The other day I visited my friend who has pancreatic cancer. He’s not doing well. His spirits are good, and he looks good on the outside, but he assured me that appearances are deceiving. The first time I visited him, I had been reading A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles by J.P. Morland, and I prayed for healing. My friend wasn’t healed. Dr. Morland says only about 20% are, and he believes in and practices divine healing and other supernatural manifestations!

Why aren’t some healed? We will never know. “My Father is working, and I am working.” There were A LOT of people at the pool in John 5, and Jesus healed only one. I have two close Navigator friends with cancer. One died a little over a year ago. Another is still here although some of his markers turned the wrong direction recently.

Jesus is clear that things do not always go well:

If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you. If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you. Remember the word that I said to you: A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will also persecute you. If they kept my word, they will also keep yours. (John 15.18 – 20, ESV)

“They will also persecute you.” Life is hard. 

Look how John 16 opens:

I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. (John 16.1, 2, ESV)

Why would they fall away? False assumptions. “I’m serving God so things should go well…” But they don’t always.

Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colors. James 1.2, 3, MSG)