My God-in-a-box and Being Offended at Healings

I've always had a hard time with the "gifts of healing" mentioned in the Bible.
Some of you may not believe that God moves today... but I assure you from personal experience... everything the New Testament talks about?  Yeah.  I've experienced it.
Even though the movements of the Holy Spirit are as legit as I say, I've still had a hard time with what I feel about "healing".

I've had a hard time with healing because I've never been able to wrap my mind around why God DOESN'T heal. And to be honest, I've been offended at some of His decisions in this matter.

But something happened that began to change that.

Every summer I ended up rolling both my ankles.  Then... I would limp until right before the next summer.  I did this for about 3 or 4 years and it was really the most frustrating thing for me.
But I decided to get prayer for it again because the new church I began to go to believes strongly that God is in the business of physical healing.

You know what?  I could run and jump after I got prayer.  And I haven't rolled my ankle again.  Its been almost 5 years.

Not that I didn't believe God could heal.  I definitely believed He could. 
I just somehow believed that healing was always up to my faith - whether I was praying for someone or whether I was getting prayer for it.

And I was just... really wrong.

Then I went to India.
And in India, I didn't even have to have really deep or extravagant prayers.  People were getting healed - bones were entirely mended, ear aches and tummy aches and deaf - everyone.  People were getting healed.
These people weren't even Jesus-followers.
So...why does it feel like pulling teeth when I pray for these things to happen back in the US?

These are questions I wonder if people usually ask when coming back from short term mission trips like mine.

Because in India, you can buy idols anywhere.  And it was actually a little bit of a spiritual shock for me because when I was standing in front of shelves and shelves of idols at these stores it hit me like a ton of bricks that the idols themselves actually had no creepy spiritual presence to them.

And right as I had this thought, the Lord imprinted a truth into my heart.
"They only have demonic influence when they are prayed to."  Otherwise... they're statues.

But here's the thing:  the idea of a god or gods is acknowledged and overtly accepted in the country of India as well as other countries.

The US as a general people have begun to lean towards no acknowledgement of a higher power beyond their own capabilities.  We're intellectual and philosophical.  We don't accept that we can't understand everything.  If we can't understand something, we will make ourselves understand or we will make it small enough to wrap our minds around.

I know some people will not agree with me about that last statement. 
Though I believe that understanding and wisdom and knowledge are wonderful things to have and to be fluent in, I don't believe that it is wise to think that we can know the whole of something which is vast.

God is one of those things - He is one of those Persons - who is vast and beyond our understanding.

So... coming home to the States I asked the Lord, "Lord... um hey.  Why don't you heal here the way you heal people there?"

And you know what He said?

"You have whittled Me down and gotten rid of the parts of Me you don't like or understand.  What you're left with isn't Me - but an idol.  When you pray to that god, he can't heal you... Because you got rid of the  parts you don't understand of Me.  And those are the parts that heal, that do miracles and unexplainable things."

But at least we have a little wooden idol of god in our pocket right?

I'm determined to let God be as big as He actually is.
I am so tired of little gods and my big head.

In Honor of Valentine's Day: Do You Want My Hand or My Heart?

It is the glory of God to conceal a matter, but the glory of kings to search out a matter. –    Proverbs 25:2 NASB

It has not been often that my heart has been searched out by people. Surprisingly not even most of the guys I’ve dated have cared to truly know me.

Oh, I’ve been told I was known.  They didn’t need to ask me questions to know me.  They just did, they said.

“I feel like I’ve known you all my life!”

That’s my favorite line.  I’ve heard it enough times to throw up a gallon of those lines.

…It could be a sweet sentiment, but to me, if it is not paired with actually knowing my heart, it makes me wince.  It would make anyone who's been in my position wince.

My experience, much like some of yours, acquainted me with the understanding that people like me not necessarily for who I am, but more for what I do.