On Sunday, many of you asked honest, thoughtful questions about healing and miracles. We couldn’t answer them all in the moment, but I didn’t want to leave them hanging. So, here are some reflections on the questions you raised, and what we find in the Bible about each one.
Why does God not heal?
Why don’t miracles always happen even if we have giant faith?
Why aren’t miracles guaranteed?
We believe God can heal but Scripture also shows times when healing didn’t come. Paul prayed three times for his “thorn in the flesh” to be removed, but God’s answer was, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Sometimes God heals physically; sometimes He sustains us in weakness. Both are expressions of His love.
The promise of the Bible is that we will all be healed but not that it will happen immediately. The ultimate promise is eternal life and resurrection. There will come a day when every sickness and sorrow is fully restored. In the meanwhile, we trust that God is sovereign and we do our best to ask and discern what he wants to do and to pray for that. Sometimes, he answers yes, sometimes it is a no and others it is a not yet.
It is also worth remembering that the Bible calls miracles “signs” (John 20:30–31). They point to God’s kingdom breaking in, but they are not the fullness of it. We live in the “already and not yet” — Jesus has defeated sin and death, but until He returns, we still experience sickness and brokenness (Romans 8:22–23). Miracles are glimpses of what’s to come, and reminders of God’s goodness.
Why do miracles feel so infrequent?
Why do miracles happen only sometimes?
Perhaps it is because we don’t pray enough. In the New Testament, healings were the pattern for the church. Beyond the Bible there are reports of Christians travelling to remote villages, healing people and then saying, ’you are probably wondering how we did that… let us tell you about Jesus.’ For the first few centuries this was normal.
What changed? Expectation and power.
First, the church became institutionalised and we developed a greater sense of hierarchy, matching the Roman systems. The holiest people were at the top, commoners were at the bottom. If you needed a miracle, you needed to ask someone else to pray for you: a saint. The result was that the average Christian stopped believing that God could work through them - “I am not holy enough”
With the rise of monasticism and the growth of the Catholic Church came a belief that suffering was pious. There was a woman who famously prayed that God would take her to the point of death so that she could understand Christ’s suffering and be more like him. She grew sick and nearly died, when she suddenly saw a vision of God and was transformed. If suffering is a tool that God uses to lead us to holiness then we won’t pray for it to be removed. We will pray for endurance instead. If suffering is a curse that God uses to punish the sinful then we pray for forgiveness instead.
Ultimately the church began to believe that the only true healing was through death. This continued for centuries and the gift of healing was almost completely lost from the church, left to the wild edges of society such as the Celtic Christians.
This all changed in 1906 in Azusa street. It was as if the Holy Spirit said, enough is enough and poured out in a revival that changed the face of Christianity. Suddenly ordinary Christians were seeing God do extraordinary things through them. Faith grew as people shared their stories. As people started to pray and expect miracles more and more were experienced once again.
Are they miracles or just coincidences?
How do we grow our faith to see God’s miracles as His work, not coincidence?
How do we know if it was a miracle or just something that happened? Really, that depends on two things: what happened and how you interpret information. Some miracles are so in your face, that there is no way to see them as anything else. I remember watching a young boy get out of a wheelchair and seeing the tears or wonder and joy as he began to walk. There was no faking the emotion or putting it into any other category than ‘wow!’ Of course, if we expect every moment to feel like this, you would miss so much of what God is doing and his work could start to feel ‘infrequent’.
A lot of miracles could be considered coincidences. You pray for a job and then get one. Was it the prayer or the hard work? A coincidence might look like chance, but faith sees God’s hand at work through everything. It sounds like a cliche but most people find that the more they pray, the more ‘coincidences’ seem to happen.
I think that patterns are a really good way to grow faith. So often, we pray and then forget and move on. The best practice I ever did when I was a youth worker was to make all the youth write down their prayers every week and then we would review them the next week. At first it was a little awkward but over the year, as we started ticking them all off our faith grew!
Similarly, every year we write down big prayers that only God could do. We put a date on the bottle and smash it a year later. It is always amazing to see how many have happened. (Tip: if you are a parent, this is a brilliant thing to do with your kids). My advice would be to pray for things that only God could do and to write it down.
At what point do you give up asking for healing and accept it as God’s will?
How to deal with it when your will doesn't match with Gods? Especially when Gods will seems opposite to the good thing
In 2 Samuel 12 there is a tragic story of King David praying and fasting intensely for his infant son to be healed. The child eventually died and you would expect David to be angry that God did not move to help him. After all this was an innocent child. However, David, after mourning, eventually stopped fasting, washed, and began to worship God. He did not understand why God did not heal his son but he refused to allow disappointment to turn into bitterness.
I find this really helpful as I think about prayer. I want to keep on praying for as long as possible for the best outcome possible (that I can see). However, if it does not turn out as I would like, I also want to respond like David with worship and gratitude despite my disappointment and pain.
Faith matters but God’s will is not controlled by us. Jesus Himself prayed, “Yet I want your will to be done, not mine” (Luke 22:42). Faith is not a way to twist God’s arm; it’s trust that God is good whether He says yes or no. This is where our trust is most deeply challenged.
Pastorally, the most important part of this, however, is to not isolate. The line between persevering and surrendering is one we walk in prayer and community, listening for the Spirit’s leading.
When miracles don't happen, what's the balance between us not having enough faith and not spending enough time with God but then also not striving and not entering into a theology where we earn healing
Is the miraculous intrinsically tied to holiness?
I have combined these two questions together under the category: what is our role in the miracle? Do we need a certain quantity of quality of faith? And if we sin, do we stop God’s power from flowing?
In Matthew 17 there is a story of the Disciples trying to cast out a demon from a child. They fail spectacularly and ask Jesus what went wrong. His answer was that they had small faith: “Truly I tell you, if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” In Mark he makes his meaning even more clear, “Have faith in God. Truly, I say to you, whoever says to this mountain, 'Be taken up and thrown into the sea,' and does not doubt in his heart, but believes that what he says will come to pass, it will be done for him.”
So, in this story there was a healing that was possible but it was not accessed because there was no faith. Jesus often commended faith before a miracle and clearly said that our spiritual authority is directly linked to our faith.
Faith matters but it is not a formula. If you have faith then it is no guarantee of a miracle. And conversely if you do not see a miracle, it is not necessarily a sign that your faith was deficient or worse, that it was somehow your fault.
A few weeks ago my niece asked this question after her father died. Was it my fault? Whenever I drew closer to God he got better and when I behaved badly, he got worse. Of course, I responded as I hope every one of us would and reassured her that it was not her fault and that God doesn’t look at holiness as some kind of test that we need to reach a certain grade or his goodness is withheld.
What I find helpful is to remember three R’s
Relationship: Everything flows from my relationship with God. Whatever the outcome, my connection with God is vital.
Risk: John Wimber famously said that faith is spelt r.i.s.k. We step out of our comfort zone and security, risking our pride for the glory of God.
Rest: I try to brush off shame and disappointment quickly and rest in God’s love.
This is such a tension. We are called to pray in faith (James 5:14–15), but healing is not earned by effort. Salvation and healing are both gifts of grace. We pray boldly, then rest in God’s love, not in whether we “did enough.”
If goodness and mercy follow me all my days (Psalm 23:6), why pray for healing?
Firstly, top marks for quoting our last series! Feel free to claim a free Toblerone on Sunday as a reward!
Psalm 23 promises God’s presence and care, but prayer is the way we bring our needs before Him. Prayer is a major part of the outworking of that goodness. God wants to discuss life with you and to hear your opinion on the world. He doesn’t want you to be a drone or a robot. Instead, he entrusts you with power and responsibility. So, the fact that he empowers us and partners with us is a sign of his goodness and mercy.
This doesn’t mean that he doesn’t also pour down blessings upon us without our asking for them. He does. However, his intention is relationship and the way we get there is through prayer.
Do some miracles get treated differently depending on how extraordinary they seem?
Yes, often people are more impressed by dramatic healings than quiet ones. But Jesus said even the small signs — like a cup of cold water given in His name (Matthew 10:42) — matter. God works in both ordinary and extraordinary ways. While crowds may not be as impressed, learning to recognise God in the small moments has a way of bringing a lot of joy and gratitude. (On a side note, I read today that increased joy can rewire your brain to release more energy, productivity and creativity into your day.)
How do we best go about understanding the validity and genuineness of a miracle post miracle?
There are two ways to interpret this question and I will do my best to answer both. The first is whether or not a miracle actually happened. I remember reading articles on the ministry of Katherine Kuhlman who had an incredible healing ministry in the 80s. She would invite leading doctors (not Christian) to validate the miracle. She was very keen that every miracle should be tested fully. She saw them as signposts to God that could break through people’s cynicism and pride, revealing a God who loved them and wanted the best for them.
(Side point: every person with a healing ministry that I have ever studied has said that they see more miracles outside the church than inside it)
There are too many stories of people, in the zeal, wanting to claim something as a miracle that actually was just a moment of adrenaline. This serves no one and undermines the Gospel.
The second way of interpreting this question is as to whether or not the outcome was from God or not. The Bible warns of non-Christians who would perform miracles. Or perhaps, you have prayed for a job and then one comes but you do not know if it is the job. Was it God’s desire that the event happened in this way?
The New Testament gives us a test: does it glorify Jesus (John 2:11)? Does it align with God’s Word (Galatians 1:8)? Does it lead to deeper faith and love (1 Corinthians 13:2)? A true miracle will always point us to Christ, not away from Him. If you find yourself drawn closer to God/more connected in community/becoming more like Christ, then I would safely say God’s hands are all over it.
Conclusion
Miracles raise tough questions, but they always point us back to Jesus. He is the ultimate sign of God’s love — the healer of our souls, the One who promises to make all things new. Keep asking, keep seeking, and keep trusting. Your questions are welcome here, and your faith journey matters.
