A word to those who doubt that God heals

There are many people who are convinced they have experienced healing through prayer, and others who are sure in their hearts that it is possible even though they haven't seen or experienced it yet themselves.

But there seem to be many others who doubt such a thing is possible. When they hear of Christian healings, they may be polite and yet show in their eyes or in the tone of their voices that they question the full truth of them. Why? Whatever the answer, those who have experienced healing need to be sensitive to the doubts others may have. How can those with honest doubts be helped?

Christ Jesus answered doubting with healing. When a nobleman begged the Master to heal his gravely ill son, Jesus apparently discerned in the man's thought some doubt of God's healing power, because he said to him, ''Except ye see signs and wonders, ye will not believe.'' The man answered, ''Sir, come down ere my child die.'' The Master then said, ''Go thy way; thy son liveth.'' n1

n1 See John 4:46-53.

To some, that statement may seem puzzling. How could Jesus be so confident? Why did he use the present tense instead of saying, ''Thy son maym be well''?

Wasn't it because our great Master, through his clear understanding of life, was able to see man as he actually is rather than the way he seems to be? Perhaps Jesus' great understanding of man's actual, spiritual nature, expressing the perfection of his creator, God, lay behind his simple statement, ''Thy son liveth.'' Afterward, the nobleman found that the boy had been healed just at the time Jesus had spoken with him. That healing convinced him and his household that God heals - ''himself believed, and his whole house.''

But some still say, ''It would have happened anyway,'' or, ''Time and nature took their course,'' or, ''The body has marvelous self-curing systems we don't know much about yet,'' or even, ''The Bible was written a long time ago,'' suggesting that the Scriptures may have some of the facts wrong. Many Christian Scientists who have been healed time and time again are not unsympathetic with people who have these doubts. Instead, they see an opportunity to waken thought to the realization that man is not a material, mortal being, subject to sickness and decline.

We can learn from the Bible that man is the perfect spiritual image of God. This is the truth of our being, though to a physical sense of life it seems very far from the truth. The man of God's creation is not sick, afraid, poor, forsaken. He reflects God's wholeness, strength, abundance, love. The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: ''God creates man perfect and eternal in His own image. Hence man is the image, idea, or likeness of perfection - an ideal which cannot fall from its inherent unity with divine Love, from its spotless purity and original perfection.'' n2

n2 The First Church of Christ, Scientist, ad Miscellany, p. 262.

A recent experience strengthened my certainty of these facts. One evening while I was out shopping, a sense of weakness and pain came over me. Back home, I asked a member of the family to read the Christian Science Bible Lesson n3 to me. At first I felt a lot like the father of that boy must have felt, wanting only the healing. But as the Christly ideas behind the words kept pouring out, I felt moments of conviction that man is not at all a mortal who is subject to sickness, but is spiritual, inseparable from God. The next morning I woke up healed.

n3 Found in the Christian Science Quarterly.

Spiritual inspiration heals not only illness but also doubt. No one has to doubt. We can all trust God, even if it means disbelieving the inherently limited physical senses. Actually, we are used to disbelieving those senses when they tell us the earth is flat or that some far-off object is tiny; and we can come to disbelieve them when they say there is no spiritual healing. There is. And we all have, and can express, the meek spirituality that allows us to admit it. In our true nature as children of God there is no doubt. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass. Psalms 37:5