#35 Faith vs. Medicine? The Bible on Healing & Chronic Illness

13 Jul

YouTube Video of the Church Service

Ever feel like you're failing at faith because you're still struggling with illness? You're not alone.

This week at Crowd Church, Jenny Mariner addressed one of faith's most challenging questions: Where is God when healing doesn't come?

Drawing from personal stories and biblical wisdom, she explored why some people experience miraculous healing while others struggle with chronic conditions for years. Whether you're reaching for the medicine cabinet or your Bible (or both), this conversation offers hope without the religious guilt trip.

Jenny, one of the pastors at Frontline Church, brings refreshing honesty to a topic that affects us all. From her own "pregnant-zilla" moments to watching her father-in-law navigate 20 years of chronic back pain, she understands the messy reality of bodies that don't always cooperate with our prayers.

In Christianity, we often default to the “easy” answers to these questions —the learned statements that just roll off the tongue. However, these usually fail to acknowledge what is really happening. We read about Jesus healing the blind, raising the dead, and transforming lives with a touch. The early church also witnessed miraculous healings. James tells us…

Is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up. If they have sinned, they will be forgiven. – James 5:14-15

Yet here we are, still taking medication, still managing chronic conditions, still losing people we love to illness. The tension is real, and pretending otherwise doesn't help anyone.

Jenny puts it brilliantly: "We live in a world where the power and glory of God are sometimes, but not always seen." It's like living on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday - we know Jesus has won, but we don't always experience that victory in our everyday reality.

The Now and Not Yet

Scripture gives us a framework that makes space for both healing and ongoing illness. Yes, God absolutely can heal. He's done it throughout history and continues to do so today. Jenny shared stories of drug addicts freed from withdrawal symptoms through prayer, cancer outcomes that stunned doctors, and deaf ears suddenly opened in countries with limited healthcare.

But there is also the biblical truth that our bodies are "wasting away" (2 Corinthians 4) because we live in a fallen world. The earth itself is groaning under the weight of sin. That's why genes mutate, joints wear out, illnesses exist in the first place, and death finally comes to all of us.

The beautiful promise? One day in heaven, we'll have resurrected bodies free from illness and pain. But until then, we live in that messy middle - expectant and prayerful, yet honest about the reality that breakthrough might not always come when we want it.

What This Looks Like Monday Morning

At the Doctor's Office: There's nothing unbiblical about medical care. The Good Samaritan bandaged wounds and paid for healthcare. Paul advised Timothy to use wine for his stomach problems. As Jenny noted, God often works through medicine. Those "miraculous" cancer treatment outcomes? They happened through chemotherapy, not despite it.

In Your Prayer Life: Don't Let Excellent Healthcare Make You Forget to Pray. Kenneth Hagin said, "Believe God for healing, but also go to the doctor, find out what's wrong with you, and that way you can target your faith." It's both/and, not either/or.

During Long-term Illness: When healing doesn't come quickly, God isn't absent. He's inviting you into a deeper relationship. Jenny shared about someone whose reduced mobility led to more prayer, more profound understanding of God, and a beautiful spiritual breakthrough, even while their body remained limited.

In Your Emotions: Lament is a biblical and necessary response. The Book of Lamentations shows us it's okay to pour out pain and frustration to God. As one participant noted, we're not good at this in our culture - we want to rush from problem to solution without processing the messy middle.

Conversation Street Questions:

Question 1: "What's your first instinct when you're unwell? Reach for the medicine cabinet or reach for your Bible?"

The hosts explored how balance looks different for everyone. Jan shared how she's sometimes been "guilty" of reaching for paracetamol before praying, but emphasised that neither approach is wrong. The key is maintaining both - taking available medicine while also bringing our needs to God. Anna added that she'll book doctor appointments while simultaneously praying, treating them as complementary rather than competing approaches.

Question 2: "Have you ever been told to just pray harder when facing a health challenge? How did that make you feel?"

This sparked honest discussion about the harm of oversimplified faith. Anna shared her family's journey through cancer diagnoses and recurrent miscarriages, where well-meaning people suggested they just needed more faith. The team agreed this creates "toxic positivity" that implies we control outcomes through religious performance. As Jenny clarified, while scripture connects faith and healing, it's never the whole story - reducing someone's ongoing illness to "lack of faith" misses the bigger picture of living in a fallen world.

Question 3: "What does it look like practically to bear one another's burdens when someone's facing long-term health challenges?"

The conversation highlighted beautiful examples of church community in action - from dog walking and school runs to simply sitting with someone who's isolated. Jenny emphasised that people who can't attend services can easily slip from memory, making an intentional connection crucial. Anna stressed the importance of finding those "core people" who will journey with you long-term, as most people experience "prayer fatigue" when healing doesn't come quickly. Sometimes the greatest gift is simply consistent presence and prayer over months and years.

The conversation revealed how suffering can deepen faith rather than destroy it. Jenny shared about someone whose chronic pain led to spiritual breakthroughs that wouldn't have happened otherwise. Anna mentioned author K.J. Ramsey, who lives with severe chronic illness yet writes with profound hope about finding God in the "this too shall last" moments of life.

These aren't stories of instant transformation, but of slow, deep work—God meeting people in hospital rooms and sleepless nights, using what seems like defeat to build unshakeable faith. As Jan observed, those who deal with daily struggles are "the real heroes". Their tested faith inspires far more than any quick-fix testimony.

From the talk and conversation, here are practical steps for this week:

1. Stop and check: Are you so reliant on medicine that you've stopped praying? Or so focused on faith that you're avoiding medical help? Aim for both/and.

2. Practice lament: Set aside 30 minutes to honestly write out your frustrations to God. Don't rush to resolution - let yourself feel and express the difficulty.

3. Check on someone: Think of someone dealing with long-term health challenges. Send a text, drop off a meal, or ask how you can pray specifically for them this week.

4. Expand your perspective: If you're in a health struggle, ask God what He might be teaching you in it, not instead of healing, but while you wait and hope.

5. Share your story: Whether you've experienced healing or ongoing illness, your story matters. Share it with someone who needs to know they're not alone.

Jenny's framework of living "on Saturday" - between Good Friday's darkness and Easter Sunday's victory - permits us to hold seemingly contradictory truths. We can believe God heals while taking our medication. We can have faith while acknowledging some things won't be fixed this side of heaven. We can experience God's presence in both miraculous healing and amid chronic pain.

This isn't about lowering expectations or explaining away God's power. It's about living honestly in the tension, where sometimes cancer disappears overnight and sometimes it doesn't, where some addictions break instantly and others require years of recovery, where God is equally present in the miracle and the marathon.

What would change if we stopped measuring faith by whether we're healed instantly and started measuring it by whether we're drawing closer to God through whatever comes?

Whether you're praying for a miracle, managing a chronic condition, or supporting someone who is, remember this: God's not waiting for you to get it right. He's not disappointed in your questions or frustrated by your need for medicine. He's present in your Saturday, that messy space between the cross and resurrection, working all things for good, even when good looks different from what you imagined.

The invitation isn't to pretend everything's fine or to manufacture more faith. It's to bring your whole self - body, soul, questions, and medications - to a God who meets us in our weakness and calls it holy ground.

Biblical Balance for Healing & Chronic Illness
Anna Kettle: [00:00:00] Good evening and welcome to Crowd Church. It's lovely to be here tonight. I am joined tonight by the wonderful Jan. Ah,
Jan Burch: good evening. Nice to be here. Have
Anna Kettle: you had
Jan Burch: a good week, Jan? Yeah, it's been, um, yeah, busy and hot. Very hot.
Anna Kettle: We are in the middle of a heat wave right now in the uk. We've all been melting, haven't
Jan Burch: we?
Yeah,
Anna Kettle: we are still melting right now. Um, but yeah, it's nice and cool in here. And Frontline building though, isn't it? Yeah, we're broadcasting, but yes, it has been a hot week. Um, we can't complain though. We shouldn't complain. No. Most of the year it rains here, so we're all good. But, um, anyway, enough about the weather.
Yeah. Tell us what's happening
Jan Burch: tonight, Jan. Yeah, we've got the honorable, uh, Jenny met Jenny, honorable. Uh, our pastor Jenny, um, is talking about faith and healing. I'm gonna unpack that a bit more. Yeah. Yeah. So
Anna Kettle: afterwards we'll have Conversation Street and have a bit of conversation about that. Um, and it's a subject that, that's quite close to mine.
And your court as well? You've worked [00:01:00] in healthcare? I work in healthcare, so yeah. We know a little bit about health. We do, but, um, we do have some views on it. Mm-hmm. So we'll have a bit of a discussion afterwards and Yeah. While, while Jenny's talking, please do add your comments Yeah. Your thoughts, questions.
We'll try and pick some of them up afterwards. Yep. Um, but I think we should probably hand over to Jenny. Yeah. Shouldn't we wanna hear what she's got say first without further Jenny over to
Jenny Mariner: you.
Amazing. So, it is an absolute pleasure to be here. It's a while since I've been at Crowd, so. Hi. If you don't know me, my name's Jenny. And I am one of the pastors, uh, here at Frontline Church where we're broadcasting from. And yeah, it's wonderful to be here. I dunno why I'm not in the center of the shop. I think Matt's now.
I did, I didn't mean to move. I'm sorry. I must have done Matt's [00:02:00] fixing it. Apologies everybody. Um, so last week. Oh, now what's you carry? Okay. Anyway, last week Matt talked about our bodies and how they're made in the image of God to glorify God. And, uh, he shared that we're not separate from our bodies.
We're not just some kind of meat skeleton, but the Bible shows us that our bodies are part of us. Our bodies and ourselves are integrated. We have spiritual and physical longings, and we can be whole when we accept and integrate both. This week we're extending that topic of our bodies to think about illness.
What happens when we're unwell? What happens with minor illnesses? What happens with significant or chronic conditions where gut illness can God heal? What about the use of medicine? There's a lot to unpack, so I'm gonna start with a little bit of a personal story. I am fortunate enough that I have never been really seriously long-term.
Ill never [00:03:00] broken a bone, never had a chronic condition, but my goodness, when I am ill, even though it's not even that serious, I'm properly grumpy. Like I remember when I was pregnant, I had quite a lot of back pain, particularly in my second pregnancy, and I think I was like pregnant zilla. It's one of the reasons we've only got two children, and it's not even really illness is it.
I like completely chose to be pregnant. I wanted to be pregnant. I just hated the discomfort in my body. And I remember at the time thinking quite a lot about my father-in-law. Who at that point had had chronic back pain for about 20 years. And I remember suddenly, you know, sometimes if I'm honest, he could be a little bit grumpy.
And I remember at the time suddenly having so much sympathy for him and thinking, I'm this grumpy and I've been in pain for a couple of months. He's been in pain for 20 years. Which rains lose all kinds of questions, doesn't it? Where's God in that? And does God heal? If you read the Bible, if you read about stories of Jesus, you can't get very far without seeing Jesus healing somebody.
He heals the blind, he heals those who can't walk [00:04:00] lepers, even on a couple of occasions, he raises the dead. And if you read only the New Testament, the early church certainly seemed to experience healing as well. In James five 14, it says, is anyone among you sick? Let them call the elders of the church to pray over them and anoint them with oil in the name of the Lord.
And the Prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well. The Lord will raise them up. If they've sinned, they will be forgiven. So we're encouraged to expect and pray for healing, and yet clearly many people are also not healed. You know, Jesus in the Bible healed a lot of people. There's also people that weren't healed, and even the people he raised from the dead actually eventually died.
Again, they weren't healed forever. So I wanna make a kind of key point for the whole talk here, which we'll then unpack a bit more and come back to um, which is that God can heal and one day in heaven we will all be healed. The Bible points very strongly to the fact that heaven is not just a spiritual experience, but that is a physical [00:05:00] bodily experience.
We will have resurrected bodies that don't have illness or injury, but. We live in a world where the power and the glory of God are sometimes, but not always seen. Recently I heard someone explain it like this, that it's like we live on the Saturday between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, by which it they meant that we don't have to live on the day where Jesus died, where that must have felt very depressing and you're focus on what's gone wrong and there's no hope, and it all seemed like a bit of a disaster.
We don't live in that, but actually we also don't get to live every day on the kind of Easter Sunday. Jesus is resurrected. Death is defeated, victory every day. We don't get to experience that reality all of the time as humans on this earth. We actually live in that messy middle. In between. We know that God's one, we know the end of the story.
We know that he has power over illness and pain and death, but we don't always see him break in. We can live expectant and prayerful and hopeful, but we have to manage a [00:06:00] kind of tension and reality that sometimes we don't get the breakthrough that we want. So God absolutely can heal. He doesn't always heal.
That's what we live in. So there's no doubt that God can heal. He healed 2000 years ago and he healed today. One of my favorite stories in the Bible is in Luke five, there's a man who's paralyzed. It doesn't tell us how he got paralyzed, if he had an accident or what happened, but he obviously has these friends that really care about him because they carry him to see Jesus.
And when they get there, they can't get in to see Jesus. So what they do is they go up onto the roof of the house and they actually hack their way in through the ceiling. I like to imagine that if it was me, that I would've had that level of friendship and that confident boldness that I'd have hacked my way into the house.
They did it because they were absolutely certain that Jesus could heal their friend, and they were right. Jesus healed the man He, he picked up his mat and he walked away. And the Bible's full of stories like it just a few verses [00:07:00] before. In the same book of Luke, you get Jesus healing a leper just after he feels heals.
A man who's got some kind of deformity in his hand, Jesus consistently healed. And the disciples follow Jesus in this way. It's not just that Jesus could do it because he's Jesus. It's the Holy Spirit operating in Jesus, the same power that works in us. And so they saw healing. In Acts three, Peter heals a man that couldn't walk in Acts five, there are loads of people come for healing and receive healing throughout church history.
You have many miraculous stories of healing. I remember when I was a teenager reading about, um, this community that worked with a whole load of drug addicts and when they were Christians or when they became Christians and wanted to get free from the drugs often, but not always, but often when they prayed for them, they were just free from the addiction without experiencing any withdrawal symptoms just like that.
And yet, sometimes that wasn't the case. Sometimes they went through withdrawal [00:08:00] or I had a friend of mine whose granddad was really ill and he was prayed for regularly and then suddenly he wasn't ill. And he went to the doctors and they couldn't find any symptoms or I recently heard a story of someone in the third world country with very poor healthcare who was completely deaf and was totally healed so they could hear and they could speak clearly.
My point being that Jesus is more than able to heal. He always has been, and he always will be. Jesus defeated the power of sickness and death on the cross, and God wants to heal us. That's part of his character, is his care for us. But then that leads us to think about if God can heal, then what about doctors?
Do we not bother? Do we not use medicine? If God can heal, why doesn't he always heal? So let's start with doctors. If God is able to heal, should we avoid medicine? Well, my answer would be no. And I think that that's the biblical answer as well, that there is absolutely nothing wrong with accessing whatever healthcare you have available to you.
Even [00:09:00] in biblical times, people use the medicine that they had available to them. My daughter, Nancy, she's quite a caring soul. She's quite young, but she quite liked to be either a zookeeper or a doctor when she grows up. And for a long time, her favorite biblical story was a story called The Good Samaritan.
If you don't know it, it's about a guy. He gets beaten up, he's left at the side of the road to die. Two people just walk past him and one person stops and cares for him. The good guy in the story gives medical care to this in injured person, bandages the wounds, pays for some healthcare. The moral of the story is not that he simply should have been prayed for.
It was okay to care for him in when Timothy Paul's talking to Timothy and he says, you should drink a little wine for your stomach. You get the impression that Timothy had regular stomach problems, and that was one of the limited kind of medical methods they had available to them, was to drink a little wine.
You don't get the impression that there is anything wrong with accessing healthcare that is [00:10:00] available. And in fact, you can often find that God works through it. You know, recently I've heard three stories of three different people who've had, um, various cancer treatments and have had outcomes that have far, far exceeded what was expected through the treatments outcomes that could be called miraculous, but they weren't miracles that happened just on their own.
It was through the medical treatment, through the treatment of the doctor that that person accessed healing. Or I've got a friend, she lived in another country where there is private healthcare. And this story blows my mind, but she absolutely promises me. It's true that she had a dream that a mole on her back was cancerous, and she went to the doctor the next day because with her private healthcare, she could do that.
And they checked it, it was cancerous, and within a week she had it removed and it hadn't spread at all. And you're like, how crazy is that, that God spoke to her about it, but actually it was medicine that cured God, didn't cure it. So there's nothing wrong, I guess I'm saying with [00:11:00] accessing healthcare. The only thing I would add is that I do think that sometimes in the West are excellent, healthcare means that we don't even expect God to heal or ask God to heal.
I think you hear lots more stories of healing in the 21st century coming out of the third world where people are absolutely desperate than in places like Europe where we're just not so expecting and healing. And when. God does and doesn't heal. It's a really complicated theological issue. We need to be careful about, um, getting into rules and absolutes.
But there are some scriptural foundations to suggest that faith and expectation is part of why healing happens. So the whole story, I'm absolutely not saying that if you've not been healed, it's 'cause you lack faith. I never wanna make that statement, but James talks about a Prayer offered in faith will make a sick person.
Well, and Mark six refers to Jesus not being able to do many miracles other than heal a few people because of a lack of faith. And that confirms for me both that, yes, okay, if there's a lack of faith, you can be healed. But [00:12:00] there is something about having faith, an expectation as well. Or someone once put it to me.
If you're so reliant on medicine that you're not even asking for healing, then you're not gonna even give God a chance to show up. So I guess in other parts of the world where there's a lack of health care, they don't forget to pray sometimes in our parts of the world, if you are watching this in the West and encourage us to use medical care, but also pray, remember that God can and does heal.
So we're saying that God is powerful and able to heal, that he loves us and he wants to heal and healing still happen today, but it is totally acceptable to access medical care. We see it in the Bible and we see God working through medical care. And yet alongside that, it's that balance of being expectant, asking for healing.
So you go to the doctor. You don't also forget to pray that God can heal. There's a guy called Kenneth Hagan who says, believe God for healing, but also go to the doctor, find out what's wrong with you, and that way you can [00:13:00] target your faith. That gives us a great balance of using the resources we have available to us, but also trusting in God.
Now, that's all well and good if God does heal you, or if you have a condition that is relatively easily treated with medical care. But what do we do when God doesn't heal us and medicine does not make us better? What about chronic illness? What about illnesses that lead to death? Where is God in all of that?
Well, for the headline on this, I wanna go back to that main point I made at the beginning about the now and the not yet about living on that Saturday tension between Jesus' death and Jesus' resurrection. Sometimes people live with chronic illness. Sometimes people dri die prematurely because of illness, and these things do not reflect any kind of spiritual failure.
Although I said that scripture makes a connection between faith and healing, that is certainly not the whole story, and it would be wrong to make that claim or accusation that if you're [00:14:00] not healed, it's 'cause of a lack of faith. It's just a much bigger picture than that we see in scripture. Lots of causes for illness and lots of reasons for lack of healing.
And the most important one is just the fallen nature of the creation and the world that we live in. The whole Earth is groaning with sin. That's what the Bible tells us. That's why illnesses even exist. Why do we get chronic conditions? Why do genes mutate? Why do we get cancers and problems with bone joints and all sorts?
It's because of the fallen nature of the world. Two Corinthians four says that our bodies are literally all wasting away. You know, I don't know how old you are watching. I think when I was really young, I didn't even think about that. My mum, who's in her late seventies now refers to that kind of thing all the time.
She's like, my body is not what it used to be. And the reality is that, as I've said, sometimes God just doesn't break in. We are living, we aren't living in heaven yet. We're not living where everything is under God's control. And by that I mean that control is different from power. I've said, God is all [00:15:00] powerful.
He can bring healing. He's able to bring healing, but he's not completely controlling. In this world. We have free will. We, they have an enemy. There's the devil at work in heaven. That will not be the case in heaven. The devil is defeated. There's no more sickness. There's no more pain. There's no more death.
But in this world, we are living in that tension. Sometimes God doesn't heal. Sometimes he breaks in. And I mean, there's other things on the Crowd website you could look at to explore that. There's also a great resource from 24 7 called the Unanswered Prayer Course that really goes into detail about why God sometimes doesn't answer prayers, but it's just a reality, a tension.
We have to understand that sometimes God breaks in and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he uses sickness and suffering to teach us things, to reveal himself to us, to draw us deeper into relationship with him. One really popular but sometimes misused verse is in Romans 8 28. It says, we know that in all things, God [00:16:00] works for the good of those who love him, who've been called according to his purpose.
Now, I love that verse, but I think it's actually quite challenging, and sometimes it could be misused to say, don't worry, it's gonna get better really soon. That God working in all things means that the problem will go away very quickly, when actually that is not what the verse says. What it says is just that God will work in it.
And we can see that in things like chronic illness where it's absolutely not got better very quickly, but that God can use experiences to teach us things and draw close to us. I think in the 21st century, we don't really like this idea. And historically, like I used to be a history teacher, I'm very aware that we probably suffer less than any generation ever has before us.
We've got great education, we've got healthcare, we've got better nutrition, better life expectancy. We've got choice available to us, but that actually makes us not super familiar with suffering. We hate suffering. The Bible is actually full of [00:17:00] suffering and full of a theology of where God is in that suffering.
You get people like David, he's one of the biblical heroes. He's anointed as the future king, and yet he spends 13 years being chased around in the wilderness with the current king trying to kill him. You get Job who experiences extreme suffering and loss. And apparently all you can tell is that it's just some kind of test of his faithfulness.
Or Jesus talks about guaranteeing trouble in this life. James talks about finding joy and suffering when Peter suggests that physical suffering helps us to just stop being selfish and to pursue the will of God. And the writer of Hebrews talks about God disciplining us. The reality about suffering, and I'm expanding a little bit here from chronic illness 'cause I think that's one type of suffering, is that God uses it to meet us in a unique and precious way.
Chronic illness can become a unique context for experiencing God's sustaining grace for his strength, [00:18:00] meeting us in our weakness. I know someone who's recently been struggling with a being a lot less mobile over the last few years, and historically they've been, and it is hugely frustrating when your body does that kind of thing to you.
You wanna be able to do what you used to, you wanna be sociable, you feel totally let down. But you know what? This particular friend has found an opportunity to draw closer to God, praying more, understanding God, more the intimacy and actually the, the spiritual warfare and breakthrough that's happening is beautiful.
And as a community, it's really important that we remember those that are struggling with chronic illness, particularly those who end up stuck at home and unable to make church gatherings or meetings. These people can be very out of sight and out of mind. They can be neglected, but God's presence is with those people.
God is in sickness as well as being in health. And church communities should reflect this by including those people in whatever way we can, rather than just sidelining them [00:19:00] because they maybe can't bring the same active contribution that others can. You know, recently I've been reading the Book of Lamentations.
I haven't read that for ages, but I've been reminded how good it is to lament that life is tough, that our bodies take all kinds of hits and. Illnesses and chronic difficulties, they're a reality. And God is inviting us to lament with him, to pour out our pain and frustration, to acknowledge all of the emotions that go with serious or chronic illness and to take them to God.
My husband Jack did a training course recently that was about this kind of thing, and he actually got sent away to sit down for like half an hour to write out a lament to actually think it through. You know, that process of not just thinking or feeling something, but putting it into words and writing it down to really cry out all of the pain, God meets us there.
And the beautiful thing about doing things like that is God meets us and heals the pain and brings his joy [00:20:00] into our, our spiritually and emotionally, even if we're still suffering with that physical, chronic illness. And he stirs hope because that's the challenge of that tension point that we are living in that now and that not yet, it's having hope.
God wants us to put our hope in him. He wants us to ask him. He wants to stir our faith. In the same chapter in Lamentations chapter three, it says, let them lie down in the lie, face down in the dust for there maybe hope at last. And I think that we can do both. Like for me, lying face down in the dust is that despair, isn't it, that we can experience.
And yet in the next sentence, it's talking about hope. Just a few sentences before it says Great. As his faithfulness, his mercies begin afresh every morning. So to recap, God is all powerful and absolutely able to heal. He healed in the times of the Bible. He heals now and it brings [00:21:00] God joy when he heals us.
That doesn't mean we can't use medicine. Medicine is a mechanism for God to bring healing. It's great if you have it available to you. Use it. Thank God for it. Ask God to work through it. And certainly if you think God's healed you, but you please don't stop taking any prescribed medication until you've actually had that confirmed via Doctor God's healing.
Power works supernaturally and it works through medicine. Both approaches reflect his heart and his care for us. Understanding that either way we, God wants us to access wholeness, but sometimes God doesn't heal. That's because we are living in a fallen world where God can break in, but the devil still has power, harm still happens in heaven.
We will be fully whole and completely healed for now. God is actually inviting us to draw close to him in the tension, to use challenges like chronic illness as a way to seek him, find his strength, his comfort, and his [00:22:00] character. And above all, keep hoping in God who made all things. I wanna leave us with a verse from Roman five, Romans five that says, we rejoice in our sufferings because we know that suffering produces perseverance.
Perseverance, character and character. Hope. And hope does not disappoint us. 'cause God has poured out his love into our hearts, through the Holy Spirit who He's given us. So God is inviting us wherever you are at with this, God is inviting you to draw close to him, to know him, to get to know his character in it, and to always have hope.
Anna Kettle: Brilliant. Thank you for that talk, Jen. That was, there was just a lot in that, it was great. Um, loads of challenge. Mm-hmm. What did, what did you, what partic, what's one thing that particularly jumped out for you, Jen? Was there anything?
Jan Burch: Uh, I just think, um. You know, it was, it was that there's hope that even in [00:23:00] the midst of, you know, chronic illness or, um, illnesses that haven't been healed, um, which are, you know, and I'm sure is, is very, very difficult.
God is still there in the middle of it and wants us to be closer to him. I think I just felt very hopeful. I think it was a very positive Yeah. You know, um, slant on things. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. It's that idea that hope isn't. Just sort of the immediate quick fix lesion. Like no, I love the fact that it was like God can both heal here and now he can do like an instant heal.
Yeah. But often healing slower and sometimes it's longer term or it comes through medicine or a mixture of medicine and Prayer. Yeah. And faith. And sometimes those healings like acknowledge that sometimes that healing doesn't happen this side of heaven as well. Yeah. And I, I know I've seen all of those outcomes in my life and friends' lives.
[00:24:00] Like I know all of those things to be true. So yeah, I love the fact that it created enough space for like, it. Just that, acknowledge all of those tensions because I think we know that all of those things can be true. Yeah. Um, there was a few, there was a good few number of, um, questions that came through actually while we were talk, while we were listening as well.
So, um, we'll maybe have a bit of conversation about that and also bring Jen in as well on that to hear your thoughts. Yeah, yeah. Um, a couple that are sort of along the same vein are, um, what's your first instinct when you're unwell? Reach for the. Medicine cabinet or reach for your Bible bracket or both.
And also Jenny mentioned that God works through both supernatural and natural means. How do you personally balance trusting God for healing and also seeking medical help? It's kind of different, but similar theme about how do you balance that medical versus faith thing. Yeah. Any thoughts? Yeah, I,
Jan Burch: I just think, I think Jenny, you know, spoke about [00:25:00] it really clearly that, um, you know, we have access to both.
Um, in the West we're, we're fortunate to have very good medical care. Um, and, you know, we also as Christians can pray and it's important to have that balance. Yes. Um, you know, there have been times in my life where I've just, you know, gone to the cupboard for the paracetamol or the ibuprofen, whatever. Um.
Then I've prayed. You know, I think we've all probably been guilty of doing that, but I think if we've got a, you know, a, a balance there Yeah. Then I don't think either is wrong. No, I, I And she said that, didn't she? No, I
Anna Kettle: absolutely agree. I I just think you, it's not for me, it's not one or the other. It's if, if there's medicine there that can help, go ahead and take it.
Sure. Take that me ace. Agree or whatever you need. Take those antidepressants if you're prescribed them, whatever it is. [00:26:00] Yeah. Um, I, I feel like for me, it's not one or the other, so it's very much like, I'll probably like, if, if there's something serious wrong, I'll probably make a appointment with my doctor or GP or whatever.
Yeah. And also be praying about it. Yeah. You know, in the way af after I've been to the appointment. You know, when I've been prescribed drugs, you know? Absolutely. For me it's not one or the other. It's like the two sort of side by side. It's like I'm gonna do what I can do. And I guess this isn't just about healing.
No. It's like I'll do what is within my gift today. Yeah. And I will also bring to God what I can't control. That's right. And kind of ask him to do the supernatural. Yeah. And believe for that as well. So I know. Have
you got any other thoughts, Jen? Oh, I just think it's also maybe even praying God for the wisdom, particularly with kind of maybe slightly obscure things if you're not sure if there's a problem or not.
Even, I sometimes pray like, God, if I need to go to the doctor about this, prompt me to go to the doctor about it. You know, if you've got something that maybe the doctors are unsure about, just praying [00:27:00] Holy Spirit, would you help them to give me the right diagnosis? Would you, you know, help those test results to come through quickly, like including God in that process?
Yeah, I guess is probably the only thing I would, I would add to that. Um, when it, when it's not clear cut and it's a bit. Sure. Praying that God would be involved and help you get the best outcomes that you possibly can.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. I think this is an interesting question that came through as well. Um, have you ever been told to just pray harder when facing a health challenge?
And how did that make you feel? If so, I know why you've had this one, but has anyone got any thoughts on it? That
Jan Burch: is, I've heard that many, many times suspend me some the time It's your fault, you're sick. Yeah. Um, and it can be a lot of condemnation in that, um, which doesn't come from God. Mm-hmm. Um, yeah. I just think it's not something that we would agree with.
Yeah. Um, you know, yes, it's good to pray. Yes. [00:28:00] We've got, you know, God expects us to talk to him about it, whatever that is. But, um. I don't think it's always a case of you need to pray more or you're lacking in faith. I don't think it's that simple.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Do you agree? Yeah, I, I do. I mean, I, I've had times where, you know, I've had family members who've had cancer diagnoses that, you know, thankfully both my mom and my sister are cancer free now.
But that, that was happening in my family for a season. Both of them had breast cancer at the same time, like two different diagnoses not connected. Wow. Um, and we went through a, I think I've talked about this on Crowd Church before, but we went through a season of recurrent miscarriages and obviously our family, like, and from a Christian family, all of our friends and relatives, everyone was praying in faith for like breakthrough in those situations.
Sure. Um, and we did have, certainly for me and Andy, 'cause we didn't see a resolution in human terms [00:29:00] to our recurrent miscarriage. We're like, we didn't, we didn't get. A medical solution. And we didn't, we didn't get healing. We didn't have any more children, um, after miscarriages. So for us, we definitely didn't get that healing.
No. Um, you know, a lot of people, you know, encouraged us to, you know, and we wanted to believe that God could heal us and we were open to that, but also we knew it wasn't guaranteed. Yeah. So it is like, again, holding that balance of like having faith that God can do it Yeah. But not knowing if he will Yeah.
In this situation. Yeah. Um, so that is a hard tension to hold. Very, but I think very hard. There were times when people said, oh, you just need to have more faith. Just need to keep praying. Just really believe, and I, I think in a way that comes across a list, it can come across a little bit as, and I get, I get where it comes from.
Yeah. Of course. It's like, well-meaning, but it can be a little bit like toxic positivity. Yeah. And like mind over matter and I don't Yeah. Think that's the point because as Jenny spoke about, um. It's [00:30:00] really, you know, it's God, God's in control, not you. Yeah. You are not in the driving seat. And it sort of suggests that we hold all the power Yeah.
To kind of, if you, if you do things right, you'll get the healing. And I don't think that's within our gift. Like there's not a certain Prayer you can pray or number of prayers to pray that will guarantee something. It's not No. You know, it, it's, there's things we don't understand and that God holds and we can't.
Jan Burch: I, I think when I was a, a young Christian, uh, I did a y one year and we used to pray for people on the streets of Nottingham and, and went to Kenya and we prayed for people and we did see amazing healings and um, which were absolutely, you know, wonderful and so exciting. But we also. Didn't see healings.
And it, you know, there is a, as Jenny said, there is a tension there. It's like, but God, you, you healed that woman yesterday. Why? Why are you not healing this person, you know, today? And it [00:31:00] can, it can feel it's uncomfortable. Yeah. Yeah. Because you feel like you, God, you know, as a representative, as a Christian, God's let you down almost.
Um, which of course, he, he hasn't. But that's how sometimes we think God doesn't, maybe God doesn't love that person as much as he loves the other. Yeah. It's not true. I know it's not true because of the nature of God. Um, however, that's how we can feel.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. I always think just when you're talking about that, actually, Jan, I always think about, um, the story of Lazarus.
So Jesus, you know, Jesus is called by one of his friends to go and see Lazarus, another friend, he's like really unwell. He's dying and Jesus gets waylaid and he's quite slow getting there, but he's journeying back to his house to go and pray for him and heal him.
Jenny Mariner: Mm-hmm.
Anna Kettle: But by the time he gets there, Lazarus has already died.
Right. And so it's like [00:32:00] everyone's expecting him to do a miracle. It's a close friend. Yeah. You know, and, and, and, um, and I always think like Mary comes out and says, I think it's Mary. Um, and she comes out and says, if you'd been here, Lazarus wouldn't have died. And I, and I get that and I love that bit.
Absolutely. Picture because it's like, it's like that honesty of like, it's okay to feel that disappointment. Like, God, why didn't you turn up in the way I thought you were gonna, why didn't you act quick enough? Why didn't you. Do that healing in the way I expected, and I felt like that at times. Yeah. And yet we know the end of the story is that Jesus goes back in and supernaturally brings him back to life.
Yeah. And I'm not saying that always physically happens. Certainly it didn't in my situations, but, but there is something about sometimes we look for the instant healing and it doesn't come and there's a disappointment. Yeah. And actually God's healing is perhaps longer term, or it's perhaps in the eternal, you know, we might not see full healing this side of heaven, but it is coming.
And I feel like that [00:33:00] that s script really speaks to that
Jan Burch: disappointment. Like, God, where are you? And I think, I think person, I think having an eternal perspective in all of this is so helpful. I mean, when we are there in heaven, um, when we look back on this time, it'll be like, it was five minutes. Oh yeah, I, you know, we did that and I did that as a job.
And, and then it'll be like, oh, forget about that now. But. While we're living in it, it, it seems to be, you know, a huge amount of time, elapsing. Um, so I, I do think having an eternal perspective, um, can make it, you know, help more helpful for us. Yeah. This isn't a, this isn't the whole deal. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: And remembering that right now where we are in of situations however long, you know, and I understand like, you know, a lot of illnesses, a long term chronic illness.
Yeah. Can, I've got friends that have dealt with chronic illness [00:34:00] their whole lives. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, short of a miracle, you know, will be till, you know, the day they die and Yeah. And, and that's really hard. Yeah. Really, really hard. But I also think having that eternal perspective is like mm-hmm.
Sometimes got the healing is now, isn't it? And sometimes it's longer term and Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. It's just really important to kind of keep your eyes fixed on both, isn't it? In that discipline. Jen, any thoughts? Well, I was,
one more thought I was gonna jump in with was that I think this is one of those topics where it's really important to try and look across the whole of scripture.
Mm. And be careful about pulling individual verses out of context. 'cause you know, like that verse from James, it does say, you know, a Prayer of faith will make someone better. If you just literally pick that, then that's the am ammunition you use to say to someone where you don't have enough faith. Or you know, that story I said about the man that comes through the sin and gets healed, which Jesus actually says to him is your sins are forgiven.
And that provokes this whole conversation of how connected is sin with illness. And again, I think occasionally, occasionally I've come across stories where. [00:35:00] Someone has repented of something and that has accessed healing.
Jenny Mariner: Mm. But
I would really carefully be like, unless you really get the wisdom from God that that's what's going on there.
Yeah. Yeah. Don't assume that somebody isn't getting healed because of a sin issue in their life. It's just much more complicated than that
Jenny Mariner: as
far as, so I think we need to be really careful of taking verses out of context. Yeah. And to look at the whole of the Bible and see that actually the whole of the Bible shows us that the earth is groaning.
Yeah. Our human bodies are groaning and that there is something else to hope for. And that's really the biggest picture of what's going on.
Anna Kettle: Yeah.
Absolutely. Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Somebody posted actually two Corinthians 12 verse seven, which is the scripture that says it talks about the thorn in the flesh that Paul had.
Oh yeah. Yeah. Um, and so somebody's posted for some chronic illness perhaps could be that thorn. Yeah. Which is true probably any kind of illness actually. Yeah, she could be. Yeah, absolutely. Um, and someone's asked the questions of, on this similar theme, what does it look [00:36:00] like practically to bear one another's burdens when someone's facing long-term health challenges?
Like how might that look?
Jan Burch: Yeah, well, I think that's where the body of Christ comes in. Um, for those who, who aren't Christians listening, um. I'm talking about, um, you know, a church, um, that you belong to, you know, your friends within that coming together and supporting you. Um, being able to make a phone call and say, I'm really struggling today.
Um, can you come round or can you pray for me? Um, you know, having that support.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. What about you Jane? What, what are your thoughts on that? Yeah, I
mean, I would agree. I think I've just seen some really beautiful examples of that in church community. Like, um, a friend of mine recently who was having a lot of health problems and was really struggling to walk her dark and there's loads of people we're helping walk the dog and somebody else is helping give the kids left to school.
And it just, how much more difficult would [00:37:00] something that's already difficult be if you don't have church community around to help? I think that's one of the beautiful things, and it is a responsibility, I guess I mentioned people that may be, can't even get to services, they can slip out of. Mind, you know, I'm aware there's people connected to our congregation who haven't been able to make it for quite a long time.
Yeah. And it's really important that people stay connected with them. Yeah. You know, are able to go over to their house, maybe even to sit with them, chat to them, take communion with them. It's not always practical help, is it? But you know, God's heart is that no one's isolated. And I think that's one of the beautiful things about the body of Christ is that we can make sure people aren't isolated.
Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Absolutely. Yeah.
Jan Burch: That's
Anna Kettle: really good.
Jan Burch: It's like what Helena touched on as well a couple of weeks ago about hospitality. You know, you might, might feel I haven't got enough faith to pray for someone who's very ill or, you know, I, I'm too nervous to do that. You could just take them a meal. You could just, as, as Jenny said, just [00:38:00] spend time with them and put the Kettle on.
You know, just have a chat. That, that there's different ways of, um, supporting people.
Anna Kettle: And the only other thing I'd probably add is like, 'cause I think that all the practical love and support is so important when people are going through hard seasons. And I, and, and Ill health and, and I also just think being consistently there for someone in Prayer as well is so important.
Like, I, you know, again, when we were going through our. Our health fisheries. Yeah. You know, to have a core group of people who just consistently it's amazing. Prayed and prayed and prayed week in, week out. Like some girls in my small group from church, some family members who just, you know, our, our, our whole life friends scenario went on for about six years.
It was like a long time in our lives and most people can't. It's, you know, when health problems are long term, it's hard to journey with people long term. So I'd say, you know, certainly for anyone who's going through health, you know, chronic or long term health [00:39:00] problems, get that core, those core people who are faithful.
Absolutely. And we'll just walk with you week after week, months after month, year after year. And it's not gonna be everyone. Like people can really get that sort of. I know, like a fatigue, can't they? Mm-hmm. Like a, I think like, almost like Prayer fatigue. People pray for a while and then if nothing changes, we can be very instant in our culture.
Like we want, we wanna see the change, and if it doesn't come, we're like, oh, pray for something else. It doesn't work. Yeah. And I think it's really helpful to just whether or not that physical healing comes just people who will continually cover you and Prayer Yeah. And journey with you is just, that's a really beautiful thing Absolutely.
To find those kind of core people who'll be that, I think. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. That's a good point. Yeah. Yeah. Um, a few more comments have come through as well. Um, just picking them out. Someone says being hidden, healed miraculously, being healed with medicine, being healed over time and still waiting on some things to be healed too.
We probably all fit into [00:40:00] all of those boats, don't we?
Jan Burch: Yeah, absolutely. I'd probably say, yeah, I think I do. Before, um, we came here tonight, I was watching, um, a podcast, um, about, um, a man who's written two books, um, a doctor, um, and he said he's seen so many or he is, you know, friends of his, um, he's in, in America, but it's happened all over the world with his friends that he's seen so many miracles occur.
Um, and you know, they've been, um, documented really by doctors and medical teams and, you know, they are still happening. Miracles do. Still happen. Um, and that, I think that's very exciting. But I, I really thought the interesting point that Jenny made earlier, um, was not to get rid of your [00:41:00] medication until you know your healing is being confirmed, um, by a doctor.
I think that's really important. We've all seen the films where, you know, the woman throws a cancer medication away or whatever. Don't think that's a very wise thing to do.
Anna Kettle: That. That's really good advice, Jan. And like, you know, just for anyone who doesn't know Jan's got background in nursing and as a midwife, so you know, a thing or too about, you know, that kind of thing as well.
Don't you worked in hospital a lot, so Yeah. Um, very true, very important. Um, yeah, I was gonna say as well, like, just going back to that, um, whole subject of like, you know, having long suffering in like. Where, where like there's not instant healing. Yeah. And I like health problems more long term, like maybe long term chronic problems, that kind of thing.
Um, a, a really, really good resource, which talks a lot more about some of what Jenny's talked about tonight. Oh, yeah. Um, a book that um, I [00:42:00] really love on this subject is called This Too Shall Last, is by, by KJ Ramsey. K TJ Ramsey. Um, and she's a lady in America. Um, I know her. She's, she's a writer and, and she's an amazing woman and she's lived with long term chronic pro health problems.
And she talks really honestly about the struggle of like, hoping and like not receiving the healing she wants. And her health is actually not very good at all at the moment. Um, but also she's very articulate, but also like that kind of still finding that hope in God, even in the midst of not having that healing that you would want and like she just lives a very hope filled life in spite of.
Like her healing not coming and it's obviously, it's like a play on that this too shall path. Of course. It's like actually something's last, this side of heaven. Wow. Yeah. So that, that's a book I really recommend if people are interested in the subjects as well. I think
Jan Burch: people like her are the real, um, you know, people that we should be, [00:43:00] um, you know, looking up to in society.
Not, you know, people that day in day out are faithful and who are going through struggles. You know, where our role models or our idols are. We shouldn't have idols, but you know what I mean? We're looking at the wrong people. These people are absolutely heroes, aren't
Anna Kettle: they? Yeah. They're the heroes of the faith, aren't they?
The faith. Is. Yeah. Well, it's like when your faith is tried and tested, it becomes strong and absolutely pure. You know, that's what the Bible says. And I, I think, yeah. There's some of the people that I find most inspiring. Mm-hmm. I don't know about you, but like people who've been through, when I think about people that I really respect as Christians, and I feel like I've got a lot to live from, whether that's speakers, writers, whatever.
Yeah. I, it's often I'm like, they've really been through some stuff. Yeah. And, and their faith is really strong. Yeah. Um, that I really sit up and listen to that. Absolutely. Yeah. I know you've been through it and you still, you've found God in the middle of hard things. Wow.
Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. And it, [00:44:00] it does, it goes back to the fact that God uses all these things to draw us close to him, to deepen our faith.
You know, you talk to people and you're like, uh, we were chatting before we started about a family who've been through some incredible, incredibly difficult things. I can't even imagine it. And yet. The fact that they're still working with Jesus, the fact that they still have hope, the fact that they can share so positively.
And I definitely would encourage people out there to, you know, look up these people, look up the podcast, look up the books, find them, because you know, there's something to be said for people that have walked and persevered and have known Jesus in good and in bad and there was a rich beauty about their faith that the rest of us can really learn from.
Definitely. Yeah, definitely.
Anna Kettle: Definitely. I think that's so true. There's a few more comments I think I'll just read out 'cause they're quite funny. Um, someone said, I think the pray harder or believe harder advice is a little shortsighted. I don't disagree with that. Um, I would turn it back on the person [00:45:00] telling me and ask them to seek what God is saying and stop being so lazy.
Maybe that's just me, but, um, I mean, yeah, like take that advice or leave it. But yeah, I think, I think possibly it is just looking for a. A quick answer, isn't it? Rather than like, like, like we like to be able to easily explain away difficult things and it's perhaps like you say, a little shortsighted rather than really holding these tensions and the nuance and the messy middle that Jen talked about and sort of understanding that like a lot of life happens in that messy place.
Um, and aid said, the Bible says nothing about staying away from conventional medicine. There is nothing wrong with getting to the doctor or taking the tablet and praying about the situation too. So, yeah, absolutely. I think that's come through loud and clear on the, on the comments tonight. I think a lot, well, everyone seems to be in, in agreement.
Jan Burch: One thing I, I, I think, you know, we haven't really touched on, which I think was massively important. We've, we've mentioned it was the [00:46:00] lamenting part that Jenny talked about. Um, we we're not really familiar with that in our culture. Um, we, we do tend to, you know, wanna get from, it's a bit like a rounders game.
We wanna, you know, get to the next base very quickly. Um, but sometimes I think, you know, uh, I am not practicing in this at all, but God wants us to take our time and process, what the world would call it, um, but lament how we're feeling, um, pouring our heart out to God. Saying This is tough. This is tough.
And shouting or on top of a, in the middle of a field, you know, shouting at the sheep and telling them it's hard. I think that's okay. I think God's can totally handle that. Yeah. But we've gotta be honest, haven't we?
Anna Kettle: Yeah, I
Jan Burch: think you are right. [00:47:00] And
Anna Kettle: so I think so often we, I think part of it's cultural, like we turns, we like the quick fix, don't we?
We live in a very instant society and we've got used to, we want, like you say, we want to get the solution fast. And sometimes we can, but you know, we can buy things that are click of a button and they arrive at your house next day magically. But, but not all things come as quickly as Amazon packages, other, other brands also available.
It should do though though, Anna don't think, yeah. Prayer doesn't always work like that, does it? No. And, and I think you are right. Sometimes like and healing doesn't always come like that and lament. Is about, like you say, going through that process slowly and being honest and real and yeah, just some of those tools we're not great at, are we?
No. Have you got any more thoughts on that, Jen?
I heard, um, I went to a conference recently. There was this guy talking from Harvard who's like a professor of neuroscience or something and he was saying that actually to deal well with our emotions, two parts of [00:48:00] our brain, we actually need to do that processing.
And that Prayer is one of the best ways to do that actually, because you need to all those kind of feelings, which apparently are in the back of your brain. That's why I'm going like that. And I'm looking at the slightly more medical people over there, but all those feelings to actually do that processing, to actually really think through what's going on, why am I feeling like this?
Is there anything I can do about it? How do I manage all that emotion We have to apparently take it to the front of our brain And Prayer was one of the best ways of doing that. Journaling as well, which you, you know, kind of Prayer journal. He was saying that, um. You know, there's all these kind of things that people, that aren't Christians would talk about, but basically they're rooted in the same mechanisms that God's already given us like thousands of years ago.
Just articulate it, put it all into words. It is actually really, really healthy for you. And don't rush. I think even as Christians, um, someone was saying to me recently, we can jump to, oh, well I just need to be okay with it. I need to find what God's teaching me in it. I need to forgive that person. I need to, [00:49:00] I need to, like you said, it's almost like a rounders game.
I need to get to the good thing at the end. 'cause I believe God's in it. It's like, just sit in
Jan Burch: it and I think we can apologize. Um, we feel like we need to apologize for, for being ill or for, for not, you know, for having the sickness. Even though, you know, we, you know, we haven't, it's not a sin issue or whatever.
We, we kind of feel bad that we're letting people down or someone's got to care for us a bit more. And so we're apologetic. So that stops us from lamenting Yeah. As well.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, I think that's really true. Um, this is an interesting question that's come in. Um, so we often attribute healing as a result of God working through someone or medicine as God.
But is it that simple? Would these things have happened anyway? Like without, you know, is it medicine, is it God? Would it have happened anyway?
I think any thoughts sometimes you can't know. [00:50:00] I mean, I've heard a few stories recently, like I said, of people who've had outcomes through medicine. Even the medical practitioners have said, that's amazing.
I can't believe we got that outcome. We had no expectation of getting the outcome. Um, and you get that sense of even the medical practitioners being like, this is pretty miraculous. I think other times you don't know, but you can be thankful to God that we have medical care.
Anna Kettle: Yeah, and I think it comes back to that thing that you mentioned before, Jen, that like whether.
God gives us medical care and access to clever people like Jan or you know, loads of other health professionals who can help us when we're ill or having babies or whatever else it, you know, that that is part of God's provision as well. Like it's not one or the other. God gives us each other and he gives us medicine and he gives us himself.
Like all of those things can help us with illness. Right. AIDS given a really good comment here which says, [00:51:00] when God heals in the Bible, it's always instant and clearly miraculous. He moves in a way that's indistinguishably him and I, I think that's really interesting comment and I think there are definitely times, um.
Where you pray and God just makes it very clearly miraculous. And I mean, I don't know if I, you guys have got any examples? I have seen people physically healed in, in front of me before, not very often, but I have seen it happen. I've, you know, seen, I once saw someone pray over, um, a wound on their leg, like a huge ulcer, literally that was, you know, he had ulcers all up his leg.
Um, as a kid in Africa, um, when I, I was younger and, and we went out on mission there and we're doing some charity work and, um. Yeah, we, a group of us prayed over this kid and he was crippled because he had so many like sores up, up his legs. And um, we saw like as we prayed, we saw like the literally physically saw the wings on his leg close up, not completely go, but they closed in on themselves like [00:52:00] in front of our eyes.
And there was like quite a few there. And it's like, you can't deny, there's certain things you can't deny 'cause you see them and it's like in and things like that. I agree. It's like that just is not explainable by anything other than the supernatural. It has to be God. Um, but there are times where it's not that clear cut as well.
And I think maybe it's all in the mix and God gives us each other and he gives us medicine and he gives us solutions. I dunno, it's just so,
Jan Burch: so good to be able to talk about, you know, you've, you've actually seen a miracle, um, right before your eyes. And I, I went to a, um, meeting many, many years ago and I saw a, someone.
Who was apparently blind could then see and um, you know, I didn't know the person don't wanna be cynical, but apparently they really were blind and had been for a long, long time and they could see. So I just accepted it was God, you know. Um, but no, I think, I think we should be talking [00:53:00] about these things more as well, you know, and it builds our faith and it, you know, builds expectation as well, which is exciting.
Anna Kettle: Yeah.
Jan Burch: Any
other
Jan Burch: thoughts
on that, Jen? No, only I think that, and I guess, you know, even as someone who leads a church, I still have questions and that is one of my questions is you get a lot more of these stories coming out from places that don't have access to good healthcare. And I do just wonder what, you know, that's one of my questions to God of like, is there something about faith and expectation in that, that these people are desperate God and you move in response to their desperation was actually.
Somewhere else. That kid could have just gone and got medical care. I don't, I don't know. I just find it an interesting thing to observe that you still will hear stories. You know, even today there'll be people reporting stories in RB war countries where people have got no access to medical care and God is moving miraculously.
Whereas yeah, we just don't see it as much in the west. I also think we don't ask as much in the west. Yeah. So that's one of my kind [00:54:00] of things I'm not totally sure about.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. And I think sometimes perhaps we don't recognize it because we've also got, like, we don't have a high level of need. Um, we do have access to other healthcares and you know, we're quite comfortable in lots of ways, aren't we?
Like I, I think about my mum, when she got her cancer diagnosis, she was meant to go just for a routine screening and. It ended up, she was basically just before COVID and we went into lockdown and, um, and so it got delayed, her appointment got canceled and then she went, she was recalled when everything opened six months or so later.
I can't remember the timescale, but when she went back they said, oh, you've got a very, very, very early stage. They detected a very early stage lump, and they were like, if you had come when you should have come, you know, six months ago, we wouldn't have detected that. Like it was too soon. Like it's very early stage.
But we've caught it right on time. And if, if she had gone, it would've been three years before they checked her again, she would've got the all clear. And that prob, [00:55:00] you know, she would've had to be quite symptomatic before she'd have noticed. And so she's like, she's a woman of face and she, she's like, I really believe that God moved in.
The timescales and in absolutely. Like she wasn't miraculously healed. Like she had cancer treatment, she had the chemo, you know, to deal with it. But she's like, I think it would've been quite a lot worse and God moved situations and the timing to ensure that I got the medical help that I need. So sometimes I think God can be in the mix, even when we're relying on other things than him and we're just doing our medical appointments and looking after ourselves and you know, having, or particularly expecting or asking for a miracle.
I think when we're journeying and walking with him, sometimes he's just acting on behalf before we even aware of it. And that's also. Really
Jan Burch: cool, isn't it? Absolutely. I think, um, just one thing that's come to mind, um, you mentioned earlier that, you know, um, Jenny, that when we're going through suffering, um, that it's [00:56:00] an opportunity to draw closer to God.
And, um, I was listening to this podcast earlier and um, it was about a woman that was, um, brought up, born into like a war zone country, and, um, she came over to, um, to the west to do a PhD, went back and then her village was massively burned down and blah, blah, blah. And she was in, um, communication with, with a friend by letter.
Anyway, um, the point of the, what I'm saying is, um, even though she couldn't get outta the village, um, or out certainly outta the country. She saw God's faithfulness day by day by day. Her, her, you know, she lost family members in the war. Um, but her testimony was that God was faithful on a daily [00:57:00] basis, whereas someone, a friend of hers who she'd met while she was in the West, um, her perspective on it was totally different.
Even though she was a Christian, she, she just saw it really negatively that a friend couldn't leave the country and God hadn't intervened and blah, blah, blah. Whereas it, you know, sometimes when we're further away, we don't see the, the beauty of what's going on. But when you write in there, you experience God in a way that no one else can maybe see or understand and Yeah.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. That's interesting. I think perspective is. So important, isn't it, in all of these situations. And it, it's quite a personal thing, healing isn't it? Like sometimes it's something you experience 'cause it's in your life or course, you know, and it can be quite close a personal thing as well, can't it? Um, yeah, I'm aware time is ticking on and we're nearly [00:58:00] coming up to the hour, but any final thoughts?
Jen, any final thoughts from you?
No, I don't think there are. That's been great. I've really enjoyed it.
Anna Kettle: Yeah. Yeah. Thanks. We've put a lot of content tonight, haven't we? What have we got next week? Um, Anna, do you know? So next week we've got Mike Harris speaking and he's gonna be talking about fitness and, um, sleep.
So, uh, obviously continuing this series. Um, yeah, uh, Mike's an amazing guy. He's had quite a career in. Fitness world. He's, he was a PE teacher and a professional footballer for a while. So yeah, I'm sure he'll have some amazing thoughts on that in this whole series around wholeness. Yeah. Um, so that's gonna be good tune in for that again.
Definitely. Um, obviously if you are, if you're on the live tonight and you wanna stick around and chat afterwards, um, there's gonna be a link in the chat room coming up. So do join us for that if you wanna meet some of the team and talk afterwards. Yeah. Um, obviously through the week if you've got more thoughts, comments, anything you want us to pray for, please [00:59:00] do get in touch with us.
You can email or, um, contact us on text or, um, yeah, just find our website at Crowd Church. Um, and I think the comments that all the details will come up on the screen in a minute, hopefully, but yeah, please do reach out to us, keep in touch. We'll, um, pick those up and always be praying. So, yeah. Uh, any final thoughts from you, Jack?
Jan Burch: No. No. I really enjoyed it, Jen. Thanks. Thanks Anna. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Anna Kettle: Great. Well take care guys, and have a good week. We'll see you soon.
[01:00:00] Bye.