Have you ever thought about why sometimes seemingly easy to heal conditions do not go away, persistently progressing into worse, or simply staying the same?
I remember when I was still in Medical School, we were doing rounds at the hospital with my boss, she pointed to a particular patient and told me “When a person has given up, there is not much we can do to bring them to health”.
That very simple -yet poignant- statement has remained in the back of my mind to this day. How many situations we constantly face, remain unchanged because of a developed incapacity to self-heal due to simply giving-up on ourselves?
While giving up is probably the most extreme situation in the case of the patient I mentioned above, where not matter what the doctors do there is no progress in their health, it is also true that there are specific situations, conditions, emotional stances, or sin -yes, sin- that can conspire against our health, or the process of healing.
God has “embedded” in us the awesome ability to self-heal. Our body has the ability to heal itself by triggering a battery of weapons against sickness. Actually, at times we might not even know it, but our body has fought away a disease before we even realize it. What I am dealing with today are those actions or inactions, or mindsets, that co-adjuvate disease, or block the self-healing tools of our being.
What keeps you sick?
It is true that many times a condition, particularly a physical condition, seems to be permanent, or long lasting, but it is also true that oftentimes, we need to learn an aspect of divine healing that is not very well understood: We could actually have a health condition and yet live in divine health.
Case in example: The mother of one of my teachers had a condition that was life threatening involving the immune system, and she was healed, but the disease never left her body. So how can this be? From the moment God touched her, she never again experienced any more symptoms, and lived to a very old age. Her son said “Mom has a disease, but she is living in divine health”.
Is giving-up a real cause of concern?
Yes, it is! And a very serious one.
What I am talking about now, is about cases where the disease -physical, emotional, spiritual- is not healed because we have simply given-up on ourselves, and worse, we have given-up on God’s willingness to heal.
Giving-up is more often than we realize the underlying reason why we do not experience change in our lives, even when we have prayed, and prayed again. The Bible says in Galatians 6:9 that “In due time we will reap if we do not lose heart”. One could argue that this applies only within the context of the whole chapter that deals with giving and doing good; however, we could also apply this to doing good to our own body-soul-spirit, in the sense of never give-up on ourselves and of course, never give-up on God’s willingness to bless.
A few “Do We” questions
Do we take care of our body? Let me assure you, I am not talking about whether we eat according to the last “diet-in-fad” in which yesterday’s good eat has turned into today’s poison, only to become tomorrow’s heal-all food. What I mean is: We simply should be conscious of our body needs, and about what affects it -food, or actions, or disregards- and take care of it. Each body is a micro-cosmos and we should learn how our own body works, and how it responds to or what it reacts against.
Do we hold a grudge against a person? That affects our emotions, and in turn the emotional turmoil will release self-destruction substances into our body, and even worse, self-destruction spiritual poisons, that can conspire against everything we are trying to achieve.
Do we allow the circumstances around us affect us? Of course, circumstances affect us, but the question I pose is this: Do we internalize circumstances and allow them to become part of the fabric of our being? The Latin expression “Ego sum ego et circumstantial mea” (I am me and my circumstances with me) might sound like a good way to explain things, but careful! It should never mean that the circumstance become poart of your inner being. Your circumstances should always be outside of you, and never let them move you. Paul said bout what he was facing “None of these issues move me”.
Do we hide our sins behind a cloak of weakness? Someone once told me “Yes, I know it is a sin, but God knows my weakness”. A very shrewd form of giving-up can be found in the way we look at sin. Temptations are not sin, giving in to temptation is the sin, and what we do after we sin is the giving-up part in that situation. We must allow ourselves to be honest with God, and confess to Him our sins, if we have sinned, or speak with Him about our temptations. Sometimes, even if we do not fall into the temptations, we set ourselves into a guilt-trip because of being tempted. This can have such a negative effect on our life, that even without sinning we are overcome by the fight.
Do we dedicate time to be in the healing atmosphere of the Holy Spirit? All the above “Do we” questions can find the answer and the solution in the environment of His presence. Yes, I could go on and on about the power or prayer, and the right way to pray, or the correct words, or whatever else could make our prayers effectual, which is all true. But the point here is not even how much we pray, but how much time we actually dedicate to be with the Holy Spirit. The moment we sit down -intentionally, consciously- to spend time with the Spirit of God, we enter into an atmosphere of God’s presence in which the power of the Blood of Jesus can be effectively applied to our whole being. Then Romans 8 becomes a real, daily experience “In all these things, we are more than conquerors”.
Conrad Lampan
Revival Highway eMail: connect@conradlampan.com Facebook: ConradLampan TikTok: @conradlampan Instagram: @conradlampan Twitter: @conradlampan