When Healing Comes

May 1, 2004

Personal Narrations

Joel Akin

Calgary, Alberta

If nothing else I have learned one thing today about faith and trust in God. It is that faith can move mountains but it will not budge God from finishing the work He's started in me. All my life I've been told that if you only have enough faith you can have anything you want. It was like the coin to a huge candy machine. Have the right change? Then get the treat of your choice all courtesy of God. But the deeper I walk with God the more I realize that God is not moved nor shaken from the course nor does He retreat from the battle and thus neither should we.

It always bothered me when I listened to the faith talk when they said, "I just relaxed and let God and then whammo, God opened the doors..." It wasn't that I was not happy for them but I always wondered where I had gone wrong. How could their faith be so much better, so much stronger? How many hundreds of times had I 'relaxed' and waited without seeing the answers they had bragged about?

But now that I have walked with God and talked with Him I began to realize something. It was not that their faith was so huge and mighty but that God knew that was the limit of their strength. A terrible thing to say perhaps but it seems true. God would never push us beyond what we can bear and so in their 'faith' he provided a way of escape.

But maybe there are some, and just maybe I am one, who God sees is willing to go all the way. Not willing to stop half way or 3/4's of the way but willing to fight all the way to the top.

Maybe that is pride to say that but it is essential for me to hope that to explain why my relaxing and/or stepping out in faith don't operate the way that it does with others. Why? I think of it as a canvas that is painted by a master artist. He continues to work on that until He is satisfied.

Today I really believed God would heal me. I believed He would say 'enough' and put me on a course where I could be free of pain and suffering. So I pushed myself and realized stepping out was not and has not been Gods purpose for me. How many times has He told me, "I will heal you personally?"

Yet to be honest I can see how I get off course. There are so many Christian voices who are asking me, "have you stepped out in faith?" It is as if somehow their faith is stronger then mine and their faith again leaves me wondering and sighing in frustration.

All along God has been telling me to quit listening to men to stop trying to please them, to learn to walk as God leads and not in the vain imaginations and teachings of others.

It is hard but at the same time I know that this teaching and leading of God will make me stronger in Him. How often has He told me that I cannot look for the answer or the solution but I must keep my eyes on Him no matter what. And that is where faith in faith goes wrong. Faith in mans view says, "Oh look what my faith can do..." But I must say, "Look what God can do..."

So I stand here in faith waiting for my release but realizing that if it does not come today, this week or month or year I will not take my eyes off HIM. And thereby my faith in Him shall not waver.