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Our world needs help. The global amount of human suffering is astounding. What are we to believe? Are some things beyond healing? Or is it true that “All things are possible?”

Let’s consider our current approaches to healing.

1. The modern world’s approach to healing is traditional medical intervention. Contemporary society abdicates healing to medical authority. Doctors are our scientific tribal elders, who first diagnose our problem then offer it’s prescribed therapy.

The religion of science is driven by data. Medical healing employs a strategy based in numerical statistics. These data are usually provided by commercial entities that promote their solution for healing. Best practice is shaped by a consortium of the most influential commercial offerings that bring the most convincing data to the marketplace. Healing is the dance of data, money, and medicine.

2.  Alternative Healing practices are gaining ground in part due to increasing skepticism of the commercialization of medicine and it’s statistical approach. Alternative healing focuses on a holistic solution rather than an isolated, compartmentalized, therapy. It views each person as unique amalgam of multiple dimensions. Integrated systemic healing strategies, along with natural supplements are proving as efficacious as traditional medicine for many ailments. Alternative healing is about lifestyle change but the data dominant medical authority often diminishes these claims as unscientific or anecdotal.

3. Faith healing is an interesting proposition. A faith healing evangelist can raise millions on television and fill stadiums, but never enters our oncology clinic. Countless faith healers have been debunked as frauds, but does that mean miraculous healing cannot happen? Scientific studies have a placebo arm which is another way of measuring the “faith effect” to healing.

Within faith healing there is an interesting divide. The fundamental Christian community known as the Gospel Coalition has adopted a very pessimistic philosophy: that of cessationism. While they concede that God could heal if He wants to, most don’t believe healing miracles still exist outside of medicine. The irony here is that these are the first people who say they’ll pray for the healing of others. Such faithless prayers are truly empty sentiments. These are the folks who interpret the bible literally  when convenient, but ignore Jesus teaching about how we can literally move a mountain if we ask in faith (Matthew 21:21-22).

While the pentecostals get a bad wrap for their practices, I commend them for fidelity to their faith that God can and still does heal the sick. At least when they pray, the prayer is one of faith (James 5:15).

4. Quantum science and faith are now aligning in this amazing space. Science knows that awareness alters the material particles in quantum space. All particles are interconnected which gives way to a singular uni-verse rather than a di-verse, individuated cosmos. Healing is holistic from a cosmic sense.

This re-opens the faith-healing paradigm. Mere awareness of another persons sickness actually alters our combined quantum fields of interconnected particles. Sending “thoughts and prayers” may no longer be just pithy statements, but actual alterations in the flow of our entangled cosmos. The more awareness (faith) the more entanglement. Has science uncovered the mechanics of prayer?

Whether traditional or alternative medicine, quantum entanglement, placebo, or religious engagement, our healing requires faith. Whether healing is bodily, emotional, spiritual, or systemic, it requires something of us, and this is the vital key:          PARTICIPATION.

Scripture depicts Jesus as a healer to all comers (Matthew 4:24, 8:16-17). The more I study healing the more I’m convinced it’s not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Healing is a means to liberation and freedom which is the goal of the gospel (Isaiah 61:1-4, Luke 4:18).

This means that healing is a daily practice of participation. Healing is conscious engagement in how we live, eat, and move. It’s the elevation of consciousness or truth that frees us (John 8:32). Healing is not just an event nor is it the time of recuperation. We are not passengers to healing. Healing is the intentional daily engagement of surrendering our frailties and plumbing the depths of our irrelevance, so that we can find our relevance in God. 

Whether we are sick or well, none of us are whole. None of us can escape the inevitable, disconnected terminus within our corporeality. Each ailment along the way is a pause button, designed to unite us into the daily healing process. Each night our sheets wrap us like grave clothes, preparing us incrementally for the unconsummated healing that is ever before us. Each choice is one of healing/liberation or sickness/bondage.  We must participate in our part.

Healing does not remove sickness, death, or dying; nor does it prolong life. Healing is that sweet communion that makes both life and death lose their distracting power. I’m convinced if we find healing at this level, then our minds, bodies and world will follow.