Life is filled with tension, and my job as a nurse is no different. On the one hand I have sick and sometimes terminally ill patients, and on the other hand a strong belief in God’s desire to heal everyone, no matter the problem. I have been noticing my own responses recently to various terminal conditions from a nursing perspective, and in a world where there is no solution and no divine hope, those responses make perfect sense. On the other hand, I have this part of me in the back of my brain that is saying “there is always a solution, but it’s not going to happen in this case, so what does it matter?”
Tonight, I started thinking a bit more about this perspective, and realized I needed to look at it deeper, as it’s both incongruent and in my opinion an unhealthy belief. I started by considering what I believe the ideal to be–where everyone is healed. Knowing that doesn’t usually happen, I considered further–that a lack of an ideal situation shouldn’t really change my end-goal where all are healed. If the end-goal isn’t changing, then my expectations shouldn’t change regardless of the situation. Previously I have generally done this internal analysis on the likelihood of someone getting healed in that situation, and then engaging my faith after I decided it was likely to occur, but God is reminding me that’s a silly perspective to have, as well as a fruitless one.
When we start to decide what we are willing to believe for based on the likelihood of it happening, while there is a measure to which that can be wisdom, I think most of the time it actually engenders more doubt than it does faith because it starts with the question “Will this happen?” If the answer is no, then faith has no home. However, if we start with the question “What is God’s will?” then we don’t really need to consider whether something is going to happen or not–we simply need to release faith. Whether it will happen will depend on a variety of factors–their level of inner healing, what and how many and how powerful the demons blocking the healing are, the atmosphere in the area, my faith, their faith, the influence of angels, the influence of those around us, and even certain planetary and solar cosmic energies based on where in the universe the planet is that that moment in time. In other words, it may be a crap shoot after all is said and done, but the fact is I can’t manage most of those things. Out of the eight items I mentioned above (and I’m sure there are more involved that I’m simply not aware of), only ONE of them is something I can directly influence–my faith.
My faith is the only thing I am responsible for when it comes to making healing or miracles happen, and in reality it is the only thing I have any control over. I can’t make someone else have faith for healing. I can’t always make the atmosphere be just-so and help me out, or at least not always at a moment’s notice. I can, however, cultivate a lifestyle of faith so it doesn’t matter what else is happening around me. Faith is not simply obtained, but it is cultivated. In the parable of the mustard seed Jesus spoke about faith as something that grows and produces fruit–more than anything else in the garden! Faith may not start out big and strong, but it will grow if we feed it properly. I came to the realization that I was feeding doubt more than anything else, and if I want ANYONE to be healed then I must stop feeding doubt and feed faith.
I want to end with a story I believe expresses this idea, and where the two wolves can be likened to faith and doubt. There is an old Cherokee tale about a grandfather teaching his grandson about life, and he told the boy a story about two wolves fighting — one who is good and kind and only fights when attacked, and who always seeks the best in everyone. The second wolf is angry and mean and evil, who fights everyone all the time. He is angry for no reason and will attack without provocation. As the story goes, the grandfather explained that these wolves are alive inside of him fighting every day. “Who wins?” the young boy asks? The grandfather answered, “The one I feed.”
