Goodbye, Allergies

I have lived for a long time with a misunderstanding about allergies. I would not have thought, in the past, to classify allergies as part of the “disease” category – which is to say, I didn’t think of allergies as something from which a person could be healed. I guess I just thought allergies were a part of life. I didn’t enjoy my allergies, but what could I do?

And then it was suggested to me that allergies have a spiritual root, and that root is a spirit of fear. The body, I believe, eventually will agree with and align with the spirit. Fear and anxiety can keep a person “on edge”; expecting the worst, planning for disaster, frequently worrying, not at ease (or at dis-ease). It’s as if the spirit has become hypersensitive to events in life, or to emotions, or to thoughts of the future. And I believe the body eventually will come to reflect this hypersensitive spirit.

How Did Jesus Do It?

Well, of course Jesus healed the sick instantly, He was God!

It might seem like a trivial point that is best left for theologians to bat around, but then again, maybe not. It gets down into the murky waters of Christology, and understanding (as if we ever could) the mystery of how Jesus could be fully God and fully Man at the same time. Can anyone plumb those depths and not get a cramp in the brain?

And yet, I see an important point at issue there, a point that even seems critical to me if I’m going to get any further down the path of understanding the power of God in healing today. What is that critical point?

It’s a Sign of the Kingdom

When the prophet Isaiah wrote of the coming age of the Messiah, he characterized it in this way:

Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a hart, and the tongue of the dumb sing for joy. (Is. 35:5-6)

A few chapters later, this same prophet spoke in detail of the work that this coming Messiah would accomplish:

Why Miracles?

I was recently re-reading an older catechetical book about the Catholic faith, and came across some interesting passages about miracles (the “sign” gifts). It drew my attention again to the question of why there were miracles in the New Testament at all. The Catholic Church has typically put a lot of emphasis on the authenticating effect of miracles; that is, miracles were performed in the past, and continue to occur today, in order to prove something (or someone) as true, trustworthy, worth of belief, etc.

Jesus Himself made this appeal to His own miracles: “even though you do not believe me, believe the works” (Jn. 10:38). Similarly, in the story of the healing of the paralytic, Jesus first spoke the words, “Your sins are forgiven”, and then healed the man’s paralysis as a proof that His absolution of the man’s sins was indeed effective (see Mt. 9:5ff).

Give Me a Sign!

I want signs. I’m not sure if that’s just a natural human impulse that we all share in common, or if I’m just especially attached to the idea, but I want to see signs that are supernatural. I want to see evidence of God’s activity in my life and in the lives of those around me; I am a believer in God’s continued Presence, but I still want to see the visible “footprints” that He leaves.

This is another tightrope that I walk, because I have a general feeling that the desire to see signs is a mark of weakness or immaturity. Isn’t it a far more mature attitude to just rest in faith, and never need to see evidence? To take comfort from the interior gifts of the Spirit, and be weaned from the desire to see exterior and physical manifestations of the Spirit (in dreams, in prophecy, in physical healings, and so on)?

Living a Lie

It seems to me, as I read and observe more about spiritual warfare, that there is a lot of emphasis on the concept of the Enemy’s lies: “don’t believe the enemy’s lies”, “you’re living out of a lie”, “replace the lie with the truth”, “repent of agreeing with the lie”, etc. It was a difficult concept to wrap my mind around at first, but I think it’s slowly starting to make sense. This is what I understand so far, at this point …

The Enemy (a broad term used to describe Satan and all of the fallen angels under him) is constantly seeking to destroy us: “Stay sober, stay alert! Your enemy, the Adversary, stalks about like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.” (1 Pt. 5:8) We are more-or-less under a constant spiritual attack, so St. Paul tells us to put on the war garb and take a defensive position:

The Man Born Blind: A Case Study

St. John tells the story in his gospel account of a man who was born blind, and who was healed by Jesus. This story came up recently in a conversation with a friend, and there were a few things there that I hadn’t remembered seeing before. As a case study in healing, I find it fascinating, because it doesn’t fit into what I might consider a “normal” framework.

The story begins (John 9) with Jesus and the disciples walking past a blind man – and not just blind, but “blind from his birth”. (v. 1) St. John thought that was an important detail, because, as he will recount later, “Never since the world began has it been heard that any one opened the eyes of a man born blind.” (v. 32) I wonder, as I read the opening lines, how the disciples knew that the man was born blind? They ask the question of Jesus, “who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” (v. 2) They obviously knew that little fact; perhaps the man was well-known for his odd condition; or perhaps it was apparent just by looking at him that he was born that way (maybe he had no eyes at all).