Yesterday I underwent a myelogram which is a CAT scan that uses dye injected into your spinal cord to more clearly identify problems such as the pinched nerve in my spine that will likely require another 4 hour gruesome surgery soon.
I noticed straps on the table and I was wondering if the test was so painful that they had to strap you down, but they were attached to my ankles to keep me from sliding off the table when they tilted it up to allow the dye to run through my spine to my neck area.
After the test I was cautioned to take it easy for the next couple of days and I was repeatedly told to keep my head up or I would get a headache. They told me to lie flat on my back and use two pillows. So I took a nap and my pillows got all smushed down between the crack of the headboard and mattress. I sleepily rearranged them and fluffed them up, but then scooted back to keep my head elevated but went back too far.
Bonk! I hit my head on the headboard nearly hard enough to break my neck and the headboard and instantly got a headache; so much for preventing headaches.
Sigh . . . Sometimes when it rains it pours. So last night a friend texted and told me he had been thinking, praying, and studying on the issue of whether or not I’ve been under satanic attack. He said we cannot be “attacked” by the enemy and that we have been granted the same authority over him as Jesus.
Hmmm . . . I replied that with all due respect that is just so much poppycock. I mentioned that we are under constant spiritual warfare and in war people get attacked. He responded that the enemy has no authority over me. Be that as it may he is the powerful prince of this world, and according to the Bible is akin to a roaring lion and even the most powerful angels in the world Gabriel and Michael had a battle on their hands when engaged in combat with him and his minions.
He said nothing could pluck us from God’s grip and of course I agreed, but he can certainly muck up our day and I used Job, Joseph, Noah, and the disciples as but a few examples. He said he wanted to encourage my faith and he did. He left me with the verse Psalm 109:21 “But you, O God my Lord, deal on my behalf for your name’s sake; because your steadfast love is good, deliver me!” I love this verse.
Later I went to my desk and there was an e-mail from a friend who was insisting that neither my wife nor I should have surgery and instead we should simply pray our way to good health combined with holistic eating and supplements.
Yes I unequivocally believe that God heals, but He also at times uses gifted surgeons, medicines like antibiotics, and stents in arteries to assist with that process. As far as diets go, there is no question that eating healthy and combining it with exercise is a way to live that will most likely yield a longer life, but it is not an end all cure for every malady. For example, I honestly would prefer to get a surgeon to remove a bone spur pressing down on a nerve in my neck or a malignant tumor growing on my wife’s breast than to munch on a piece of Kale with some hickory nuts for dessert and then take three vitamin supplements.
One guy told me a few weeks ago that my faith wasn’t strong enough; otherwise I would be healed. That really made me mad. First he doesn’t know how much faith I have, and second he doesn’t know God’s plans. I’ve read the Bible and God tests, refines, and prepares His children through trials and tribulations.
Geez Louise please don’t ever tell anyone who is undergoing serious medical problems such an idiotic thing! Remember Job’s friends telling him that he was being punished for sin, for not having enough faith etc. and then remember what God told them.
At the end of the day I unequivocally believe that God outright heals in response to prayer; in fact I have experienced it first-hand and seen it happen with others. So there is no question that we should pray that God will simply outright heal us with no medical care. I also believe that God uses doctors and dentists and other people in the medical field to accomplish His healing ministry. He gave us wonderful intellects and we are to use them.
My life’s verse is “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me”. If one reads this carefully we can understand that God doesn’t always do everything for us; we have to do our parts. (“I” can do.) What He does is strengthen us when the load gets too heavy. He also is not really talking about “all things”; (He would not bless us and help establish a brothel or drug cartel.) He blesses all things that are within His will for our lives. During my times of tribulation I pray for that strength and I always get through the worst the enemy can throw at me.
Isaiah 53:4
Surely he took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him, and afflicted.
March 25, 2015 – Click here to listen