Why Doesn't God Heal Everyone?
If illness mars the image of God in us, and if God desires us to bear his image, then why do some illnesses remain?
Some are quick to claim a "lack of faith." And clearly the Bible talks about that. You can see that in Mark 6:1-6 where, because of the unbelief of many, Jesus was unable to perform a "mighty work" though he did still heal some. And you can see the effect of the presence of faith on healing, like in Mark 9:20-23, where Jesus heals a demon-possessed boy and proclaims that, "everything is possible for him who believes."
But, just as discipleship involves submitting our whole selves to Jesus (and not just that which is "spiritual), so, too, does healing. It's not just about submitting our illnesses to Jesus. What he starts in one part of us - whether body or spirit - he intends to bring to completion through our whole existence.
Healing is about submitting our whole lives to his care. It is about hospitality. It's not about miracles.
But the Bible also portrays Jesus as not healing when he could.
Check out Mark 1:32-39. Here, after a full day of healing and ministry, Jesus leaves one town (where "everyone" was looking for him) and goes to another. You can picture the line of patients Jesus has waiting for him there! But Jesus leaves. He is not trying to heal everyone in town but rather to raise up a witness for himself in every town.
The apostle Paul shows that even Jesus' lack of healing is still about human beings bearing his image:
"So to keep me from becoming conceited because of the surpassing greatness of the revelations, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to harass me, to keep me from becoming conceited. Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Corinthians 12:7-10, emphasis mine)
Sometimes we bear the image of God by bearing illness, either for a time or permanently, so that we can show the world - and ourselves - that his grace is sufficient, his strength made perfect able to keep us from falling.
Paul calls this "sharing in the fellowship of his sufferings" in Philippians 3:10-11:
"...that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead." (emphasis mine)
Healing will come, in this life or the next.
But we have to realize that healing is not the only way we are able to bear the image of God to the world. Our illness and death can do that as well.
