Bible Text: Psalm 103:2-3 | Speaker: Dr. Harold J. Sala | Series: Guidelines For Living | Praise the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits—who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases. Psalm 103:2-3

Dr. Catherine Hamlin has been described by The New York Times as “the new Mother Teresa of our age.” For many years this gallant woman labored alongside her husband in Ethiopia, performing more than 25,000 surgeries, giving dignity and hope to women whose lives had been shattered by complications in childbirth.

Over a period of time this woman who had helped so many developed a chronic cough. The prognosis was not good. X-rays showed a lesion on her lung. Before treatment began, however, Dr. Hamlin attended a prayer service when an unknown woman put her hand on her shoulder and prayed that her lungs would be healed. After the prayer, Dr. Hamlin turned to the stranger, a person who did not know her, and asked the obvious question: “How did you know I had anything the matter with my lungs?” The woman replied that she had been prompted by the Spirit of God to pray for her. Then Dr. Hamlin revealed that a tumor had been discovered.

Dr. Hamlin was admitted to London’s Hammersmith Hospital where a biopsy was scheduled. The head of the radiology department ordered a CAT scan to confirm the diagnosis. Dr. Hamlin tells about lying in the cylinder where the CAT scan was done, she saw the doctors in deep discussion huddled over the data which had been gleaned. Then the radiologist initiated the conversation with her, saying, “I’m very sorry…” but the apology turned to joy as he continued, “but we can’t find anything the matter with your lungs.” Dr. Hamblin returned to her room, got dressed and walked out of the hospital.

Dr. Hamlin, a surgeon herself, could never be convinced that prayer was not the agency that God used to bring healing to her lungs. Her skeptical friends said, “Perhaps that woman heard you coughing?” “No,” she would respond. “I had not coughed at all. There was no way she could know what my condition was.”

“But God doesn’t do that sort of thing any more,” some would say. The natural mind can never fully fathom how the hand of God touches some with healing but extends His grace to others. And what God has not revealed, neither can I explain. But the fact is that God is sovereign, and does what He chooses to bring glory to His name.

In telling a friend of this incident, I commented, “You know, we often put God in a box, saying He no longer does that sort of thing.” “Yes,” she commented, “but it is a pretty box.” She is right. I couldn’t help thinking of the beautiful floral patterns or the polished oak which softens the harshness of caskets holding the body of someone you loved.

Whatever you do, friend, don’t put God in a pretty box, adorning it with tears or flowers. He’s alive, and He’s the same yesterday, today, and forever. I, for one, am glad that I don’t have to explain why God chooses to do certain things and chooses not to do other things. Long ago Jeremiah cried out, “Heal me, O LORD, and I will be healed; save me and I will be saved, for you are the one I praise” (Jeremiah 17:14), then he spoke of the fact that it is the potter who has power over the clay to do with it what He chooses. “Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel,” He declared (Jeremiah 18:6).

The Good News is that God is not in a box, even a pretty one, and He who created us has power over our lives to bring help, healing, hope, and redemption.

Resource reading: 2 Kings 4:8-36