My teeth used to hurt every day; an aching feeling would shoot through my mouth when brushing my teeth at night or while drinking cold water. The dentist’s X-rays showed six cavities in my molars. The bill to fix those cavities would be over a thousand dollars, and that was a thousand dollars more than I had to spend at the time.
If I Couldn’t Afford Treatment, Would they Get Worse?
I tried to ignore the pain over the next few months. The more I tried to ignore it though, the more anxious I became. As I spoke with my brother on the phone one day, a solution suddenly emerged. He told me the story of a woman in his church that asked for prayer for pain in her left wrist.
As they prayed for her wrist, she suddenly started to see out of her left eye, which she had never seen out of that eye before.
Letting the story stir up my faith, I asked my brother to pray for my teeth to be healed. He prayed over the phone and his church also prayed for me that following Sunday morning. On top of that, I made a decision to stop worrying about the problem and to hand my fears over to God. Every time the pain would surge, I started thinking, God is my healer. He is my provider. I don’t have to worry about this anymore.
God is My Healer and Provider
That same week, the pain slowly ceased. At my next visit, my dentist had amazing news. He said, “You have no cavities. You don’t even have cavities where you should have cavities. If more people like you came in here, we would go bankrupt.”
I used to think God didn’t heal problems like cavities and viewed them as being too insignificant or too commonplace.
Perhaps I thought God wouldn’t heal something modern medicine could fix, but I was wrong.
Matthew 4:23 (NASB) says, “Jesus was going about in all of Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every disease and every sickness among the people.”
Matthew 14:14 (NASB) says, “When He came ashore, He saw a large crowd, and felt compassion for them and healed their sick.”
Jesus modeled a healing ministry that was based on the love and compassion of God and the faith response of people. We undervalue God’s love when we think it is our desperation that qualifies us for healing. If we pray for God to heal cancer but not cavities, we aren’t doing Him a favor. We are simply misjudging His character. God’s healing is not poured out because of our desperation; it is poured out because of His love and grace — the same grace He gave as Jesus hung on the cross.
Any loving parent would heal their child if they had the ability.
God is our Heavenly Father and desires to heal His children; not because our need is great enough but because of His amazing love. When we choose to believe God wants to heal because it is His nature, and we approach Him in faith based on His Word, we get to experience miracles.
Troy Black
Author & Speaker
