In seeking to address this tension of how to trust God when He doesn’t heal you, we must first zoom out and think about a different question. Only when we come to the right and true answer to this second question can we attempt to build our theology on the foundation of the person and work of Christ. Therefore, to trust God in the struggle of not being healed, we must first seek to understand what the true reward is for following Jesus.
Said another way, what should we, as believers, expect to receive when we put our faith in Christ and surrender our lives under His Lordship? There are dozens of things that may immediately come to your mind, such as peace, stability, hope, courage, wisdom, or endurance. Maybe you lean more toward receiving blessings, whether material or spiritual, as deciding to follow Jesus should net you something good in return. Or perhaps you wrestle with the idea of receiving anything, leaning more towards the view that our salvation is enough and we should be satisfied in that alone.
Here’s where the order of our discernment becomes important. What we believe our reward should be for following Jesus, in many ways, will drive not only how we approach this tension of delayed healing, but will also dictate how we engage with this tension in the moment-to-moment and day-to-day.
Now, biblically, there are some central answers to the question of what we receive when we surrender to Jesus. Take the popular John 3:16, for example. It reads, “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” One reward for following or believing in Jesus is eternal life and not death. This is true for every person who calls on the name of the Lord (Romans 10).
Revelation 21 also details a variety of benefits believers will receive upon entering the new heaven and the new earth. How we will experience these realities is still far from perfectly understood, as none of us presently truly understands the imperishable body as Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 15, but per John in Revelation 21, we will receive an eternity where there is no more mourning, pain, or crying. Paul would likewise write in Romans 8 that the “whole creation is groaning together in the pains of childbirth” eagerly waiting for redemption and restoration.
We know the end of the story will be grand and glorious, but it's in the nuance where we really wrestle and struggle with the uncertainty of knowing our reward on this side of eternity. We know that earthly restoration happens in some situations - relationships are restored, favor is found, and finances are secured. Even healing occasionally takes place. All of these, however, are not prescriptive as much as they are descriptive; results that can happen, but that don’t always happen. This distinction is crucial because it keeps us from erring in the assumption that if God loved us or if He was truly all-powerful, then He would step in and solve every problem and source of pain for His saints.
While it can be extremely difficult to follow Jesus and persistently struggle with a physical ailment, the Scriptures, and therefore, God, never promise us that earthly healing is the reward for a life of faithfully following Jesus. Finances certainly aren’t the reward. Restored relationships aren’t the reward. Favor, popularity, and success aren’t the rewards.
Because Christ’s Lordship solves our eternal dilemma of facing judgment before a holy God, the reward for our surrender to Christ must inherently be on the same level as the solution, i.e., an eternal reward. There are overflowing measures of grace that may seem like rewards in our earthly lives, but that is largely due to the truth that there are general, net-positive benefits to following the precepts of Jesus’ teaching (better relationships, more character and integrity, more commitment to excellence at work, greater wisdom and richer gratitude, to name a few). However, in determining how to trust God when our circumstances don’t seem to align with the idealized or desired outcomes, we must look upward and be reminded that there is a greater reward to come. In doing so, we align our purpose with God’s plan.
This is, in part, what Hebrews 11:1 is attempting to communicate. It says, “Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.” Though we do not see a material or earthly reward, we can still have faith and trust that God is not only at work, but that He is still rewarding us. That there are still things worth hoping for. This is why Hebrews 11:6 goes on to say, “And without faith it is impossible to please him, for whoever would draw near to God must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.”
God does reward those who seek Him. If you are waiting on healing for an ailment or malady, take heart today. God will reward you. It may not come in this earthly life, but He, in His very nature, is a God who rewards. You only have to keep reading Hebrews 11 to see the duality of earthly reward, particularly in verses 32-38. Through faith, some conquered kingdoms, while others were sawn in two. Some stopped the mouths of lions, and some suffered mocking and flogging. It is not the earthly reward or seeming lack thereof that defines God’s goodness and majesty, but the consistency and grace associated with our eternal reward that truly points to His holiness.
However, shifting our eyes to our eternal reward rather than an earthly expression does not preclude us from earnestly turning to God with our desires, our dreams, and our hopes for our remaining days. If you find yourself struggling with an ailment, and intellectually, you know that the greater reward is coming, but you are still wrestling with the struggle of the moment, know that there is a measure of grace in weakness that beautifully undergirds our dependency and reliance on God. This is at the core of God’s revelation to Paul in 2 Corinthians 12 that His (God’s) power is made perfect in weakness.
If you are struggling to trust God in the pain of today, the first encouragement is to take heart and to know that that struggle is not foreign to the one who shaped and formed you. He desires that you would continue to knock and ask for His intervention, not because He is manipulative, but because He knows that you leaning on and limping with Him is better than you trying to sprint through life on your own. It is no accident that in both the Lord’s prayer and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus reiterates this line, “your will be done.” He has desires, as seen in both prayers, but at the end of the day, it is far better that we desire the will of God to be done over our own earthly desires.
The second encouragement is to aim to maintain hope. Without hope, there is nothing for faith to be assured of. Without hope, we have no future longing for a right and redeemed reality. It may seem like folly, especially to those who have been pressing into God for a significant amount of time, to maintain hope, but though hope is results-oriented (we long for something to occur that has not yet occurred), it does not have to be results sustained. At least not in this life. Through hope, we can endure many small disappointments (small being relative) as we view the coming triumph of life eternal with God. We can endure tears today knowing that on that day, tears will be no more. We can endure pain because hope dictates that there will be a day when pain will be abolished. We can endure unfulfilled desires now because then, hope will be satisfied in that our redeemed desires will be fulfilled, perfectly and totally, in Christ.
But what of your neighbor who follows Jesus and was healed from their ailment? Take comfort in the words of Jesus to Peter in John 21:22, “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!”
We follow Christ, regardless of earthly reward or consequence, because He has done what we could not do on our own. Counselors can attempt to help restore relationships. Doctors can attempt to cure ailments. Financial Advisors and business partners can attempt to help with personal finances. We can attempt to curate more favor among men. However, there is only one who can resurrect us from spiritual death and transfer us from the kingdom of darkness into marvelous light. That is our reward, and only in the light of that great joy would we ask God for all the rest.
