Reggie Anderson - The One Year Book of Healing: Daily Appointments with God for Physical, Spiritual, and Emotional Wholeness

As a primary care physician practicing rural medicine in a small town outside of Nashville, Tennessee, I have witnessed a lot of healing. Some of it has been through the work of medical professionals, whom God uses to carry out his good work, and some has happened supernaturally the result of Gods direct intervention.

The devotions in this book are meant to encourage you to pursue a closer relationship with our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. I want you to see the many ways that he intervenes in the lives of the sick and the hurting and the many ways that he heals so that you will be inspired to have hope; the faith to know that he can bring healing to your life, as well; and the patience to wait for him to act on your behalf. I want you to see what I see every day that God is alive and that he is active in our lives. I want you to know how much he cares for you. I have written these brief daily offerings to help you meditate on his healing promises.

Because we live in a broken, sinful world, we are all sick or hurting in some way. Some of us need to be healed of things that can easily be fixed, like a sprained ankle or a treatable illness. Others of us need to be healed from things that arent as easy to see like abuse suffered in the past or emotional wounds from a broken relationship. Perhaps you have a chronic, debilitating disease that wont go away without miraculous intervention. Or maybe its a temporary condition that will get better with time. Whatever your sickness, whatever your hurt, I want you to know that God loves you and wants to heal you. Whether youre seeking relief from pain or want your energy to return or your cancer to go into remission or to have control over your spiraling negative thoughts, you need your Fathers healing hand to reach out and free you from the bondage of your physical body. One thing we all have in common as human beings is that we need healing Gods healing.

But sometimes were not able to see how God is at work, and we wonder if hes even there or if he cares. Thats why Ive chosen to tell these stories about my patients stories about Gods faithfulness that Ive seen with my own eyes and sensed in my own spirit. How Gods healing work will be accomplished cannot be predicted only that it will happen.

Sometimes, God heals us partially by removing our disease or fixing our wounds. Sometimes, he heals us completely by taking us to our forever home in heaven. Often, he uses modern medicine lab results, high-tech treatments, doctors, and nurses to accomplish his healing. Less frequently, he does it miraculously and instantaneously, without intervention from the medical community.

From my thirty years of practicing medicine, Ive learned that we cant explain why one person gets sick and another one doesnt. With our societys focus on fairness, this can be hard to understand. We feel as if there must be a plausible reason why we got cancer or why our child has autism. But whether we have played a part in our illness through lifestyle choices weve made, or it has happened through no fault of our own, Gods desire for us to be healed, healthy, and whole remains the same.

Over the years, I have discovered several common truths in the lives of my patients when it comes to healing.

1. God is the one who heals. Medical professionals can treat, cure, recommend, advise, prescribe, and preserve, but no matter how talented the physician, he or she alone cannot heal the human mind, body, and soul. Only God can do that. God often uses doctors and other health practitioners in the healing process, but ultimately only God can restore us fully and completely. This is especially true when it comes to spiritual healing and healing from emotional issues or abuse. A physician can prescribe a mood elevator, but if we want to be fully healed, God must ultimately renew our minds. As you read and meditate on the devotions in this book, look for stories of miraculous healing. I have also included stories of times when God healed someone by nudging me toward a diagnosis or treatment option I would not have chosen based on medical science alone.

2. Sometimes emotional healing must come first. Because we dont always recognize the symptoms of emotional injury or illness, were often slow or reluctant to seek treatment. However, emotional or spiritual wounds can affect our physical health. Look for stories in this book about people who realized that they had to heal emotionally before they could become physically healthy.

3. Healing comes in many forms. In medicine, nothing is 100 percent. There is always an exception to the rule. What should work doesnt always work. So, when someone recovers, I know that God played a part in it. This book is filled with these stories. Some are miraculous that is, there is no medical explanation for what happened. Others will seem like they are simply the natural outcome of a course of treatment. God doesnt always heal in the same way or within a predictable time frame. But just as a bird watcher uses a guidebook to recognize rarely seen birds in the field, I hope this book becomes a field manual to help you recognize the different ways that God heals ordinary people living ordinary lives.

4. Our hope for healing is only in Jesus Christ. In conversations about chronic or deadly diseases, its common to hear people say, I hope they find a cure. We all hope for scientific breakthroughs in prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. But our real hope isnt in a scientist developing a new drug or treatment. Our real hope is in the God who saves us. As Psalm 25:5 reminds us, All day long I put my hope in you. And our hope extends beyond our days on earth. As the apostle Paul says, If our hope in Christ is only for this life, we are more to be pitied than anyone in the world (1 Corinthians 15:19). As you read the devotions, the verses and stories will remind you that unless our hope is in Christ, our hope is in vain.