Enough time to get it right

A friend of mine had a birthday the other day. After we joked about his age for a few moments, and I reminded him that he had “many more” years behind him than I did, he said, “May you have many more ahead of you!” It was a kind gesture between friends, but it caused to pause and think. I pray I have just enough to “get it right” before I die.

In today’s reading (you can read the entire passage below) we hear about crowds of people being healed by God, both of spiritual and physical illnesses. What does it mean to be healed by God? Each of us has at least one friend or relative who is currently sick or suffering, and we pray each day for their healing by God. What exactly are we praying for, when we ask God to heal us?

This is important, because we should want our prayer to be correct prayer. Saint James warns us, “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4.3) While our Lord was healing multitudes in the Gospel, it should be obvious to us, that not all people were healed in the Middle East during His three-year ministry, and everyone eventually died. There must be something more to God’s healing than just our physical health.

If we are “asking amiss” then should we expect anything from God? In your prayers today, take a moment and consider what you really want from God in healing. By God’s grace we will all be healed in His Kingdom, but until then may we all be healed long enough to get it right.

At that time, Jesus went out to the mountain to pray; and all night he continued in prayer to God. And when it was day, he called his disciples, and chose from them twelve, whom he named apostles; Simon, whom he named Peter, and Andrew his brother, and James and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaios, and Simon who was called the Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor. And he came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea and Jerusalem and the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, who came to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all the crowd sought to touch him, for power came forth from him and healed them all. – Luke 6.12-19