Healing: A quest for wholeness
Learning to live with uncertainty and the peace that can come from it.
Peace in the midst of uncertainty
Today I want to reflect on a topic that’s close to my heart: healing. But to be honest, we can’t talk about healing without also talking about the times when it doesn’t happen. As painful as that is, it’s a reality. Sometimes, even when expectations are sky-high and we long for a miracle, it just doesn’t come.
My background
I grew up in a world where the message of healing through prayer wasn’t a central theme. My childhood was in a traditional church where this topic simply wasn’t a primary focus. That doesn’t mean we never prayed for the sick—of course we did. And every now and then, you’d hear a story about a prayer being answered. As a young boy and teenager, illness wasn’t something I really thought about, which makes sense. You don’t tend to think about all the things that could happen to you.
Later, when I converted and gave my life to the Lord Jesus, faith healing came more and more into focus. I believed that anything was possible. I read the books of well-known evangelists like T.L. Osborn, Oral Roberts, and Morris Cerullo, and I went to many of their campaigns. I believed it, I preached it, and that conviction is something I still hold today.
The other side of the miracle
The painful part is that we often only talk about the spectacular healings as incredible miracles from God. But the other side of the coin is that countless people have gone home disappointed, and sometimes heartbroken.
At the campaigns I attended—like those of Ben Hoekendijk, Johan Maasbach, Schambach, Oral Roberts, and Morris Cerullo—I definitely saw miracles happen. I remember we were on vacation in England and went to a campaign by Hans Koornstra, Martin Koornstra’s father. Hans was one of my favorite preachers. He had a powerful message and a gift for touching people’s hearts. He also had a remarkable healing ministry. In Birmingham, we saw God do something special and heal an MS patient.
This story later even made it into newspapers like the Daily Mirror and the Daily Express. The woman had gone to The Bingley Hall in her wheelchair, a huge venue, and she left in her wheelchair because no healing had happened after the prayer. I read in the newspaper, and later heard from Hans Koornstra in a sermon, that about 40 miles down the road, she stopped at a fish and chips shop. While her husband went to get their order, she suddenly felt the power of God surge through her in the car. She was healed! It was a miracle that made national headlines.
Personal experience with disappointment
I, too, have often had the expectation that healing would take place. One of the first times was with my wife, who has always had very poor eyesight. She longed for healing so much and went with that desire to the pastor of our first church. We were still young, full of faith and expectation.
I remember her telling me, “Wim, I was so sure. I believed it so fiercely. I thought, when I open my eyes after the prayer, I’ll be able to see perfectly.” Sadly, that didn’t happen. She still has poor eyesight, and all our prayers and longings in this area have not been answered. And yet, along the way, we’ve learned to trust that things sometimes unfold differently and that God has His hand in that too. It’s not that He doesn’t want us to be healed, but sometimes life is simply broken and not always full of miracles.
The painful consequences of misguided faith
Unfortunately, wrong ideas about faith and healing can lead to painful situations. In our first church, there was a young woman who had just converted and believed so fervently in healing that when she became seriously ill, she refused medication. She thought that doing so would undermine her faith and prevent God from performing a miracle. She passed away, having been married for only a short time. What a setback, what sorrow.
Many beautiful things have happened, miracles I’ve seen with my own eyes. But at the same time, I also saw a lot of tension and stress. People who ultimately weren’t healed were sometimes quietly blamed: “Did you pray enough? Did you really expect it from the Lord, or was it more about your feelings?” As someone who is sick, you can’t do anything with that. All you long for is to get better and be restored.
A balanced approach
I have a lot of trouble with people approaching each other in this un-pastoral way. I see in the Bible that sometimes miracles happen, but also that Paul says he left someone behind who was sick. I’ve learned that the greatest strength, even when I was seriously ill myself, lies in the fact that we continued to trust and believe in healing, no matter how God chose to do it—whether through a miracle or through medical intervention. That thought gave us peace. Stress and anxiety are from the enemy and only make a situation more complicated.
Rest in God’s peace
We prayed daily, and now that my wife is sick, we still do so together. What we experience is that the greatest healing, first and foremost, is peace in your soul, and above all, the knowledge: I belong to the Lord. That brings a climate of peace, a piece of His Kingdom.
Is that resignation? Perhaps, but not in the sense of passive surrender. It’s not a case of, “We don’t see it happening, so we’ll give up.” On the contrary, we continue to reach out and trust that God will do His work. Through radiation and chemo, I’ve been healed from cancer twice, and I can only say: I’m still alive because the Lord had His hand in the work of the doctors.
Relaxation versus religious stress
This is how we live in a state of ease. I’ve noticed that stress is one of the biggest enemies, especially religious stress. All that “you have to do this and you have to do that,” “you have to go to that service,” “you have to be delivered,” “another big prophet from America is coming with a healing ministry.” It wears me out; it’s useless to me.
I find the deepest healing in rest and peace, in the presence of God, in intimacy with Him. It has become a bit of my life motto, as Paul also says: “Whether I live or die, I am the Lord’s.” He doesn’t create drama out of the things that happen in his life but knows that he belongs to Christ. Therefore, there is no place for stress, boasting, or fabricating stories when the outcome is ultimately different. Let’s please be honest about that and stay far away from it.
I think of Martin Koornstra, whom I respect immensely. After a major healing that was supposed to have happened in Urk, he later had to admit: “I was a bit premature. It turned out not to be as I had initially proclaimed.”
Rest in God’s peace
That’s why I want to conclude with the text from Philippians 4: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.” That is my belief as well. With thanksgiving, I lay everything before the Lord. I know His hand is on our lives, and in that, I experience His peace.
In Jesus’ name, I am truly grateful for this. With this thought, I want to bless you.
Watch the video about this topic here
@wimvanputten