The Health and Prosperity Teaching

There are people who believe and teach that God wants everyone to be healthy and wealthy all the time. Universally. I mean - they believe it for everyone of God's followers.

I'm one of them.

If that sounds crazy and completely contrary to everything I've ever said and taught before, that's because it is. But to my defense I must clarify. I didn't say that God always does it. I just said that He wants it.

Wants it in the sense that He desperately loves each one of His children. Wants it in the sense that He wants what every doting father wants when He looks deep into their eyes. Wants it in the sense that this loving Creator has beautifully shaped each of His creations. Took His time thinking about their attributes, their talents, their gifts, their uniquenesses. And smiled and grinned as He formed them together. Thinking the whole time what a great combination this was going to make. Calling over the rest of the Trinity to smile and grin with Him as He put the finishing touches together so that they could all join in the celebration of new life as each one of His creations was shaped and formed. Can you see them all grinning and slapping each other on the back and laughing and saying how great that little touch adds just the right thing? I can.

How could God not want each of His creations to be fully all that they could be?! Healthy and wealthy. Full of vigor and displaying all the beautiful range of talents and gifts and beauty that He had designed for them.

He certainly did for the Israelites. I keep reading about them in Deuteronomy and seeing a God who's fallen head over heels for this crazy group of people. He keeps trying to get them to follow after Him and His ways so that He can bless them. Bless their sandals off! Keeps trying to bless them and their give them long lives. Literally.

"Keep His decrees and commands, which I am giving you today, so that it may go well with you and your children after you and that you may live long in the land the Lord your God gives you for all time."

"Honor your father and your mother, as the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live long and that it may go well with you...."

"Oh, that their hearts would be inclined to fear Me and keep all my commands always, so that it might go well with them and their children forever!"

"Walk in all the way that the Lord your God has commanded you, so that you may live and prosper and prolong your days...."

And on and on it goes....

I can't guarantee my healing to be healthy forever. Eventually the plan is for my body to die. It's really for the best. This body was only designed to last for a while and then I've been promised a much nicer model. Much improved and longer lasting. Wait till you see it. You'll really like it.

In the meantime, I'm praying for healing. Miraculous healing. Cancer-be-gone kind of healing. I believe that God wants me to be healthy and happy too. But I also know that He has higher plans and bigger plans than my mind or imagination can fathom. And I trust that no matter what those plans are (and they could include literally anything) I can trust Him with them. To do the very best. The thing that honors His name and glorifies Him the greatest.

And that's what I want my whole life to be about! God and God's glory!

(But I keep thinking about how He wants to bless those Israelites with long prosperous lives...)