God heals. We pray, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Surely, in the healing of minds and bodies and deliverance from oppression, God is healing. In the mystery of God in all things, upholding all things, God is present in a way that wills only good, that brings light and life.
This is the aroma of God, and we see it in the healing ministry of Jesus who says, if you don’t believe in me, believe in the works that I do. Through community, care, and prayer, followers of Jesus embody this. Followers of Jesus are distinctive only because of love, love of God, and love of those around them.
And so in history we see collections for the poor to feed and clothe them, rescuing of the destitute especially children caringbforbthe sick and teaching, and, as medicine develops, hospitals, and in recent times schools for children.
Visiting the sick and clothing the naked is a work of humanity, as is caring for the indigent and those in prison. Jesus calls us to his perfect humanity, accountable to the light he has placed in everyone. He is light, and we are called to be light. God is not divine deodorant. We are his holy aroma recreated and formed by the renewal of our minds. We are called to be holy as he is holy; to be fully human. Kindness and compassion make us truly human.
The place of gathering for those on this journey, the holy place, is a meal, a table where life is shared in its fullness in all circumstances. A meal that encompasses Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. The mystery of faith is, being in Christ, being fully human as Jesus was and is, resurrected, making all things new. All creation is in Christ from the beginning, and Jesus reveals this truth, as he is so are we redeeming, redreaming, all things.
This is our religion, our worship, that causes us to sing and praise and to enter the quiet place of intimacy with God. In him, we look with the eyes of Christ and in all see Christ.

God is ever healing, drawing all creation to the good. Miracles happen, but the miracle of the human endeavour is to be celebrated. What we see in medicine today should bring us to our knees in praise and thanksgiving. Medicine in all its forms expresses the miracle of the light within. Humanity expresses itself in healing and curing. Jesus is revealed in our care for the sick and oppressed and in the advances of science. This is the life we are called to. He is not revealed in turning away from the goodness of science to a spiritual desert of disappointment. Does God heal in miraculous ways? Yes, look around you.
People experience the extremes of genetic collateral, physical attrition, and just plain bad luck. All is in God’s hands but is not God’s will. Jesus’s answer is to put in our mouths a prayer that asks for God’s will to be done and in our minds a will to cure.
Does God intervene? Only in love. We are to pray constantly, expressing compassion and kindness for those afflicted and in need of saving. Open your eyes, love wins. Do not be put off by the charlatans who profit from your disappointment. It’s not your fault.

Before Moses died on the borders of the promised land, he said,

‭Deuteronomy 31:26 NRSV‬
“Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God; let it remain there as a witness against you.

He then wrote down a song, and in it, he sung,

Deuteronomy 32:3-6 NRSV‬
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he; yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him, a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.32.3-6.NRSV

To Christians, this sounds familiar. Jesus had come down from a mountain where his true glory had been revealed, but in the meantime, his disciples had not been able to cure a fitting boy, and the disciples wanted to know why.

‭Matthew 17:17-18 NRSV‬
Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.17-18.NRSV

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.31.26.NRSV

Jesus words seem to say we are at fault when there is no healing, How much longer must I put up with you? I’m not sure this was directed at the hapless disciples.
Jesus has just communed with Moses, who saw how the people had failed and how they would fail despite the law. He had also communed with Elijah, who in the time of Israel’s deep apostasy did many miracles. I feel that Jesus was constantly bringing the people back to Moses; the heritage they were so proud of, what they felt defined them. We see the practices of the way of the law angering Jesus, and here, he reminds them of the prophecy of Moses.
Jesus heals the lad and then teaches the disciples about faith. I believe he was drawing a contrast, reframing the song of Moses, anticipating an end to the curse of the law and healing the lad. I think Jesus words and healing were a parable; the disciples would see Jesus recalling the song of Moses and speaking out frustration at the way of the Law, then there was healing, then joy, a new way that always was the way, a revelation of the true way..
Afterwards, the disciples wanted to know why they were not able to deliver the boy; their expectation must have been that they could, but nothing happened. Had they not healed people and raised people from the dead?

‭Matthew 17:20 NRSV‬
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.20.NRSV

Does this mean their lack of effectiveness was their own fault? What was the lesson? Your faith is less than tiny, but tiny faith can alter stuff. You can read this all as a rebuke or as playful teaching. It was the demon that was rebuked, not the disciples.
The whole incident is redolent with hyperbole. otherwise, he would be denying his own faith. We learn there were occasions Jesus himself was unable to heal.
We have been taught to feel bad about our lack of faith, but Jesus is telling us we don’t need much and encouraging us, not telling us off. Read it again, seeing Jesus after coming down from the mountain, and overjoyed that life was coming, acting out the song of Moses, then healing with a huge smile on his face. Keep coming to Jesus and asking.

Does suffering cease? Only through love, and if our tiny faith does not prevail, we can trust in that love and draw on it, as Jesus stands with us in our anguish. We bear in plastic shopping bags a fullness beyond measure, and yet death and destruction stalk our daily lives and evil picks off the innocent. I hope Jesus is frustrated with that, and we see that he is. I am.

We are to seek the good of all in our actions and in our prayers. This is our work. A prayer for healing is an act of love. We can not be other than fully human in our spirituality. Sometimes, our prayer is a groan, and in this groan, the Spirit knows deeper than we can know what to pray. Every prayer drives the cosmos forward in Christ. We need to realise the power of Christ in us, the light we bear and shine out.
Our hope is that all is in God’s hands. We are taught that hope is not what is seen. Hope, faith and love are our virtues; a growing faith that breaks through the wall of transactional childish ways into a deep trust; a real hope which prays with all our humanity, sure that God is love.
Do not become slaves to events, people, and places but worship in spirit and truth. Do not be those who naval gaze, but become those who act to bring unrelenting good into this held but broken creation.
My dream is that we will break through to a place where we don’t hold God to account for not healing: a place where we can integrate all creaturly experience as being held in Christ.
It is good to ask the question and wrestle with it, but don’t give up praying and meeting together, losing hope. God is healing, and our prayers are effective: God is sovereign in and through love and only in and through love. Love is difficult. All creation, the good and the bad, is perfected in love. Wrestle. Imagine. Dream. We should see more healing, and it is frustrating, but don’t give up or concede a vision of a good and powerful God.

My hope is that we will share spiritual practices that deepen the life of service and maybe take a few up. But I think they are best done together and voluntarily. I think they then feed the multiple personalities and dispositions of the gathered who can choose what to do in their daily life. Only do not then leave the table.
To be authentic, the body of believers minister Christ to those around them in eating together, walking together, and listening. We model a non transactional way where people come and do life together because they are being met by Christ. We resist framing people’s experience of God and killing it with practices.
It is enough that they want to be there. Church is voluntary, and leadership in the body is in teaching, facilitating and guiding; providing the fuel. There is also judgement, routing out hypocrisy and exposing harm, which Jesus shows is directed towards the powerful and is uncontroling.

There is a life worth living, and it first draws us inward to the secret place, and we are cleansed. We become in our lives faithful to Jesus, the one who lived died and rose again, revealing God as Father, Son, and Spirit: Christ for all. In this life God is healing.