Maybe I should help that faith healer out since he is genuinely concerned for the sick and infirmed, unlike so many of his kind who are merely putting on a spectacle.

You know what? That’s the same situation my Son faced when He was on earth. The crowds kept clamoring for His attention, kept wanting His healing powers to course through their sick bodies or to restore their broken body parts. In fact, there was a time in which only one of the ten lepers He healed came back to express gratitude. Wow, doesn’t that make you wonder? I do… even though I know everything!

What irks me is that when I am not planning to perform a healing miracle, the sufferer accuses me of being uncompassionate or incompetent! And her well-meaning friends and family members try to defend me by putting the fault on her as in “you don’t have enough faith!” So the poor girl is not just experiencing physical ailment but emotional guilt and a sense of failure as well.

Every living creature became sick when Adam and Eve disobeyed my instructions. So the humans I created chose sin, rebellion, pride, and unbelief. It pained my heart when human nature fell and as a consequence, destruction, damnation, and death came into the equation. Of course, my Son did something about it, something that cost Him dearly and totally. He took all the sin and disease of fallen human nature when He died on the Cross.

My creation is also unwell as a result. Natural disasters, what humans like to refer to as “acts of God,” are signs and symptoms of this planet groaning for redemption and restoration.

So do I believe in healing? Most certainly! Am I not also called Jehovah Rapha – the God who heals? In other words, I have the ability, the availability, and the sensibility to heal sick people and calm stormy seas. However, there is a purpose in all that I do or not do. The purpose may not seem so obvious in many situations and humans think that life is just a meaningless flux of events, tragic or otherwise. Yet I am the Lord of history on both the macro and micro levels of life on earth and I am working out my purposes no matter the circumstances and the outcomes. Trust me … it’s for the best of everyone.”

Pardon the audacity of it all but I have tried to suggest how God must have felt when it comes to the subject of healing. Of course, this is never an academic or theological exercise for the ones who are terminally ill, or physically maimed as a result of accident or calamity, or who have just discovered an unwelcome and unpleasant intrusion to the body, or who are born with a disability that is yet to be miraculously reversed. Pain and suffering is always personal. And healing is definitely the first option for all who are suffering. In the Scriptures, health is primarily a divine gift. It is not an entitlement. Especially when we neglect or abuse our bodies. A gift is the prerogative of the Giver on whom He may bestow it. So some people are not healed in the way they may desire or be not healed at all while others experience miraculous healing whether instantly or over time. God also gives us doctors and surgeons who prescribe cures through the art of medicine. This means of healing was employed in both the Old and New Testaments (Gen 50:2; 2 Chr 16:12; Job 13:4; Mt 9:12; Mk 6:13, Lk 10:34, Jam 5:14, etc.) In other words, God works through medicine as well as direct intervention and so our faith is not so much in medicine per se as in the Creator of medicine. One surgeon expressed it well when he said, “I cut, but God heals.”

Understanding Sickness
The Bible teaches that God’s desire is for healing and wholeness for all His people. Sickness was not part of God’s original creation, but it entered the world as a result of the fall. Romans chapter 8 teaches that the whole creation has fallen into bondage and decay. Much sickness is our own responsibility. It is caused by our neglect of the laws of good health which God has built unto the world. Proper diet, exercise, and rest are all essential to good health. The Bible teaches that we sow what we reap (Gal 6:7-8). This also applies to a healthy lifestyle. To pray for healing without altering an unhealthy lifestyle is presumptuous and is part of what Jesus means when He says we should not put God to the test.

Some sickness is sent by Satan as in the case of Job or Luke 13:11-12. In the Gospels we observe a close relationship between Jesus’ ministry of casting out evil spirits and His healing the sick. At times the two seem to be identical.

Some sickness is directly sent by God as chastisement for sin or as an inducement to turn us back to God (Num 12:9-11, 1 Cor 11:29-31). However, it is wrong to declare that all sickness is caused by sin. A good example of this is found in John 9 where Jesus restored sight to a man born blind. Jesus affirmed that the man’s blindness was not a result of his or his parents’ sin but that God had allowed it to happen!

Understanding Healing
God certainly has the power and the desire to heal people today but there is no Scriptural support for any one single method of healing. In the Old and New Testaments there are many methods of healing. In Numbers 21:7-9, anyone who looks upon the bronze serpent receives healing. In 1 Kings 17:21-22, Elijah brings healing to a young boy only through the strenuous effort of stretching himself out upon the boy three times. Again in the ministry of Jesus we see a variety of methods – with a touch (Mt 8:3); with a word (Mt 8:8); by laying on of hands (Mt 9:18), etc. At times, Jesus demands faith or action from those who would be healed and yet, at other times Jesus seems to heal every single person in large crowds without any conditions. God’s methods of healing vary enormously. It is not the method but the Lord who is the healer. Why then are some persons never healed? Part of the answer is that we live in a fallen world which will only be fully redeemed in the future. We do have a foretaste of the Kingdom of God, but the Kingdom in all its fullness is yet to come. 1 Corinthians 15:51-55 teaches about the coming day when our perishable bodies will put on an imperishable nature and our corruptible bodies will put on incorruptibility. But until that day, physical death and decay are part of this present order. In fact, physical death is a form of healing for people who are in the final stages of a debilitating and fatal illness. It signals the end of pain and suffering for the person who may not even be able to respond in any discernible manner to his loved ones. For the Christian, physical death is not the end. Because of the resurrection, we will have new bodies that are completely free from physical defects.

God’s greater purpose for some of us may include an incurable physical illness. An inspiring example is Joni Eareckson Tada, a quadriplegic since her teenage diving accident, who is used by God in an international ministry to people like her. She often said in conferences that God is using her not in spite of her disability but because of it.

To heal or not to heal… for people like Joni, that’s no longer the question.

Michael Tan is the Executive Vice-President of Eagles Communications. He likes to preach, write, play the guitar, and manage his staff!

I was asked: How do you reconcile the fact that doctors have to spend a lot of time and effort to physically cure patients when they can be cured by just a touch from God? Is medical treatment a form of healing that God provides? To begin to answer these questions, I recount a night when I tried removing a giant wasp from my dining room so as to protect my kids. The attempt failed and I was stung. The burning sensation began in seconds and in minutes I had a throbbing pain that had no equal. My wife and girls prayed for me as my swollen thumb was iced. It was not working. I emptied my medicine box and swallowed the maximal doses of the strongest pain killers. Prayer and pain killers brought me relief – seven hours later.

I have no doubt that our God is a healing God (Ex 15:26). I am also aware that He intends to heal every brokenness and ailment (Ps 103:3). The problem for me is that He does not heal every time we ask for healing and He does not always heal in a supernatural way every time we ask for a miracle. For me as a follower of Christ, I am comforted that there will come a time on the other side of eternity where there will not be any disease and thus suffering as we know it will cease (Rev 21:4). Until then, I have to work with the reality and the mystery of healing as I go about my every day vocation as a medical practitioner.

Christians are fond of asking Christian doctors if they believe in miraculous healings and if they had witnessed a bona fide one themselves. It appears that most of us have heard of many reports but few of us are privileged enough to verify any. In my two decades since graduating from medical school, I can recount two cases where the healing was close to amazing. Neither of which came about through prayer though. One was a woman in her mid-fifties who had severe hand eczema that made her palms look like wax. The thickened skin cracked and bled often, causing her much misery. Despite many consultations with skin specialists and general practitioners, none of us offered her sustained relief. She finally met a traditional Chinese physician who gave her a secret concoction taken for seven days straight. The thickened skin fell off and baby smooth skin was the result until now. The other was a man in his sixties who had smoked all his life and was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer with metastases to his brain. He was given only three months to live and told not to bother to quit smoking. That was in 2001. He is still alive and smoking! His MRI scans showed no evidence of his cancer after his healing by a combination of different alternative medicine.

While it is difficult to understand the mechanism underpinning miraculous healing, it is not hard to appreciate the miracle that is already designed and built into our body. Every day I prescribe antibiotics for infections of all sorts and know for certain that unless the God-designed immunity works in the patients, the drugs are not effective. A wound does not heal and close unless there is the intrinsic cellular repair process busy at work, faithfully and predictably every time we get injured. Most of us take for granted this miracle until this healing capacity fails, like in the case of immune compromise due to cancer, diabetes or HIV.

One of my heroes is Dr Paul Brand (1914-2003) who devoted his life to the healing of leprosy patients. Dr Brand was an orthopedic surgeon who had worked hard to reverse the ravages of the debilitating disease. It took two to three years of successive surgeries and painstaking rehabilitation to release a diseased leper’s hand from a frozen state into a more functional form. Not once did a finger suddenly grow back. Dr Paul Brand had remarked, “If all that the television evangelists claim is true, then I am in the wrong business. Have I wasted my life doing slowly and painstakingly what could be done in a twinkling of an eye?”

I am certain that God does heal in ways that defy the natural laws He has set in motion for our world to function. I am also convinced that we ought to pray for our sick brothers and sisters that they may be healed with or without medical intervention (Jas 5:14-15). What I am concerned about is the harm we do when we misrepresent the truth about healing. When we communicate that everyone will be healed if they are prayed for, we are raising unrealistic expectations. Even worse, when healing does not take place after prayers are offered, some suggest that it may be due to the lack of faith or the presence of unconfessed sins.

Philip Yancey received nearly a thousand letters after his book Disappointment with God was published. Most of these letters described the pain of unanswered prayers dealing with diseases. Almost all contained the hurt inflicted by the church who had accused them of lack of faith or that they were being punished for their sins. Yancey reflected, “I would never want to dampen someone’s faith, because bold faith surely impressed Jesus. Yet the stack of letters from my filing cabinet convinces me that we can do equal harm by holding out false hope of physical healing. Believe me, there is nothing I would rather say to parents of a Down’s syndrome child or to families waiting on the edge for Huntington’s chorea to manifest itself than, ‘Just believe, and you will be healed.’ But I know of no miraculous healings of those conditions, and to offer false hope would be even more cruel.”

One of the first things I had learned as a medical student is this truism: “To cure sometimes, to relieve often, to comfort always,” which originated in the 1800s with Dr. Edward Trudeau, founder of a tuberculosis sanatorium. This dictum serves as my working philosophy as I help my patients cope with the physical brokenness while we wait to get to a better place in heaven. Our God is a God of comfort (Ps 23:4). It is no coincidence that this reassuring message about God comes right after an earlier Psalm when the psalmist cries out: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Ps 22:1) I have learned that God may not always offer us total protection but He always offers maximum support.

I continue to hope that many who suffer diseases can be cured by a touch from the Hand of God. I also know that the Hand of God comforts those who suffer physical ailments and relieves their symptoms through the hands of physicians like me. St. Paul makes clear the modus operandi in 2 Cor 1:3-5 when he describes: “the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows.”

The New International Version of the Bible has been referenced.

Poh Kiang is a family doctor by vocation and is privileged to serve the low-income families living in government housing in Singapore. He is blessed with a loyal soul mate, Lie Joan and two precious daughters, Ella and Alexandra. He is a member of Pentecost Methodist Church.

It is quite simple how we get the clues for our Treasure Map. In groups, we pray and ask the Holy Spirit to give us words of knowledge. Our Treasure Map is a piece of paper with five categories for the clues – location, name, appearance, things we need prayer for, and the unusual. We were encouraged to write down things that came to mind (which became our clues) and to step out of our comfort zone to look for and approach specific people.

My group and I followed our clues that led us to a library nearby. The moment we walked in, our clues were reinforced that it was the place where God wanted us to start off. We began to weave our way through the aisles, looking intently for our treasures.

After two minutes, we spotted someone with most of the clues (in bold) on our lists. He was an elderly man wearing a green striped shirt, sitting next to a bin, with a swollen ankle. It took us some time to decide who would approach him, but we got around to it and walked up to him smiling. We greeted him and said, “This may seem a little odd, but we are having a treasure hunt and we think that you are the treasure we’re looking for.” He stared at us for quite some time and asked “What treasure hunt? What is this?” We explained to him that we were on a hunt to find God’s treasure. We showed him our list and pointed out the clues that led us to him. After building more rapport with him, we asked how he hurt his leg. He explained that it had something to do with rashes, which was also a clue on my list! I showed it to him and really believed it was a confirmation that God wanted me to pray for him. I then asked if he would let us pray for him and he agreed. I prayed that God would heal his foot.

Halfway through the prayer, God’s presence was so strong I found it hard to speak. At that moment, the man started to cry. He couldn’t stop crying, and I knew God was working in His heart. When we finished the prayer, he explained that he was once a Christian many years back but worldly things derailed him and after a while, he just stopped going to church. His wife left him, and he felt he had nothing left. Still crying, he looked at us and told us he really believed God was working in his heart and that He had planned for us to go there that day and meet him. He asked us if we would pray for his forgiveness, telling us that he really wanted to go back to Jesus. We prayed again and then asked him how his leg felt and if it was any better. He replied, “Yes! It feels better.” And he slowly got up, and began walking back and forth. He was laughing and proclaiming, “Jesus healed me! Jesus healed me!” We then gave him our church’s name card and welcomed him to our church. My group mate also gave him his number in case he had trouble finding our church or needed transport.

As he left, we were ecstatic. We left the library and walked over to the nearby supermarket where the Holy Spirit led us to another Treasure that God wanted us to discover. We prayed for a man’s back pain and he told us that he felt a lot better. In another experience, God used this man’s daughter to lead my group and I to him. Then, we prayed for his family and himself. He thanked us and left smiling. This treasure hunting experience helped me to realise God can use anyone, young or old, to reach out to people around them. I thank God for using me in ways I would never have imagined and pray and hope that He will continue to use me and other youths to glorify Him and reach out to those around us.

Theodora,13, is a student who worships at Rivers Of Life Church in Singapore. She is part of Jesus Generation, a youth group, and is passionate about serving God. She writes songs in her spare time and loves playing the guitar.

Geri had been more than patient. I had brought home constant pressure and tension from church, year after year. Now the woman I had promised to love just as Christ loved the church was exhausted.

We had experienced eight unrelenting years of stress. “I’m not doing it anymore,” she concluded. “This church is no longer life for me. It is death.”

When a church member says, “I’m leaving the church,” most pastors do not feel very good. But when your wife of nine years says it, your world is turned upside down.

We were in our bedroom. I remember the day well. “Pete, I love you, but I’m leaving the church,” she summarized very calmly. “I no longer respect your leadership.” I was visibly shaken, and did not know what to say or do. I felt shamed, alone, and angry. I tried raising my voice to intimidate her: “That is out of the question,” I bellowed. “All right, so I’ve made a few mistakes.”

But she calmly continued, “It’s not that simple. You don’t have the guts to lead – to confront the people who need to be confronted. You don’t lead. You’re too afraid that people will leave the church. You’re too afraid of what they’ll think about you.” I was outraged. “I’m getting to it!” I yelled defensively. “I’m working on it.” (For the last two years, I really had been trying, but somehow still was not up to it.) “Good for you, but I can’t wait any more,” she replied.

There was a long pause of silence. Then she uttered the words that changed the power balance in our marriage permanently: “Pete, I quit.”

It is said that the most powerful person in the world is one who has nothing to lose. Geri no longer had anything to lose. She was dying on the inside, and I had not listened to or responded to her calls for help.

She softly continued, “I love you Pete. But the truth is I would be happier separated than married. At least then you would have to take the kids on weekends. Then maybe you’d even listen!” “How could you say such a thing?” I complained. “Don’t even think about it.”

She was calm and resolute in her decision. I was enraged. A good Christian wife, married to a Christian (and a pastor I may add), does not do this. I understood at that moment why a husband could fly into a rage and kill the wife he loves. She had asserted herself. She was forcing me to listen. I wanted to die. This was going to require me to change!

The Beginnings of This Mess

How did we get to this point? Eight years previously, Geri and I had begun New Life Fellowship in Elmhurst, Queens. Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I had a “vision” and Geri followed.

Now, four children later, Geri was battle-weary and wanted a life and a marriage. By this time I agreed. The problem was my sense of responsibility to build the church and to other people. I had little energy left over to parent our children or to enjoy Geri. I had even less energy to enjoy a “life,” whatever that was! Even when I was physically present, such as at a soccer game for one of our daughters, my mind was usually focused on something related to the church.

Weeks had turned into months. Months into years. The years had become almost a decade, and the crisis was now in full bloom. The sober reality was that I had made little time during those nine years for the joys of parenting and marriage. I was too preoccupied with the demands of pastoring a church.

We were gaining the whole world by doing a great work for God while at the same time losing our souls (Mk 8:36).

Flee, Fight or Surrender

When Geri told me she was quitting the church, I finally hit rock bottom. God was speaking to me through her. I did not want to listen. There were only a few choices at the end – fight God, flee from God, or surrender to Him. By His grace I finally surrendered, admitting the truth to God, myself, and Geri – I was a hypocrite, winning the whole world and failing to love the one person on the planet to whom I had made a covenant.

I was embarrassed. I was ashamed.

In this pit, however, God met us in an extraordinary way.

Geri had stripped off the heavy spiritual veneer of “being good” that kept her from looking directly at the truth about our marriage and lives.

We finally were in a place to receive God’s revelation – Emotional Health and Spiritual Maturity are inseparable. You cannot be spiritually mature and emotionally immature. I had done that for over twenty years as a Christian.

The sad reality we discovered was that Jesus had penetrated only superficially into the depth of our persons.

This experience that initially felt like death proved to be the beginning of a journey with God and the discovery of a relationship that would forever change my life, marriage, family, and ultimately the church.

The last twelve years have been the best years of my life as a human being, a follower of Jesus, a husband, a father, and a pastor. Joy and “aliveness” have been the dominant themes of our relationship and life together.

This is not to say Geri and I did not work hard. We did.

The Ten Symptoms of Emotionally Unhealthy Spirituality
A person can grow emotionally healthy without Christ. I can think of a number of non-Christian people who are more loving, balanced, and civil than many church members I know. At the same time a person can be really into prayer, silence, Scripture, and other Christian disciplines and be emotionally immature and socially maladjusted. It is the two together – emotional health and contemplative spirituality – that release great power to transform our spiritual lives, our small groups, and our churches.

The pathway out of this disconnect is radical. That is, it very likely cuts to the root of your entire approach to following Jesus. Trimming a few branches by, for example, attending a prayer retreat or adding a couple of new spiritual disciplines to an already crowded life will not be enough. The enormity of the problem is such that only a revolution in our following of Jesus will bring about the lasting, profound change we long for in our lives.

Before I prescribe this pathway, it is essential for us to clearly identify the primary symptoms of emotionally unhealthy spirituality that continue to wreak havoc in our personal lives and our churches. The following are the top ten symptoms indicating if I am suffering from a bad case of emotionally unhealthy spirituality.

1. Using God to run from God
(e.g., applying Scripture selectively to suit my own purposes, not me doing God’s will.).

2. Ignoring the emotions of anger, sadness, and fear
(e.g., not being honest with myself and/or others about the feelings, hurts, and pains beneath the surface of my life.).

3. Dying to the wrong things
(e.g., denying healthy, God-given desires and pleasures of life – friendships, joy, music, beauty, laughter, nature – while finding it difficult to die to my self-protectiveness, defensiveness, a lack of vulnerability, and judgmentalism.).

4. Denying the past’s impact on the present
(e.g., not considering how my family of origin and significant people/events from my past have shaped my present.)

5. Dividing life into “secular” and “sacred” compartments
(e.g., compartmentalizing God to “Christian activities” while usually forgetting about Him when I am working, shopping, studying or recreating.)

6. Doing for God instead of being with God
(e.g., evaluating my spirituality based on how much I am doing for God.)

7. Spiritualizing away conflict
(e.g., missing out on true peace by smoothing over disagreements, burying tensions, and avoiding conflict – rather than disrupting the false peace like Jesus.)

8. Covering over brokenness, weakness, and failure
(e.g., not speaking freely about my weaknesses, failures, and mistakes.)

9. Living without limits
(e.g., “trying to do it all” or “bite off more than I can chew.”)

10. Judging the spiritual journeys of others
(e.g., finding myself occupied and bothered by the faults of others.)

What God did in our lives spilled out into the church immediately. Beginning with our staff team, then our elder board and eventually the rest of our leadership. The result has been a rippling effect, very slowly, through the entire church. Beginning with the staff and elders, interns, ministry, and small group leaders – directly and indirectly – we have intentionally integrated the principles that are explained more fully in The Emotionally Healthy Church (Zondervan 2003) and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality (Nelson, 2006).

Once you go through the door and leave what I am calling “emotionally unhealthy spirituality,” there is no turning back. It is the beginning of a journey that will change your life, your marriage, your church and, ultimately, your ministry!

Peter Scazzero is Senior Pastor of New Life Fellowship Church in Queens, New York, a sought after speaker, and author of The Emotionally Healthy Church and Emotionally Healthy Spirituality. He and his wife, Geri, are co-founders of The Center for Emotional Health and Spirituality. Visit their website at www.emotionallyhealthy.org.