The subject of faith is sometimes hotly debated within the body of Christ. There are those who staunchly claim that when a person isn’t healed or has other misfortunes, it’s because they don’t have enough faith. Others might say it’s because those praying for the person don’t have enough faith. And yet others are convinced it’s because of sin, either in the heart of the person who is sick or in the hearts of those who prayed.

I believe in any given situation, any one of these reasons might be the cause of a person not being healed. However, the problem arises when people try to make blanket statements that fit every situation. For example, stating that every person who isn’t healed is lacking faith, or every person who isn’t healed has sin in their hearts. Many people are wounded by the judgments leveled against them.

We all love to read testimonies of those who are healed or victorious in some way, just as we love to read verses thirty-three through the beginning of verse thirty-five in Hebrews eleven, known as the faith chapter. The author is talking about those who through faith conquered kingdoms, administered justice, and gained what was promised; who shut the mouths of lions, quenched the fury of the flames, and escaped the edge of the sword; whose weakness was turned to strength; and who became powerful in battle and routed foreign armies. Women received back their dead, raised to life again.

But what about the end of verse 35 through verse 38? Others were tortured and refused to be released, so that they might gain a better resurrection. Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated—the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in deserts and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.

What about those people? Should we assume that these things happened to them because they didn’t have enough faith? No, these people are in the faith chapter, Hebrews eleven, along with other heroes of the faith. Hebrews 11:6 says, Without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to Him must believe that He exists and that He rewards those who earnestly seek Him. But their reward, and ours, may not come in this life.

Years ago, someone dear to me said, “I was anointed and people everywhere were praying for me, why wasn’t I healed?” She stared into my eyes as if she knew that I had the answer.

I don’t always know the answer to that question in any given situation but this time God had revealed it to me. In a quiet voice I answered, “Because sometimes other kinds of healing are more important than physical healing.”

The woman’s eyes lit with understanding. She had been very angry with her daughter and daughter-in-law, believing the lies of the enemy that they didn’t love her. Through events that happened as a result of her surgery, the blinders had been removed from her eyes and relationships restored.

Over the past four months, hundreds, perhaps thousands, of people prayed for our son, Robb, but he wasn’t healed. Although I have some theories, God hasn’t told me why. During the past months, I remembered the things people said when my father had a malignant brain tumor in 1983. Some said, You have to believe God will heal him. Others said, You have to accept that he’s going to die. Even though no one made those statements to me this time, I came to the conclusion once again that I didn’t have to believe either of those things. I could say, I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that day. (II Timothy 1:12)

At a very young age (and many times since then), we dedicated Robb to the Lord. He wasn’t ours and it wasn’t ours to say whether he lived or died. The only One qualified to make that decision sits in a position much higher than ours. The truth that I’ve clung to as the storm rages around us is that God knows what He’s doing and God doesn’t makes mistakes. I know whom I have believed…