When asking the LORD just now what I’m supposed to write, He said to me, “Just in time.”  Well, this is a particularly hard letter for me to write today, because we just returned home from a trip where we returned from ministering to a family in North Carolina whose son was in the hospital in ICU.  The family had been believing God for six years to heal their son, and there were prayer intercessors all over the country praying for this young man for months around the clock.  I made two trips out there and laid hands on him for healing, the first trip three weeks ago saw him rally and improve. But later he developed sepsis in his blood, organ failure and he died a couple days ago in spite of all our prayers.  And God has often healed people for me at the last possible moment.  But not this time, and He tells me write “JUST IN TIME”?  Why, LORD?  It makes no sense to me.

Fortunately for me, and for everyone else, what God calls “just in time” is not according to OUR timetable.  In fact, years ago the Holy Spirit told me “my watch runs fast”, to which I responded, “No, my watch is a certified chronometer, and it is accurate.” His response was, “Your watch runs fast, MY time is always correct.”  Ok, LORD,  I stand corrected, as always.  If I said I have an answer why this young man died after all the prayers, fasting, and speaking the Word over him, I would by lying, because I don’t.  I know a lot about healing, but not everything, obviously.

Will this sour my trust in God’s Word?  Absolutely NOT!  And while I know it’s God’s will to heal according to all that the Lord Jesus did and taught, and what He taught the disciples, which has been in turn passed down to us, still, God is God, and He allows what is fit in His own eyes, and ultimately when we think we have Him all figured out, we don’t.  I was talking to a Pastor yesterday from Texas whose wife recently died.  She was a chain-smoker for many years, and we prayed for her healing many times, and I laid hands on her several times, yet she would not stop smoking, even though she was on oxygen and could hardly breathe.  We prayed to keep her alive many times, and Pastor asked what I thought about something:  she was suffering and wanted to go home to Jesus, but of course he and others wanted to keep her here.  She had totally destroyed her physical body by abusing it, and he asked me,  Do you think we were thwarting God’s will by laying hands on her and keeping her here, even though she was suffering and wanted to go home?

I told him, no, I don’t think so, because Jesus laid hands on the sick and suffering and healed them, and stopped their suffering, and one man He even told him to go and sin no more lest a worse thing come unto him.  Now, we as His disciples today are commanded in Matthew 10:8,  Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils: freely ye have received, freely give. This pastor’s wife just continued to abuse her body with no intention to stop whatsoever.  When she asked for our prayers to stop, we did, and she died.  Could God have restored her?  Sure, and I believe He did years ago when we prayed the first time, but does God have an obligation to keep restoring someone who refuses to take care of their temple?  The Word says, by His stripes we were (and are) healed.  But where does abuse enter into this equation?

Now this has absolutely nothing to do with the young man who just died, except that our continued prayers kept him here for quite a while, while we expected Jesus to restore his damaged body and make him whole, just like He did to the other suffering sick.  The point I’m trying to make here is about “timing”.  Exactly how would God see a young man who loves the LORD, who has not lived out his number of years, as dying “just in time”.  Just in time for WHAT?  Well, true, he has escaped the hard times about to fall upon the earth, but what about Psalm 91:16 which says, I will satisfy him with long life and show him my salvation?  Obviously 25 years is not a long life. So many questions, and not nearly enough answers.

But this answer I DO have: God is God and He can do whatsoever He wants, when He wants, and we are not in a position to question His actions.  Remember all the sore trials Job went through?  It is written in Job 13:15-16:
Job 13:15  Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him: but I will maintain mine own ways before him.
Job 13:16  He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.

In the end of the Book of Job, God gave him double for his trouble, twice as much as he had before, because of ONE THING: Job never sinned against God with his words, and he kept his integrity and his faith in the goodness of God.  Does this make the dying of a precious son any less painful for the parents, his wife and family?  No, but I told his mother, don’t get an attitude with God, for God is not done with us YET.  If we will hold onto His Word, love and honor Him and not fall by the wayside when we are sorely tested, there IS a reward.  When?  As the Holy Spirit told me this morning, “JUST IN TIME”.

My heart goes out to all those who believe to the very last for the healing of a loved one, and it doesn’t happen while some perhaps venture to think that God doesn’t keep His promises;
the Bible tells us in Numbers 23:19  But God is not a man, that he should lie; neither the son of man, that he should repent: hath he said, and shall he not do it? or hath he spoken, and shall he not make it good?    It is times like this we realize we are dealing with a compassionate God who knows things we don’t know, whose thoughts are higher than our thoughts, whose ways are higher than our ways.  We don’t always get what WE want, because sometimes God sees a part we cannot or that we refuse to see.  Does that make it any easier?  No.  But I for one will not stop ministering to heal the sick because some die, rather, I will intensify my efforts, knowing the days are short, there are many who still do not know Christ Jesus as Lord and Savior, and the Word shows us that healing indeed IS God’s will.

It is written in 2 Peter 3:9, 2Pe 3:9 The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some men count slackness; but is longsuffering to us-ward, not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance. Do all come to repentance?  Obviously NOT, therefore some perish, even though it CLEARLY isn’t God’s will or purpose.  It wasn’t God’s will for Eve to eat the forbidden fruit and give it to Adam, and for them to be cut off from God and die, but they did.  Somewhere in all this we have to take the free will of man into account that God himself gave us.  God has an overall purpose, and it will stand forever.  And things happen that we do not understand, and that is likely to stand as well.

But one thing never changes, and that is GOD IS GOOD AND HIS MERCY ENDURES FOREVER.  Somehow, some way, because God is so good, He will deliver us from the evil one, whether we understand how it all works or not.  God sent His only Son to pay the redemption for our sins, He took all our sicknesses and diseases upon Himself for our healing, for all who believe upon Him.  Will we understand what He is doing every time?  Doubtful, but that’s where TRUST comes in, isn’t it?  We may face many sore trials in life, and stare at many mountains and wonder how we will ever get over them, but we must remember, our God is bigger than any trial we will ever face.  And remember, too, Great Big God, little bitty devil. Our part is to simply BELIEVE and obey God.  His part is to make it happen, and He will, just in time.