I was driving home from a Kesha in the dead silence of the night. One of those quiet drives where the road is empty, your mind is awake, and your spirit is louder than the radio. Nairobi had grown cold. The two or three city lights blurred through the mist, and somewhere between exhaustion and reflection, I passed by a Catholic-sponsored hospital; ambulance parked outside, a few people pacing slowly near the entrance. A thought crossed my mind: how would I even get access to minister in such a place?
As a former Catholic, my mind immediately remembered the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. In Catholic theology, this sacrament is administered to the sick as a ministry of prayer, comfort, repentance, and healing. We find that in scripture, only that different denominations do it differently. But at the core of the practice is Scripture.
“Is anyone among you sick? He should call for the elders of the church, and they are to pray over him after anointing him with olive oil in the name of the Lord. The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will raise him up; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.”
James 5:14-15 (HCSB)
The Catholic Church historically understands this not merely as tradition, but as obedience to apostolic instruction. Priests visit hospital beds. Nuns comfort the dying. Prayers are whispered in ICU wards. Holy water and crucifixes hang quietly beside oxygen lines and heart monitors. And I thought to myself, “They probably already have priests, deacons, seminarians, and sisters assigned to minister here. Maybe there is no need for me.”
But as I continued driving, another thought came crashing into my spirit with such force that it almost felt like revelation. Why do people keep saying God is not a healer, when some of the greatest healing institutions on earth were built by people who believed He is and actually lived in fullness and wellness of body and spirit through His healing power?
That thought shook me completely.
Because suddenly I started remembering hospitals across the world founded by believers, missionaries, churches, and Christian organizations. Catholic hospitals. Adventist hospitals. Mission hospitals. Faith-based clinics. Christian universities producing surgeons, pharmacists, and physicians. Then I remembered the statement written boldly in places like Tenwek Hospital: “We treat, but God heals.”
Honestly, that motto carries more theology than many sermons. Because somewhere along the way, the enemy managed to deceive many people into separating medicine from God, as though healing only counts if it happens in a dramatic prayer line with someone falling under the power. But who created the human body? Who designed veins? Who authored the nervous system? Who formed DNA? Who created herbs, roots, leaves, minerals, and molecules? Who gave mankind the intellectual capacity to study anatomy? Who gave wisdom for surgery? Who gave understanding for antibiotics? Who gave revelation for anesthesia? Who gave insight for scans, transplants, and treatments?
The answer is still God.
“The Lord said, ‘If you will carefully obey the Lord your God, do what is right in His sight, pay attention to His commands, and keep all His statutes, I will not inflict any illnesses on you that I inflicted on the Egyptians. For I am Yahweh who heals you.’”
Exodus 15:26 (HCSB)
Notice something here: God did not merely say, “I perform miracles.” He said, “I am Yahweh who heals you.” Healing is not merely something God does. Healing is part of who He is. Perhaps this is where many of us miss the wonder of God, because we want Him to heal only through fire from heaven, meanwhile He is healing both believers and non believers, through surgeons in operating rooms, through missionaries building hospitals in unreached villages, through Christian donors funding dialysis machines, through researchers spending sleepless nights searching for treatments and vaccines for things like Covid & Ebola, through nurses changing dressings at 3 a.m., through doctors carrying burdens they cannot discuss with anyone, through medicine extracted from plants He Himself created, through wisdom He permits humanity to discover, through common grace, mercy, knowledge, and compassion. This God!!!
David understood this deeply: “My soul, praise Yahweh, and do not forget all His benefits. He forgives all your sin; He heals all your diseases.” (Psalm 103:2-3) Not some diseases. All your diseases. Yet, God heals differently at different times. Sometimes instantly. Sometimes gradually. Sometimes miraculously. Sometimes medically. Sometimes through prayer alone. Sometimes through prayer and treatment together.
Luke himself, the author of the Gospel of Luke and the Book of Acts, was a physician. “Luke, the dearly loved physician, and Demas greet you.” (Colossians 4:14) Imagine that! One of the writers of Scripture was a doctor. Christianity never had a problem with medicine. In fact, Christianity helped pioneer organized medical care throughout history. Hospitals as we know them today were heavily shaped by Christian compassion and conviction. Early believers did not run away from plagues. They stayed behind to care for the sick when entire cities fled. Missionaries crossed oceans carrying both Bibles and medicine. They preached Christ and treated wounds because to them, these things were never enemies. They understood that the God who saves souls also cares about the bodies housing those souls & that’s why Jesus was so keen on healing the sick even in His ministry on earth.
“When He went ashore, He saw a large crowd, had compassion on them, and healed their sick.”
Matthew 14:14 (HCSB)
Compassion and healing walked together. Always. This is probably the part that lit that bulb in me that night. Even people who do not acknowledge God still benefit daily from His mercy. A man survives heart surgery through knowledge God allowed humanity to uncover. A child receives antibiotics through scientific understanding permitted by divine grace. A woman beats cancer through treatment discovered through minds sustained by the Creator Himself. The atheist surgeon still operates inside a universe held together by Christ. Everything. Including medicine. Including healing. Including wisdom. Including discovery.
“For by Him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, the visible and the invisible… All things have been created through Him and for Him. He is before all things, and by Him all things hold together.”
Colossians 1:16-17 (HCSB)
So the next time you pass by a hospital, do not only see a building. See the mercy of God. See the fingerprints of compassion. See answered prayers. See generations of believers who gave money, land, education, and their lives so others could live. See missionaries who built clinics where governments never reached. See nurses ministering silently. See doctors carrying knowledge entrusted to humanity by God. Remember: the Lord is still healing people. Sometimes through miracles. Sometimes through medicine. Sometimes through both. But always through His mercy.
Praise be to Jesus!
And if you are reading this while sick in your body, if you have carried pain for a long time, if you are weary from medication, hospital visits, procedures, fear, anxiety, or waiting for a breakthrough, I want you to pause for a moment. Place your hand where there is pain or sickness, and if you can, lift the other hand toward heaven as a sign of surrender and faith. Let us pray together.
“Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, I come before You believing that You are Yahweh Rapha, the Lord who heals us. Your Word says, ‘But He was pierced because of our transgressions, crushed because of our iniquities; punishment for our peace was on Him, and we are healed by His wounds.’” Isaiah 53:5. Lord Jesus, I thank You for every mercy and every benefit you have given me by dying on the cross. I ask You to forgive my sins, cleanse my heart, and restore my body. Let Your healing power flow into every place of pain, every diseased organ, every troubled mind, every weary heart, and every broken body. Remove affliction, remove fear, remove torment, and let Your peace come upon me.
Father, give wisdom to doctors, strength to caregivers, grace to families, and hope to those who feel hopeless tonight. Whether through a miracle, medicine, surgery, treatment, or process, let healing come in the mighty name of Jesus Christ. I declare that sickness will not have the final word. Christ has the final word. I trust You. I believe You. And I receive Your grace today. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.”
Receive your healing in Jesus name. Testify to someone the doings of the Lord.
Grace & Peace ✌️