Abide Devotion for March 4, 2015

Acts 28:7-16

⁷ There was an estate nearby that belonged to Publius, the chief official of the island. He welcomed us to his home and showed us generous hospitality for three days. ⁸ His father was sick in bed, suffering from fever and dysentery. Paul went in to see him and, after prayer, placed his hands on him and healed him. ⁹ When this had happened, the rest of the sick on the island came and were cured. ¹⁰ They honored us in many ways; and when we were ready to sail, they furnished us with the supplies we needed.

¹¹ After three months we put out to sea in a ship that had wintered in the island—it was an Alexandrian ship with the figurehead of the twin gods Castor and Pollux. ¹² We put in at Syracuse and stayed there three days. ¹³ From there we set sail and arrived at Rhegium. The next day the south wind came up, and on the following day we reached Puteoli. ¹⁴ There we found some brothers and sisters who invited us to spend a week with them. And so we came to Rome. ¹⁵ The brothers and sisters there had heard that we were coming, and they traveled as far as the Forum of Appius and the Three Taverns to meet us. At the sight of these people Paul thanked God and was encouraged. ¹⁶ When we got to Rome, Paul was allowed to live by himself, with a soldier to guard him. ^[1]

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What struck me in this passage this morning was the healing of Publius and the subsequent healing of all the rest of the sick on Malta. And I think it struck me because of a discussion that we had last night at one of the discipling huddles that I lead. We were discussing the difficult topic of why hardship and difficulty are visited on some people more than others. For instance: We pray for two people with cancer. One person’s cancer goes into remission and the other succumbs and dies. Why did God allow that? Why the different answers to the same prayer? In light of today’s reading, I can ask, why was everyone healed on Malta, but not everyone in Napa?

These are questions that cannot be answered adequately in a brief devotion—if at all. We know that God is at work in people’s lives in ways we cannot see, and the way a prayer is answered in one case ripples throughout many relationships in ways we cannot comprehend. We also know that God’s ultimate answer to our prayers for healing is the resurrection, the eternal solution brought about by the death and resurrection of Christ. And we know that God always answers, but sometimes that answer is simply “not yet” or not in the way we are thinking. And, as hard as it is to admit this, God’s work of shaping our characters into the image of Christ, is usually done in the context of adversity.

And so we pray, trusting that God hears and will answer, in His way, in His time. We pray with hope, confident that any answer it this life will pale compared to the answer He has for us in the resurrection (Romans 8:18).   And that’s where thinking about this thorny topic always leads me. It’s a call to faith.

So my prayer today is for those around me that are suffering from illness, whether a cold or cancer. But I also pray for faith to trust in God to hear and to heal in His way and in His time.

What is the Word leading you to pray about today?

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^[1] The New International Version. (2011). (Ac 28:7–16). Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.