Acknowledging the Giver

Have you ever prayed to get better and then you took zinc, vitamin C, and echinacea. You had a long nap and got some sunshine. Then the next day you felt better and wondered what made you better. Was it the vitamins? The sunlight? The nap? Or the prayer? Maybe you figured it was all the above and so you remembered that combination for the next illness.

Or perhaps you had a tweaked neck. You used your massager on your neck to ease the pain. You took a hot bath with epsom salts. You went to the chiropractor and asked a friend to pray for you. Then over the course of a few days the pain went away. Was it just time that healed you? Was it prayer? Was it everything?

I've thought these things countless times. However, something dawned on me the other day, or rather, the Lord revealed something new to me.

God is always the giver of every good gift. He is the giver of health and medicine and sunlight and chiropractors and even human brains that pray for healing. Every good thing has its origin in God.

God also causes all our actions to have power in the world. He causes the human body to break down the vitamins that we take. He causes the epsom salts to release magnesium into the bath water. He upholds the muscles and bones in the chiropractor's hands to work on our neck and back. No one exercises power in this world without God letting it happen, or more precisely, without God upholding the effect of their decision.

So what causes our healing? 

Always the Lord is doing it: sometimes through our prayers, sometimes through our vitamins, and sometimes without our participation at all. Yes, there are doctors' recommendations and basic guidelines to achieve good health, but the Lord is always the giver behind those recommendations and guidelines too. 

To trust the guidelines without acknowledging the giver leads to placing our peace and security in the hands of imperfect people or in our own limited strength.

But to believe God is the giver behind all science and medicine means that we can have peace and security even when praying for things that science and medicine cannot achieve.