When illness struck, he believed in God’s healing

Last September, my wife and I traveled by plane to Los Angeles to help our son move to a new apartment. On the trip, I became very ill, and by the time we arrived at our hotel, I was so miserable that I was useless to get anything constructive done.

Fortunately, our son was delayed that evening, so I had time to rest—and pray for healing!

I started my prayer by remembering a rule for spiritual healing that Jesus Christ taught when he said, “Know the truth, and the truth will set you free” (John 8:32).

Jesus Christ was a master healer. He exercised definitive power over the physical body with his understanding of spiritual truth and expected his followers to do the same. I am one of his followers, so I began to pray in earnest for the spiritual truth that would heal me of this illness.

In my prayer of truth, I recalled that I was a spiritual creation made in God’s image that was empowered by the Holy Spirit to stay healthy. I knew God loved me and was present giving me everything I needed to stay well. I was clear that I didn’t need to suffer.

From the symptoms I faced, it appeared the illness would grow worse and continue for days. But I decided this fear was not a fixed truth I had to live out. It was a temporal condition that could be reversed, as Jesus Christ proved with several of his healings.

For instance, one story in the Bible reports, “When Jesus arrived at Peter’s house, Peter’s mother-in-law was sick in bed with a high fever. But when Jesus touched her hand, the fever left her. Then she got up and prepared a meal for him” (Matt. 8:14-15, NLT). In this healing, Jesus proved that disease did not have to run a course. It could be stopped with spiritual power at any stage.

I was counting on the same healing touch of Christ that cured this woman to also heal my suffering. I continued to pray and know that it was God’s will for me to be well, and that Christ was present, active in my being, giving me everything I needed to be strong and free.

It was a mighty mental and physical struggle for a few hours that evening as my thoughts vacillated from feeling overwhelmed by sickness to reaching out for God’s presence and yearning to feel it more. But the sought-for breakthrough came.

During one of my prayers, I gained a clear sense that no matter what the physical senses reported to me, I had a spiritual individuality at-one with God that is always healthy, and never affected by disease. This pure and perfect individuality, existing as God’s likeness, was the primal truth about me, and the sensations of the body felt as illness were not the spiritual truth about me. It was temporal error that could be reversed with spiritual truth.

As Christ’s prayer of truth had brought more of the true individuality of Peter’s mother-in-law out to see, the same Christ truth was present to bring more of my individuality in God’s likeness out to see also.

With this insight, a deep peace took over my thought. The mesmeric hold of the disease unloosed, and it felt like I had reached a mental place where physical healing would come. To my delight, the illness rapidly departed. I fell into a sound sleep. When I awoke in the morning, I was 100% well, ready to go for a productive day.

I was grateful for the healing. It was another reminder that God’s help is always present, and able to take our pain and suffering away.