Enough Faith?

Pondering some of my blogging about the effects of the prosperity movement this morning I ran across the podcast interview of Dave Dravecky a former NY Giants pitcher who lost his arm to cancer on Dontwasteyourlife.com.

Interestingly he speaks about those who during his fight with cancer told him he didn't have enough "faith" or he must have sin in his life and that was the cause of his ailment. This is the common thread of prosperity theology.

Sadly the prosperity message neuters the gospel when it makes pain and suffering to be sin or faithless.

A gospel that cannot handle pain and suffering and rise victorious through it and in it is not the gospel that Stephen and Paul and Jesus lived.

I think most often the opposite is true where God takes a bad situation and uses it for good.

Think of Joseph, and what the story would have been like if his brothers didn't sell him into slavery. Obviously his brothers sinned and there was alot of pain and hurt, but God used it to save a nation.

I believe that God can and does heal and we should seek that so that through it God would be seen as Glorious, yet when He doesn't heal I have seen that quite often he uses that hardship to refine people to use them all the more to make His glory seen through in the midst of suffering and pain.

God has away of using pitchers with amputated arms, singers that stutter and painters that are going blind to show that He is more valuable than health.