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From 2015-2022, I was always sick. For years, doctors couldn’t figure out what was wrong with me, and I was convinced the new normal for my life was going to revolve around my constant stomach ailments.

During this season, along with seeing doctors and nutritionists, a good number of people regularly prayed for my healing. Here are a few things I would like to state clearly. The people who prayed for me did so out of genuine care and an earnest desire to see me healed. Also, their prayers were explicitly that I would be healed. Whether doctors figured out what was wrong with me or not was irrelevant; they were trusting that God would take away whatever was causing my illness.

As grateful as I am for the prayers of these people, I regularly hoped that God would not answer their prayers. Mind you, I wanted to be healed; everything I ate made me sick, and I felt like my body was raging against me every moment of the day.

The obvious question is, why would I hope that God didn’t answer the prayers of those petitioning for my healing?

Selective Healing as The Ultimate Human Privilege

We live in a broken world. There’s no actual argument about this. Where people become divided is around causation. In answering ‘why’ the world is broken, we become dogmatic, tribal, and divisive.

I have no desire to dip my toe in the waters of answering ‘why’ the world is the way it is, but I’m happy to remain at the surface level where we all agree that something has gone wrong with the world. One of the chief ways we can attest to the world's brokenness is by looking at how humans treat each other.

Despite the Abrahamic religions screaming for the equal value of all humanity until their faces are blue, we are a hierarchical species. So long as homo sapiens have been around, we have divided into hierarchies. We’ve seen this hierarchical thread and special treatment of the few by devaluing the many throughout human history. We even have a word to describe it: privilege.

A few historical examples of this are during the colonization of the Americas; there was white European settler privilege for the few with the devaluing of Indigenous and African lives. There are also hierarchies we create within groups. Latinos, for example, tend to favor and disproportionately privilege lighter Latinos over their darker-skinned kin. In India, there is a caste system built around the haves and the have-nots. On and on we can go.

I bring up this idea of hierarchies and privilege to make the more significant point that the most prominent form of privilege one could have has nothing to do with skin color, religion, ethnicity, or income. It’s ‘God's privilege.’

What I mean by this is that I regularly asked myself, “If God does heal me, why are so many other people who are far sicker not being healed?” What would this say about me? To start, it would mean, for reasons utterly unknown to anyone, myself included, God was showing favoritism to me that they weren’t to millions of other suffering people. What, then, does this say about God?

If God is willing to heal me while people are dying of cancer, hunger, dehydration, and genocide, would this affect how much more these people have to suffer? If so, we need to be honest about the implications this has on the nature of God. Should God seemingly at random have the ability to choose everyone but only decide to heal a select few here and there, we should add capriciousness as an attribute of God.

Regardless of what caused it, if I somehow have a privilege that allowed me to be healed while so many others sit in unspeakable pain and suffering, God is no different than we are. We need to ask ourselves genuinely, do we want to go down the road of attributing to God one of the worst and most divisive behaviors of humanity?

But What About Those God Heals?

Some will read up to this point and scream from the rooftops, “I know someone who has been healed!” or “I have experienced healing!” Here’s where I will take a turn you likely weren’t expecting. I believe you.

As much as I struggled with the idea that God healing me would be the pinnacle of human privilege, the truth is God has and does heal. We mustn’t brush aside everything discussed above and sweep it under the rug, thinking this is just the ‘mystery of God’ or ‘God will do what God wills.’

Dr. Thomas Jay Oord describes the problem with these types of rationale when he says,'

“Over time, I came to believe “if it’s your will” is a cover-your-ass phrase uttered to avoid the tough questions we all ask when healing prayer fails.” (God Can’t, p.85)

I owe everything I will share below to the works of Dr. Thomas Jay Oord and my friend Jonathan Foster. The problem with sweeping the arguments above under the mystery of God rug is because of a single attribute of God. Love.

What I used to believe about prayer and healing was rooted in supernatural theism. This is the belief that God is a being separate from creation who sometimes may swoop into the affairs of humanity to do something miraculous. The thing is, there was no rhyme or reason behind God’s actions. Egypt oppresses Israel, so God decides to swoop in, send Moses, part the Red Sea, and give Israel freedom! On the other hand, America creates chattel slavery and seemingly crickets from God.

The issue wasn’t that God is a God of favorites who can and quickly could end the suffering of millions but mostly chooses not to. The shift for me came through understanding God's uncontrollable love and panentheistic nature.

How the Uncontrolling Love of God Impacts Prayer and Healing

To start, I believe that God does work to heal. Dr. Thomas Jay Oord describes what works to heal through four steps.

Step 1: God is Always Present and Always Loving

Because God loves all of us, God works for the good of all of creation. I used to believe God was sitting in a void somewhere in the universe, like Batman perched on top of a building, watching the chaos in Gotham.

The reality is that God never intervenes because intervening assumes God is not present and then chooses to be present. God is always present, actively working to heal and end our pain. God always does the most possible to end suffering and bring healing given the situation.

Step 2: God Works with Creation to Bring About Healing

When I say “God will always do the most possible given the situation” I primarily mean God works with people and creation to bring healing. For me, healing didn’t come directly through God’s intervention in my body. Healing for me came through mental health experts, medication, and my family.

Dr. Oord says it this way,

When we find healing through surgery, physical therapy, prescribed medicines, nutrition, and so on, we find God and people working together for positive results. All healing — no matter how it occurs — has God as its source. (God Can’t, p.90)

Along with medical professionals, there are loving friends, family, faith communities, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), and so on that God uses to bring about justice and works of healing. God is in the healing business. But God is also in the people business. Where we see God working most is in relationship with people and creation.

Step 3: God Cannot Heal Alone

Desmond Tutu once said,

“We can’t without God, and God won’t without us.”

The uncontrolling love of God always works to heal but will not do so forcefully. God’s love is a love that never controls. A collaborative effort between God and the creation brings about every healing or miracle. Again, Dr. Oord explains,

“Creatures must cooperate with God or the inanimate conditions of creation must be conducive for God’s miraculous efforts to bear fruit. Miracles are neither the work of God alone nor creation alone.” (God Can’t, p.93)

We see this relational dynamic in Jesus' ministry. When he is unable to perform a miracle in his hometown, it is because of the community's lack of faith. At other times, we see him explicitly tell someone he has healed, “Your faith has made you well.” Even in the seemingly miraculous, where God ‘just healed them,’ there is still the relational piece where the person’s faith collaborates with God.

Step 4: We’re All Going to Die

The reality is death is still undefeated against humanity. As much as we try to keep this reality out of our minds, we are all going to die one day. Here’s another unpopular reality: none of us knows exactly what happens after we die.

As a person of faith, I believe we enter into the presence of God. What that looks like or even what that means, I honestly don’t know. But the details aren’t my concern. What I do know about God is that God is not capricious, God is not like us, and God is perfectly loving. I don’t expect ever to be fully healed of my physical and mental illnesses this side of the grave. If the prayers of others open new opportunities or pathways, that would be amazing. But if they don’t, I know one day, when I experience God’s perfect love, I will experience complete healing.

In the meantime, I’ll keep praying with my feet and striving to work in collaboration with God to end injustice, genocide, poverty, and every other kind of brokenness I can. And just maybe one or two times, the conditions will be right, and I’ll get to play a role in bringing about peace and healing for others.

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