It’s Friday
It’s been almost 14 years since chronic pain and fatigue started slowly creeping into my body.
That pain accumulates exponentially each weekday of Renovation Community’s 9-week summer day camp and feeding program. The constant movement in a hot gym on a concrete floor can be tough. I’ve learned to hide it, smile, give my full attention to someone, and compartmentalize my pain. Last night, my pain was about an 8 on a 10-point scale. But no one would have known that.
One of our summer ministry interns comes from a wonderful church known for powerful Corporate Prayer. That church has taught her well. On the rare occasions when I’ve mentioned my physical ailments, she immediately lays hands on me to pray for my healing. She’s one more of hundreds of people who have prayed for my healing over the years. Yet this morning’s struggles remind me He’s yet to grant the prayer so many people and I have prayed.
Every step this morning sends surging pain. Have you ever seen someone jogging with those ankle weights or a weighted vest? It feels like I’m wearing a full-body weighted suit– every movement is difficult. I’m rationing my body’s energy; I just learned I may spend some of my Saturday helping to re-house a homeless family.
Praise God for the capable ministry interns and visiting pastors currently running our camp! Instead of fighting through illness on this Friday in our hot gym next door, I’m sitting in our Parsonage, preparing Sunday’s sermon. This Sunday I preach on Acts 4:1-31, where Peter and John get in trouble with Temple authorities because they healed a man who had been lame “since birth.”
40 years…
In my studies, another pastor preaching on this same passage mentioned this powerful fact…
Acts 4:22 says the healed man was “over 40 years old.” Acts 3:2 records this lame man was carried to “the temple gate called Beautiful where he was put every day to beg from those going into the temple courts.” [Sadly, people with physical deformities/disabilities like such as this man weren’t allowed to participate in Temple worship. So his friends/family weren’t allowed to take him closer to the actual Temple. This gate into the Temple Complex was, religiously speaking, “locked.” But that’s a post for another time.] This means that same lame man was probably begging at that same Temple gate when Jesus walked in and out of the Temple during his earthly ministry. But Jesus hadn’t healed him.
Had this man heard about Jesus of Nazareth, as other physically disabled beggars had? Did he ever try to position himself closer to Jesus, to increase the likelihood of a close encounter? How many times did he pray God would heal him? Why would God allow anyone to be lame for 40 years? Why didn’t Jesus heal this man while still on earth? Why keep the man invalid until Peter and John pass by him?
Waiting at a Gate
Perhaps you, too, have waited many years at your own “Beautiful Gate.” Perhaps you’re like me, and I’m a lot like our 2-year-old…I don’t like to wait for God to grant my requests. I feel sick and I want God to make me feel better NOW.
Take heart, friends. I don’t know why God allows suffering or why He doesn’t answer prayers on our timetables or in our preferred ways. I trust, however, that our loving God hears our prayers and knows our needs. And our God is a Healer. He can heal physically, relationally, spiritually, psychologically, financially, eternally, etc. He heals miraculously and medicinally. He heals instantly; He heals slowly. At times, He heals completely independently; often, however, He heals in partnership with his obedient followers (as was the case with Peter and John that day). And, thanks be to God, He heals us from “illnesses” we don’t know we have. But there’s no doubt about it, our God is a Healer.
But I do know this…refusing to patiently wait on God and following God is NEVER the answer. God has healed. God continues to heal. And God currently has the power to heal you (or those in your life who need healing), in whatever ways you need healing. So keep asking.
And when God does choose to heal, that locked gate where you sat daily, unable to ‘move’ on your own strength, will become a “beautiful” reminder of God’s healing power.
Finally, let’s not allow our own need for healing distract us from others’ needs. Regardless of current struggles, all Christians have daily opportunities to follow Peter and John’s example, joining God as He heals the world and proclaiming “we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.”
I have to practice what I preach. My rest is over. There’s a hot gym filled with children who need to hear Jesus loves them. That’s where I’ll be this afternoon and for the next 6 weeks. Come join me. 😉
At the “beautiful gate” of the temple,
As beggars and maimed we await
The hand of our healing Apostle,
The Lord of the “beautiful gate.”
He cometh! he cometh! salvation revealing,
The Nazarene passeth this way;
He cometh! He cometh! his presence is healing,
He cometh! he cometh today!
From the “beautiful gate” of the temple
A gleam of his beauty we see;
Yet the light of his uttermost glory
Is hidden from thee and from me.
He cometh! he cometh! salvation revealing,
The Nazarene passeth this way;
He cometh! He cometh! his presence is healing,
He cometh! he cometh today!
Through the “beautiful gate” of the temple
The flood of hosannas we hear,
And we know, by the voices of triumph,
The step of our Healer is near.
He cometh! he cometh! salvation revealing,
The Nazarene passeth this way;
He cometh! He cometh! his presence is healing,
He cometh! he cometh today!
He is near! he is near! he is waiting,
By the gate of the temple he stands;
He touches the maimed, and exulting
We leap with the life from his hands.
He cometh! he cometh! salvation revealing,
The Nazarene passeth this way;
He cometh! He cometh! his presence is healing,
He cometh! he cometh today!
–“At the Gate Called Beautiful” Flora Best Harris, 1893