{The third installment in the In ____We Trust Series}
Disclaimer before the outrage: I go to the doctor. I believe the Lord blessed us with brains and am thankful that He has led so many into the medical field and can work so much healing through medical intervention.
I also believe that if the Lord has plans for sickness, death, or healing, He can trump any amount of (or deficit of) medical help.
I believe that coughs, chronic illnesses, and even terminal diseases can remind us of God’s power as He heals, offers comfort, and even takes away. These hardships can bring to our attention the need for the one who is in control.
But often, health issues tempt us to trust in medicine instead of in the great physician.
It’s hard not to divide our trust between treatments, therapies, medications…and God.
When symptoms are persistent and relief won’t come, we often act like medical help will take care of the stuff that God doesn’t seem to be doing anything about. Prescriptions and diagnoses from man trump the prayer He prescribes and the truth He speaks about who we are.
This is where I trip up. Where you might, too. We need to recognize that:
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Medicine isn’t as reliable or as capable as our Lord.
No medical intervention can give back time. It can’t beat death. No pharmaceutical whosawhatzit can make any guarantee. The back of every bottle and the fine print on every form make that clear.
Plus, surgeries fail. Medicines don’t do all they are believed to. Unexpected side effects can be worse than the primary issue. Therapies work for a little while. Mistakes are made and treatments carried out to perfection don’t always suffice.
There’s a reason doctors and nurses need prayer. They need someone to trust in too.
Folks, our trust is misplaced when we put it into tools instead of the One using them. I know this because I’ve seen the tools snap. Fail. Break. Twist into lies. Leave no hope.
I love Isaiah’s words:
“Stop trusting in mere humans,
who have but a breath in their nostrils.
Why hold them in esteem?“
What I’ve learned over and over again: stop trusting in mere humans and their created solutions. They are not to be esteemed over the one who created them and continues to create and give life.
Doctors and the help they offer are instruments in the hands of the one who is over all. Wonderful instruments, but merely that.
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Health can become an idol.
Our bodies are as temporary as money, emotions, stuff, titles, and anything else in this world. Medicine, used to help the body, is as finite as man. Medicine will not be necessary in that long-awaited day when there is no more pain or suffering.
Medicine should not be where our security lies in this life.
Death doesn’t even care if you’re healthy.
Our bodies will fail us. Death will come no matter what shape we’re in. Though health is a blessing in this lifetime, our health is another means to a very certain end.
Medical help preserves for a time. But it doesn’t not save. Medicine cannot heal souls.
We need God more than we need people in lab coats. We need God more than hospital beds and looming drugstore aisles. We need God more than answers to medical mysteries.
In fact, we need God more than we need strength, well-being, and health at all.
Can I repeat that?
Praise the Lord that He reaches past the tools and farther than man can find to go. He reaches to the very soul. His hands are at work healing what cannot be touched by any scope, scan, or blood test.
He heals us Himself, with or without instruments. He heals what matters most.
The mere word of the Lord can give life where there is none.
We have hope, because of Christ, in the hospital where there is none. Hope in the inexplicable. Security in the ongoing suffering. Unfailing aide in the weakness that He won’t seem to remove from our side.
Let’s not get caught up trusting that if we care enough for our physical persons, we’ll be alright. Let’s not get so engrossed in healing that we fail to see what’s most broken.
But please, yes, let’s praise the maker of medicine for every good gift He gives!
Let’s entrust our mortal selves to the one who heals even the soul eternally.
For the next few weeks, I’ll be writing each Monday on something (or someone) I tend to trust in besides God.
What about you? How do you fill in the blank: In ______ I Trust?
Writers and non-writers are welcome to submit guest posts. Contact me hereby June 5th telling me what you trust in besides God and how He helps you trust Him more.
This post will also be shared on: #TestimonyTuesday, #RaRaLinkup, #Intentionally Pursuing, #WomenWithIntention, #TellHiStory, #Thought-Provoking Thursday, #DanceWithJesus, #LLMLinkup and #SoulSurvivalLinkup.
I hadn’t considered that medicine can be an idol. Yes so much truth in that. It’s trusting that placing God first in all things that He will be glorified and can use the things of this world, like medicine to show His love and mercy. I know I have trusted in things I see over the unseen. Continuing learning what full out faith and surrender is…
It’s such a struggle for me personally because of some loved ones health issues. All the glory and trust to the lord is so much better! Thanks Lynn!
This is so good for those of us who are in the “aging” process — which, I suppose, includes everyone! But I’m learning that excellent health is not a promise, and that God meets me in the midst of my circumstances. We’re tempted to think that He’s way up ahead at the end of the trial, waiting for us to slog through it on our own. Illness can be part of His refining fire, can’t it? Thanks for these good thoughts today – a challenge to our idol-factory hearts.
Absolutely it can be. I think for people with chronic illness and who are struggling with physical signs of aging it’s a really tough refining fire and it’s hard to remember that the life the Lord gives is valuable beyond how we physically feel (or are!)
Love your descriptor- idol-factory hearts. Might have to borrow that if it’s alright!! Thanks and blessings, Michele!
I think it may be a Piper-ism. Not sure, but it certainly describes me!
So I think I fall squarely into a sub category of this one, Bethany … “In health insurance I trust.” Thankfully, not so much as I used to, but I have to admit it’s still a struggle at times. These days, as our premiums go up and our benefits go down, God is showing me that He alone is our Provider!
I hadn’t even thought of that subcategory!! Yes, these days that seems much less stable and intimidating. So thankful for His provision and praying He assures you in the struggle! : )
Reblogged this on The Mimosa Blossom.
I have had to learn I must stay on my meds, even though God is the ultimate healer.
I forgot to tell you I’m visiting from LMM
Absolutely. Meds a great tool He provides- I love that you focus on the truth that He is the ultimate healer- He can use meds : ) He does! Blessings!
I love the truths you describe here…the trust in God, the hierarchy of God in the whole of health and well being.
But…
I think it’s complex. I think it’s hard to make these statements without (inadvertently) making it seem like God vs. modern medicine. And that can hurt people.
I see your heart bleeding through this and I know that is not what you are saying (or doing). But we’ve all heard the news stories of people who gave up on medicine that may have helped because the insisted God was going to do a miracle.
Sometimes our miracles come through medicine rather than inspite of it.
Very thought provoking today.
Glad I visted from Tell His Story!
Becky THANK YOU for seeing my heart through it. I was so nervous writing this post because it’s a very personal issue for me. And I want to be clear (praying Lord please!) that it’s not God vs. Medicine at all. It’s a matter of seeing that God uses medicine and placing our trust in HIM accordingly.
It is so complex and I pray this doesn’t hurt anyone. I’m not dissing medicine or the very real struggle that health can be. Also not diminishing how important it is to steward our health well. I just know that health and medical help to be healthy can be made into idols. I pray this provokes people to consider, as I frequently must, whether we’re seeing these things in an idolatrous way or in a God-glorifying way. And He can absolutely be glorified through medicine and health.
Thanks again for stopping by, showing me grace, and bringing this up further!! You have blessed me today.
I think it’s equally (maybe even more so) important to trust Him when medicines and doctors don’t work or healing doesn’t come. There was a point after I found a lump in my breast, after the doctor said, “The last time I felt something that big it was stage 4,” but before any real tests were run that it occurred to me that just because He is the Great Physician, doesn’t mean everybody is healed of earthly disease and illness. I had to come to terms with the fact that He loves me even if He didn’t heal me. My hope, my trust, in Him had to extend beyond my circumstances to the only thing that is assured for those who believe. Thanks for these thought provoking words, Bethany!
Totally Liz. Thanks for sharing a little bit of your story with me!
It was hard to fit it all into this post, but that is one point that I hope comes through. One of my favorite people lives with a chronic illness that can be really horrible. One of the things I admire most about this loved one is how they don’t believe any less in God and are very thankful for all the good He gives even though the likelihood of healing something so major is very slim- and God hasn’t done it in the past 12+ years it’s been going on. Scripture shows us that He doesn’t heal everybody- even Paul wasn’t healed of the “thorn in His side!” When we make health an idol, we easily lose sight of the fact that poor health isn’t a spiritual-death sentence.
I had never thought that medicine could be an idol but I love this observation: “our trust is misplaced when we put it into tools instead of the One using them.” Even when we’re looking to medicine to help with illness our trust should ultimately be in God. Great point about praying for doctors and nurses too- they have so many complex and important decisions to make and a huge responsibility.
Absolutely they do! I pray for the doctors and nurses I know and for medical staff whenever someone I know needs their help! I think one of the blessings of trusting in the Lord instead of medicine is that when medicines work or fail, we still have hope beyond them and know who to look to in thanks or in need!
This past week I spilled some boiling water on my foot and developed a blister that broke open. It was painful, but now, a week later, a new pink skin covers the spot. Our body has a marvelous design. Sometimes we need help. I completely agree with you–medicine, doctors and nurses have great tools to assist the healing process. But there are limits. I am concerned when medicine looks to redesign the body with hormones and tries to find a vaccine for every illness. Sometimes we miss seeing the way God intended for our bodies to work.
Ouch! Glad your foot is healing, Carol! Thanks for your kind words. I get worried about all this too but am so thankful that the Lord knows and is working- even with the crazy stuff we come up with.
Great truths here, Bethany! God wants us to trust Him with everything. I’m stopping by from the #DancewithJesus link-up.
I am so thankful God is the ultimate physician and that our lives are in His hands. Thanks for sharing at the #LMMLinkup.