Word Count: 931

Contact James Barringer

Why won't God heal amputees?

by James Barringer  
11/15/2009 / Christian Apologetics

Google.com has a feature where you can type in the first few words of a phrase you want to search for, and suggestions will drop down, indicating the most common searches that begin with those words. Typing "Why won't" brings a variety of choices from "Why won't my parakeet eat diarrhea" to "Why won't my hydrangea bloom." One of them is "Why won't God heal amputees?" I've wondered things like that before - never about amputees, specifically, but in general.

The basic thrust seems to be that if a God exists, he must not be as good as everyone thinks, or he wouldn't allow things like amputees to exist. Yet I think that's backward. If God wasn't good, then he wouldn't allow 99% of people on earth to have 99% of their bodies functioning perfectly. I might be color-blind, but my skin is fine (not prone to rashes or sunburn), my ears work fine (though my mother might disagree), my taste buds taste, my voice speaks, my stomach digests, my feet walk, my back is strong. I could go on for hours like this. If God was not good, he would not have designed sunsets to be beautiful to us, nor have given (most of) us eyes to see them with. He would not have made food smell and taste good, nor have given (most of us) the senses to appreciate them. It's really quite absurd to suggest that because a very few people are very partially less than perfect, God must not be good.

I say this because God's goal for us is not physical perfection. It is spiritual perfection. Romans 8:29 observes that he has predestined us as believers to be conformed to the image of his Son, that we might continually be more like Jesus in the way we think and treat other people. The two most important commandments, according to Jesus, are "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength," and "Love your neighbor as yourself." Neither of these requires any kind of body at all. God could have made us all quadriplegics and we would still have been able to do them. The fact that almost all of us have any limbs at all is proof of God's generosity.

Let me also say that, if this life was all there is, God could indeed be questioned for allowing things like physical deformity to exist. Yet Christianity, along with its belief in a good God, teaches that there is an eternity in which all of us will receive glorified, perfect, and incorruptible bodies (1 Corinthians 15). In other words, God DOES heal amputees. He might not do so in this life, of course, because this life is not the point. Eternity is the point. After a thousand million billion years of eternity, I doubt anyone will mind all that much that they had to navigate a few decades minus a limb, or the ability to see colors properly, or the ability to see at all. I don't mean to say that God doesn't care at all about our bodies, because he does frequently heal people physically, but at the same time we must all be aware that the physical is not his number one priority.

Further, I think that our preoccupation with physical perfection says more about us than it does about God. My church feeds homeless people on the second Saturday of each month, and today I met a blind man who plays the piano. He's a smart, articulate man, and I found myself envying the fact that ethnicity means nothing to him. He doesn't know the difference between a black person and a white person. The very terms "black" and "white" mean nothing to him. How many racial problems could we avoid if we were all blind? How many wars could we have been spared if we all had no arms with which to pick up guns? Who says that having both arms and both legs and all five senses is really the best way to be?

The most important parts of this life are not physical, but spiritual, and God has given each of us everything that we need in order to live a life that's pleasing to him. We all have a heart and can love people. Because of his great love and goodness, he has chosen to gift an overwhelming, incredible majority of us with a fully working body, four working limbs and five working senses. Yet even the people who lack one or more of those things can live life to the fullest, can know love and community and peace and joy. And all of us, including (especially) those people who lack physical completeness here, are granted the promise of a glorified body with which we can navigate eternity.

So let's not bother with any nonsense about how God is not good. He has given us everything we need to have and enjoy life. Anybody can focus on the things they do not have, or on how life would be easier if they only had something else (both arms, or eight arms, or eight billion dollars). The point is not how much easier life could be. The point is that each one of us can find beauty and joy as we're living for God in the life he has given us. And in the end there will indeed be a day when God wipes every tear from our eyes and gives us a new and glorified body with which to live in eternity with him.

Jim Barringer is a 38-year-old writer, musician, and teacher. More of his work can be found at facebook.com/jmbarringer. This work may be reprinted for any purpose so long as this bio and statement of copyright is included.

Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS

If you died today, are you absolutely certain that you would go to heaven? You can be! Click here and TRUST JESUS NOW

Read more articles by James Barringer

Like reading Christian Articles? Check out some more options. Read articles in Main Site Articles, Most Read Articles or our highly acclaimed Challenge Articles. Read Great New Release Christian Books for FREE in our Free Reads for Reviews Program. Or enter a keyword for a topic in the search box to search our articles.

Enter comments below. Due to spam, all hyperlinks posted in the comments are now immediately disabled by our system.

Please type the following word below:

Not readable? Change text.

The opinions expressed by authors do not necessarily reflect the opinion of FaithWriters.com.

Hire a Christian Writer, Christian Writer Wanted, Christian Writer Needed, Christian Content Needed, Find a Christian Editor, Hire a Christian Editor, Christian Editor, Find a Christian Writer