Often, before you can receive anything from God, you must find answers to the questions that are keeping you from receiving. As long as questions crowd your mind, there will be doubts in your mind. And as long as you have doubts, your faith will be hindered. I know from my own experience on a bed of sickness that there were questions in my mind that had to be settled before my faith could be effective. I had to find the answers myself. That is the reason I was bedfast 16 months from ages 15 to 17.
Sometimes it would take me weeks and months to find the answer to a question, and just about the time I found one answer, the devil would bring up something else. For a long time the devil tried to tell me that God had afflicted me and was punishing me for some wrongdoing in my life. I listened to this for a while, but finally I said, “Devil, I was born this way. I was born with a deformed heart and serious internal trouble. What would be the use of God’s punishing me for something I don’t even know about? That must not be true.”
Sometimes the devil would say, “You’re sick because of something your parents did.” That is what the disciples thought of the man who was blind from birth. They asked Jesus, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” (John 9:2). Some people misquote Jesus’ reply in verse 3 as “Neither the man nor his parents sinned. He was sick just so God could heal him.” That is not what this scripture says. It says, “but that the works of God should be made manifest in him. I must work the works of him that sent me” (vv. 3–4).
If a person stopped reading at this point, he might say, “He is sick just so God can heal him.” Wouldn’t that be a terrible thing to accuse God of? Here is a grown man, blind from birth, and God made him blind just so He could heal him? If that were true, God would not be much of a God, would He? And I would not be interested in Him. But thank God, that is not true!
Notice that Jesus said, “I must work the works of him that sent me.” He immediately did the works of God by healing the man. When the devil saw that I was going to believe in healing anyway, he tried to convince me that it was not God’s will to heal me. He said, “Healing is real, but it is not God’s will to heal everybody. You’re one of those it is not His will to heal.” (Many people believe the lie that it is not God’s will to heal them, yet it is illogical to believe that God heals, and at the same time believe that He won’t heal you.) I rejected this argument, too. I kept searching for answers. All I knew was what I had heard preachers and other people say.
Some said, “Your sickness is God’s work. God is doing all of it.” I could not accept this explanation. Others said, “Well, maybe God didn’t commission it, but He permits it for a purpose.” That is about the same thing. I never was happy as a child. I never laughed. My daddy left us when I was 6. Being ill affected me emotionally. I was so weak I couldn’t defend myself from the other children at school. Everybody could beat me up—even the girls.
When I tried to fight back, the extra effort caused me to faint, because my heart didn’t beat right. Many times I was unconscious 45 minutes, and once I was out for an hour and a half. The school nurse and my teacher told me sometimes I would turn black, and sometimes I would be just as blue as I could be. They had to work long and hard to bring me around. Because of my physical condition and because of my getting pushed around so much, by the time I went into the second grade, I was mad at everybody. I was mad at the whole world. It twisted my thinking.
One day during the noon hour I decided to take things into my own hands. I went off the school grounds to some buildings that had just been built, and I returned with a 2×4 about 20 inches long. I slipped up behind the bully of the playground and hit him right behind the ear as hard as I could. He was out 45 minutes. I did my best to kill him. At 8 years of age, I thoroughly meant to kill him—and I was disappointed that I had not. This was one of several such incidents. I would not fight anybody openly, but as soon as they turned their back, I would knock them in the head with a hammer or whatever else I could get my hands on. I would just as soon have killed them as looked at them.
You get tired of getting walked over after a while. Of course, I was not saved then. It makes a lot of difference when the love of God comes into your heart. I was born again while bedfast, but even after that, questions arose in my mind: “Why was I born this way? Is God the author of the sufferings that are in this world today?” I remember asking myself: “Who is responsible for all of this?” “Why me?” I asked God. “Why did I have to be born as a premature baby who weighed less than two pounds? Did You cause me to be born prematurely? “Why did I have to be afflicted all my life? Why couldn’t I have had a normal childhood? Did You rob me of my childhood? “Why couldn’t I have known happiness? Are You the One who caused me to sit and watch as others ran, jumped, and played? “Now I am bedfast, and five doctors say I have to die. Why me? I didn’t have anything to do with it. God, did You?”
I wept, “Oh, God, surely I don’t have to die! I don’t know what it is to live yet. I know what it is to be hungry, cold, and without clothes, but I have never known what it is to be comfortable and to have nice things.” (I had been so hungry as a child that the smell of food would make me fall over in a dead faint.) I said, “I always have been pushed from pillar to post. I never have known what it is to have a family. I had hopes of growing up, marrying, and having a family, but I will never know what it is if I die now. Do I have to die?”
Such questions demand an answer, but nobody really gives you an answer; they will give you some theological concept that does not amount to anything. But thank God, the Bible has the answer. We can believe God’s Word and be delivered, or we can doubt it if we want to and remain bound. I am so glad I found the answer. I found it in Acts 10:38, “God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Ghost and with power; who went about doing good, and healing all that were oppressed of the devil; for God was with him.”
Jesus went about doing good, and healing all who were oppressed of the devil. That is good, isn’t it? This verse told me that Satan is the oppressor . . . Satan is the one who caused me to be born prematurely . . . Satan is the one who caused me to have a deformed heart . . . Satan is the one who caused my body to be almost totally paralyzed . . . Satan is the one who gave me an incurable blood disease . . . Satan is the one who kept me bound for 16 months on a bed of sickness.
But Jesus is the Deliverer! Jesus is the Lifegiver! Jesus is the Savior! Jesus is God manifested in the flesh! Hallelujah! I never was so thrilled with anything in my life as when I discovered this truth! Yes, God’s Word is truth. After I saw what the Bible said and received my healing, I crawled out of bed and said, “I am not going to die! I am going to live, and someday I am going to have a family—a wife and children.” I was 17 years old then—just a boy. I had never heard healing preached in my life.
My relatives warned me to be careful, but the Bible said it, I believed it, and that settled it. I told everyone I met what I was going to do. People did not want to believe my healing, however. They said I had stayed in bed so long that I had lost my mind. Today, I am the result of what I said in those days. I have enjoyed perfect health ever since. God gave me a lovely wife and family, and it has been Heaven all the way. Faith works. That is the reason I get happy preaching about it. I know what He has done for me.
We shared this wonderful story to help your faith grow in God. The story is found in the free eBook – Don’t Blame God by Kenneth E. Hagin. You can download the full copy at this website link.
