Out of a sense of pastoral care for those who have not been healed through our prayers, we sometimes fall back on the belief that ‘It is all in God’s timing!’
It may be more truthful for us to tell the disappointed sufferer that we do not know why our prayers have not been answered; we cannot believe that God does not want to do it, so we guess (wrongly, of course) that because God is eternal, transcending time, he does not realise the urgency of the situation!
And we know that a thousand years in his sight are like a day or a watch in the night (see Psalm 90:4), so we feel that all we can do is advise an unspecified time of waiting to see what will happen.
In any case, the argument relieves the minister of any responsibility over the issue.
However, we must keep our theology of Kingdom healing as Christ–centred as we can, checking all the while with the words and works of Jesus before we philosophise about the nature of divine time.
This passage is a clear indication of God’s view of his timing when it applies to his healing work in the world.
— and a man with a shrivelled hand was there.
Looking for a reason to accuse Jesus, they asked him, “Is it lawful to heal on the Sabbath?”
He said to them, “If any of you has a sheep and it falls into a pit on the Sabbath, will you not take hold of it and lift it out?
How much more valuable is a man than a sheep!
Therefore it is lawful to do good on the Sabbath.”
Then he said to the man, “Stretch out your hand.”
So he stretched it out and it was completely restored, just as sound as the other.
Matthew 12:10–13
Some might have thought it prudent for Jesus to have asked the man with the withered hand to return the next day, so avoiding what turned out to be yet another confrontation between himself and the religious leaders of that time.
But Jesus is demonstrating here that, as far as God is concerned, healing will not wait.
God’s timing, quite simply, is now.
‘Wait!’ is not what Christ revealed.
In healing the sick he always revealed the ‘now!’
He did not teach us that the ‘Wait!’ was on God’s side.
The only ‘Wait!’ was self–imposed, applying to those people who did not come to Christ for healing.
In the New Testament, in the matter of healing, if there is a ‘Wait!’, it is on the human side.
Our attitude today should be that we must militantly pray and receive all that Jesus has done.
This may mean spiritual warfare and prevailing prayer until we receive. Anyone who believes that God sometimes may say ‘Wait to be healed!’ to them will have difficulty in being able to prevail in spiritual warfare and prayer.
The idea creates doubt, and saps spiritual energy, reducing the supplicant’s expectancy for healing, and it promotes passiveness and even more failure in ministry.
Expectancy concerning Jesus Christ’s willingness to heal is fundamental to prevailing, even if it does take a season to receive.