• 33:18
  SPEAKER_00: even though I walk through the valley of disappointment,
• 33:20
  SPEAKER_00: even though I walk through the valley of fear,
• 33:22
  SPEAKER_00: whatever it is, I won't fear the fear because you are with me.
• 33:29
  SPEAKER_00: Your rod and staff, they comfort me.
• 33:32
  SPEAKER_00: And what that means is the rod was used to keep the sheep on the narrow path
• 33:39
  SPEAKER_00: so you would If they're going veering left or right,
• 33:42
  SPEAKER_00: you would just tap them on the shoulder so that they would move back onto the path.
• 33:45
  SPEAKER_00: But Jesus says, you're going to go through crap.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_00: I could use a different word, but I'm going to make sure you get through it.
• 33:55
  SPEAKER_00: And if you fall off the side,
• 33:58
  SPEAKER_00: my staff, hook staff, will lift you up and put you back on the path.
• 34:05
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think part of what I'm saying is it's not up to us to stay on the path.
• 34:11
  SPEAKER_00: God's going to keep us on the path.
• 34:13
  SPEAKER_00: We may feel like we're all over the place, but the Good Shepherd has not abandoned us.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_00: We're in the valley of the shadow of death.
• 34:22
  SPEAKER_00: It could be a scary place, but I'm not alone in that valley of the shadow of death.
• 34:30
  SPEAKER_00: So I repeat that song to myself every night before I go to sleep.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: And I just say, Jesus, tomorrow when I get up, go through that valley again.
• 34:42
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta, please just get me through.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that's right.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_00: Every day, I get through somehow, right?
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_00: We answer the question?
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_01: I think so.
• 34:57
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, sort of.
• 34:59
  SPEAKER_00: Sort of that's what this question does.
• 35:01
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, John, thank you.
• 35:05
  SPEAKER_00: Right now,
• 35:06
  SPEAKER_00: we don't quite know what topics we're going to tackle next,
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_00: but this one was sort of a, does God still heal and does God answer prayer?
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we can dig deeper into the God answering prayer one in the next week or two.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sure, sure.
• 35:17
  SPEAKER_00: There's more to be said about that.
• 35:19
  SPEAKER_00: So thank you everybody for listening.
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Wonder of Parenting Pod, or sorry, wrong podcast.
• 35:23
  SPEAKER_00: You've been listening to the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: You can also listen to the Wonder of Parenting Podcast,
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_00: which I do with my friend Michael Graham.
• 35:30
  SPEAKER_00: That's another podcast.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is the Deep Grace Diving Podcast.
• 35:33
  SPEAKER_00: Tim Wright.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: John Burgess, Harry Summers, still in Les Misrathes.
• 35:38
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, everyone.
• 35:40
  SPEAKER_01: Bye for now.