“God heals in unseen and unexpected ways.”
Thoughts from daily Bible reading for today – July 8, 2023
Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. Hosea 11:3, ESV
It is easy to adopt a transactional view of our life with God, especially when it comes to our life of prayer. Though we may not explicitly say as much, we often act as though the work of God originates with us, as though he is passively sitting by, waiting on us to “activate” him through our prayers. We see or sense a need in our lives, ask him to intervene, and then wait to see if he does or does not respond in the way we’ve asked him to work.
While it is good and right for us to ask the Lord to bring his mercy and healing touch into every area of brokenness that we encounter in this world, we must resist the urge to limit our view of God and his work in our midst. As it says in Acts, it is in him that we “live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Existence itself is sustained and upheld by the love of God. We live within his world. Let us never reduce him to a wish-granting genie that lives within ours.
When we begin to see the world as it truly is, with God “everywhere present and filling all things,” as one ancient Christian prayer puts it, we realize that every act of goodness and mercy that we encounter can only come from his loving hand. If his ability to heal and make whole was dependent upon the strength or frequency of our prayers, we’d all be in grave trouble! Yet, thanks be to God, he works even when our faith is weak, our prayers are absent, or when our trust is faltering. As we see in Hosea 11, God heals in unseen and unexpected ways.
As such, wisdom invites us to cultivate eyes of faith that look expectantly for the Lord’s hand at work, even in surprising and unseen ways. God’s healing action in the world does not originate with us and is not dependent upon us, and this is very good news! Expectantly believe that he works for our good, healing and leading us in ways that we do not even know that we need, for he is good and loves us with a perfect love.
Prayer
Father, thank you that your goodness does not depend upon the depth of our faith, but that we instead, weak as we are, are carried and sustained by your infinite love, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Application
Reflect for a few moments on how the Lord has worked and healed in your life in unknown and unseen ways.
Related Reading
Psalm 23:4; Isaiah 41:10; Revelation 21:4
Worship Resource
Passion feat. Sean Curran: Welcome the Healer
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