Our world is a sinful environment in which sickness and disease have taken up permanent residency. Most people have come to accept being sick as a part of life, but believers see health issues differently. The prevailing view of the world focuses on the natural and physical causes and effects of illness in the body; by contrast, we see the spiritual forces behind it. The missing link is that people have a hard time believing the role faith plays in their healing.

Popular culture views doctors, nurses, medicines, and prescriptions as the primary factors in the healing process. Believers acknowledge them as well, with one important addition—faith in Jesus’ willingness and ability to heal us. Until we learn to trust God about this, we’ll continue to struggle with nagging doubts about whether He can heal. Just before Jesus healed a demon-possessed boy, He rebuked the people for letting their doubt get in the way.

Jesus said to them, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you? How long must I put up with you? Bring the boy to me.”  So they brought the boy. But when the evil spirit saw Jesus, it threw the child into a violent convulsion, and he fell to the ground, writhing and foaming at the mouth. “How long has this been happening?” Jesus asked the boy’s father. He replied, “Since he was a little boy. The spirit often throws him into the fire or into water, trying to kill him. Have mercy on us and help us, if you can.” “What do you mean, ‘If I can’?” Jesus asked. “Anything is possible if a person believes.” The father instantly cried out, “I do believe, but help me overcome my unbelief!” (Mark 9:19-24, NLT).

The boy’s father believed in Jesus on an intellectual level, but what he saw in the natural created enough unbelief to block the kind of faith he needed. Jesus had to remind him, and the crowd, of the limitless power of belief in the healing process. The disciples had the same problem as the rest of the people; the physical manifestations they saw generated just enough doubt to block their faith in their own ability to heal the boy. The key takeaway here is that our faith has the ability to bring about something that we can’t yet see. “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1).

It's difficult to live in an environment without becoming immersed in and influenced by it. We can get so caught up in the natural world that it’s easy to believe only what we see around us. However, God heals because of His grace, which is much more powerful than anything found in the world. “…But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound” (Romans 5:20). If we can get past what we see with our physical eyes, our spiritual vision can show us something much better.

Sickness is a curse resulting from Adam and Eve’s sin, but Jesus took care of sin on the cross so that we could enjoy perfect health. The world doesn’t know God and therefore doesn’t believe this. A successful journey through life takes more than reliance on our physical senses. “For we walk by faith, not by sight” (2 Corinthians 5:7). Resisting the natural and reaching out to the supernatural opens the door to the healing readily available to us.