How to Use Faith in Healing
Is RELIGIOUS FAITH a factor in healing? Important evidence indicates that it is.
There was a time in my own experience when I was not convinced of this, but now I am, and that very definitely. I have seen too many evidences to believe otherwise. We are learning that faith properly understood and applied is a powerful factor in overcoming disease and establishing health.
My conviction regarding this important question is shared by many medical men.
Newspapers carried an account of the visit to this country of the famous Viennese surgeon, Dr. Hans Finsterer. I quote the newspaper story which was headed "Honor Surgeon ‘Guided by God.’ "
A Viennese doctor. Dr. Hans Finsterer, who believes ‘the unseen hand of God’ helps make an operation successful, was selected by the International College of Surgeons for its highest honor, ‘master of surgery.’ He was cited for his work in abdominal surgery with the use of local anesthesia only.
Finsterer, seventy-two-year-old professor at the University of Vienna, has performed more than 20,000 major operations, among them 8,000 gastric resections (removal of part or all of the stomach) using only local anesthesia. Finsterer said that although considerable progress has been made in medicine and surgery in the past few years ‘all advances are not sufficient in themselves to insure a happy outcome in every operation.’ In many instances," he said, "in what appeared to be simple surgical procedures the patients died, and in some cases where the surgeon despaired
of a patient there was recovery.
"Some of our colleagues attribute these things to unpredictable chance, while others are convinced that in those difficult cases their work has been aided by the unseen hand of God. Of late years, unfortunately, many patients and doctors have lost the conviction that all things depend on the providence of God."
"When we are once again convinced of the importance of God’s help in our activities, and especially in the treatment of our patients, then true progress will have been accomplished in restoring the sick to health."
So concludes the account of a great surgeon who combines his science with faith. I spoke at the national convention of an important industry. It was a large gathering of the leaders in an amazingly creative merchandising enterprise that has established this particular industry as a vital factor in American business life.
I was somewhat surprised when one of the leaders of this organization at the convention luncheon where the discussion centered around taxation, rising costs, and business problems, turned to me and asked, "Do you believe that faith can heal?"
"There are a good many well-authenticated examples on record of people who have been healed by faith," I answered. "Of course, I do not think we should depend on faith alone to heal a physical ailment. I believe in the combination of God and the doctor. This viewpoint takes advantage of medical science and the science of faith, and both are elements in the healing process."
"Let me tell you my story," the man continued. "A number of years ago I had a malady that was diagnosed as osteoma of the jaw, that is, a bone tumor on my jaw. The doctors told me it was practically incurable. You can imagine how that disturbed me.
Desperately I sought for help. Although I had attended church with fair regularity, still I was not a particularly religious man. I scarcely ever read the Bible. One day, however, as I lay in my bed it occurred to me that I would like to read the Bible, and I asked my wife to bring one to me. She was very surprised, for I had never before made such a request."
"I began to read, and found consolation and comfort. I also became a bit more hopeful and less discouraged. I continued to read for extended periods every day. But that wasn’t the chief result. I began to notice that the condition which had troubled me was growing less noticeable. At first I thought I imagined this, then I became convinced that some change was taking place in me."
"One day while reading the Bible I had a curious inward feeling of warmth and great happiness. It is difficult to describe, and long ago I gave over trying to explain the feeling. From that time on my improvement was more rapid. I went back to the doctors who had first diagnosed my case. They examined me carefully. They were obviously surprised and agreed that my condition had improved, but warned me that this was only a temporary respite. Later, however, upon further examination, it was determined that the symptoms of osteoma had disappeared entirely. Still the doctors told me it would probably start all over again. This did not disturb me, for in my heart I knew that I was healed."
"How long has it been since your healing?" I asked.
"Fourteen years," was the answer.
I studied this man. Strong, sturdy, healthy, he is one of the outstanding men in his industry. The incident was told to me in the factual way that a businessman would recount it. There was not the slightest indication of doubt in this man’s mind. Indeed how could there be, for whereas he had been condemned to death, here he was alive and vigorous.
What did it? The skillful work of the physician plus! And what was the plus?
Obviously the faith that heals.
The healing described by this gentleman is but one of many similar accounts, and so many of them are attested by competent medical evidence that it seems we must encourage people to make greater use of the amazing power of faith in healing. Sadly the healing element in faith has suffered neglect. I am certain that faith can and does work what we call "miracles" but which are, in truth, the operation of spiritually scientific laws.
There is a growing emphasis in present-day religious practice which is designed to help people find healing from the sicknesses of mind, heart, soul, and body. This is a return to the original practice of Christianity. Only in recent times have we tended to overlook the fact that for centuries religion carried on healing activities. The very word "pastor" derives from a word meaning "the cure of souls." In modern times, however, man made the false assumption that it is impossible to harmonize the teachings of the Bible with what is called "science" and so the
healing emphasis of religion was abandoned almost entirely to materialistic science. Today, however, the close association of religion and health is increasingly recognized.
It is significant that the word "holiness" derives from a word meaning "wholeness" and the word "meditation," usually used in a religious sense, closely resembles the root meaning of the word "medication." The affinity of the two words is startlingly evident when we realize that sincere and practical meditation upon God and His truth acts as a medication for the soul and body.
Present-day medicine emphasizes psychosomatic factors in healing, thus recognizing the relationship of mental states to bodily health. Modern medical practice realizes and takes into consideration the close connection between how a man thinks and how he feels. Since religion deals with thought and feeling and basic attitudes, it is only natural that the science of faith should be important in the healing process.
Harold Sherman, author and playwright, was asked to revise an important radio presentation with the promise that he would be contracted as the permanent writer. After some months of work, he was dismissed and his material used without credit.
This resulted in financial difficulty and humiliation. The injustice rankling in his mind developed into a growing bitterness against the radio executive who had broken faith with him. Mr. Sherman declares that this is the one time in his life when he had murder in his heart. His hatred made him subject to a physical affliction in the form of a mycosis, a fungus growth which attacked the membranes of his throat. The best medical attention was secured, but something in addition was required. When he gave up his hate and developed a feeling of forgiveness and understanding, the condition gradually corrected itself. With the aid of medical science and a new mental attitude, he was healed of his affliction.
A sensible and effective pattern for health and happiness is to utilize the skills and methods of medical science to the fullest possible extent and at the same time apply the wisdom, the experience, and the techniques of spiritual science. There is impressive evidence to support the belief that God works through both the practitioner of science, the doctor, and the practitioner of faith, the minister. Many physicians join in this point of view.
At a Rotary Club luncheon I sat at a table with nine other men, one of them a physician who had recently been discharged from military service and had resumed his civilian practice. He said, "Upon my return from the Army, I noticed a change in my patients’ troubles. I found that a high percentage do not need medicine but better thought patterns. They are not sick in their bodies so much as they are sick in their thoughts and emotions. They are all mixed up with fear thoughts, inferiority feelings, guilt, and resentment. I found that in treating them I needed to be about
as much a psychiatrist as a physician, and then I discovered that not even those therapies helped me fully to do my job. I became aware that in many cases the basic trouble with people was spiritual. So I found myself frequently quoting the Bible to them. Then I fell into the habit of ‘prescribing’ religious and inspirational books, especially those that give guidance in how to live."
Directing his statements to me, he said, "It’s about time you ministers began to realize that in the healing of many people you, too, have a function to perform. Of course you are not going to overlap on the work of the physician any more than we shall intrude on your function, but we doctors need the co-operation of ministers in helping people find health and well-being."
I received a letter from a physician in an upstate New York town who said, "Sixty per cent of the people in this town are sick because they are maladjusted in their minds and in their souls. It is hard to realize that the modern soul is sick to such an extent that the physical organs pain. I suppose in time," continues the doctor, "that ministers, priests, and rabbis will understand this relationship."
This physician was kind enough to say that he prescribes my book, A Guide to Confident Living, and other similar books to his patients and that noteworthy results have been achieved thereby.
The manager of a Birmingham, Alabama, bookstore sent me a prescription form made out by a physician of that city to be filled not at a drugstore, but at her book store. He prescribes specific books for specific troubles.
Dr. Carl R. Ferris, formerly president of the Jackson County Medical Society of Kansas City, Missouri, with whom I had the pleasure of appearing on a joint health-and-happiness radio program, declared that in treating human ills the physical and spiritual are often so deeply interrelated that there is often no clearly defined dividing line between the two.
Years ago my friend, Dr. Clarence W. Lieb, pointed out to me the effect on health of spiritual and psychiatric problems, and through his wise guidance I began to see that fear and guilt, hate and resentment, problems with which I was dealing, were often closely connected with problems of health and physical well-being. So profoundly does Dr. Lieb believe in this therapy that he with Dr. Smiley Blanton inaugurated the religio-psychiatric clinic which for years has ministered to hundreds at the Marble Collegiate Church in New York.
The late Dr. William Seaman Bainbridge and I worked closely together in the relationship of religion and surgery, and we were able to bring health and new life to many.
Two of my medical friends in New York, Dr. Z. Taylor Bercovitz and Dr. Howard Westcott, have been of inestimable help in my pastoral work through their wisely scientific and yet deeply spiritual understanding of the ills of the body, mind, and soul as related to faith.
"We have discovered the psychosomatic cause of high blood pressure as some form of subtle, repressed fear—a fear of things that might happen, not of things that are," says Dr. Rebecca Beard. "They are largely fears of things in the future. In that sense, therefore, they are imaginary, for they may never happen at all. In the case of diabetes, it is grief or disappointment which we found uses up more energy than any other emotion, thereby exhausting the insulin which is manufactured by the pancreas cells until they are worn out."
"Here we find the emotions involved in the past—reliving the past and not being able to go forward into life. The medical world can give relief in disorders like these. They can give something that can lower the blood pressure when it is high, or raise it when it is low, but not permanently. They can give insulin which will burn up more sugar into energy and give the diabetic relief. These are definite aids, but they do not offer complete cure. No drug or vaccine has been discovered to protect us from our own emotional conflicts. A better understanding of our own emotional selves and a return to religious faith seem to form the combination that holds the greatest promise of permanent help to any of us."
"The answer," Dr. Beard concludes, "is in the healing teachings of Jesus." Another efficient woman physician wrote me of her own development in combining the therapy of medicine and faith. "I became interested in your straightforward religious philosophy. I had been working at top speed and getting tense, irritable, and at times beset with old fears and guilts, in fact in need of a release from morbid tension. At a low moment early one morning I picked up your book and began to read it. This was the prescription that I needed. Here was God, the great Physician, with faith in Him as an antibiotic to kill the germs of fear and render useless the virus of guilt."
"I began to practice the good Christian principles outlined in your book. Gradually there came a release of tension and I felt relaxed and happier and I slept well. I quit taking vitamin and pep pills. Then," she adds, and this is what I want to emphasize, "I began to feel that I wanted to share this new experience with my patients, those who came to me with neuroses. I was surprised to find how many had read your book and others. The patient and I seemed to have a common around to work on. It has been an enriching experience. To talk about a faith in God has become a natural and easy thing to do."
"As a doctor," she adds, "I have seen a number of miraculous recoveries due to Divine aid being given. In the past few weeks I have had an additional experience. My sister had to undergo a serious operation about three weeks ago. Following the operation she developed an intestinal obstruction. On her fifth day she was very critically ill, and as I left the hospital at noon I realized that she must take a turn for the better very soon or her hope of recovery would be slim. I was very worried, so I drove slowly around for about twenty minutes praying for a relief of
this obstruction. (Everything that could be done medically was being taken care of.) I had not been home more than ten minutes when the phone rang and her nurse told me that the obstruction had relieved itself and that she had taken a definite turn for the better, and since that time she has recovered completely. Could I feel otherwise than that God’s intervention had saved her life?"
So runs the letter of a successful practicing physician.
In the light of this viewpoint based on a strictly common-sense scientific attitude we may approach the phenomenon of healing through faith with credibility. If I did not believe sincerely that the faith factor in healing is sound I would certainly not develop the point of view contained in this chapter.
Over a period of time I have received from many readers and radio listeners as well as from my own parishioners accounts of healings in which the element or faith has been present. I have meticulously investigated many of these to satisfy my own mind as to their truthfulness. Also I wanted to be able to declare to the most cynical that here is a way of health, happiness, and successful living which is so buttressed by evidence that only the person who wants to remain ill because of some subconscious will-to-fail attitude will ignore his possibilities for health implied in these experiences.
The formula which these many incidents together present is briefly stated—the employment of all the resources of medical and psychological science combined with the resources of spiritual science. This is a combination of therapies that can surely bring health and well- being if it is the plan of God for the patient to live. Obviously for each of us there comes a time for this mortal life to end (life itself never ends, only the earthly phase of it).
We in the so-called old-line churches have, in my humble judgment, missed one of our greatest possible contributions by failing to point out with positiveness that there is a sound message of health in Christianity, Failing to find this emphasis in the church, groups, organizations, and other spiritual bodies have been created to supply this deficiency in Christian teaching. But there is no longer any valid reason why all the churches should not recognize that which is uthenticated, namely, that there is healing in faith and more generally offer sound healing techniques to our people. Fortunately everywhere today throughout our religious organizations thoughtful, scientifically minded spiritual leaders are taking that extra step of faith based on the facts (and the Scriptures) and are making available to the people as never before the formulas of the marvelous healing grace of Jesus Christ.
In all of the investigations I have made into successful cases of healing, there seems to be certain factors present. First, a complete willingness to surrender oneself into the hands of God. Second, a complete letting go of all error such as sin in any form and a desire to be cleansed in the soul. Third, belief and faith in the combined therapy of medical science in harmony with the healing power of God. Fourth, a sincere willingness to accept God’s answer, whatever it may be, and no
irritation or bitterness against His will. Fifth, a substantial, unquestioning faith that God can heal.
In all these healings there seems to be an emphasis upon warmth and light and a feeling of assurance that power has passed through. In practically every case that I have examined, in one form or another, the patient talks about a moment when there was warmth, heat, beauty, peace, joy, and a sense of release. Sometimes it has been a sudden experience; other times a more gradual unfolding of the conviction that the healing has occurred.
Always in my investigation of these matters I have waited for elapsed time to prove that the healing is permanent and those cases which I report are not based on any temporary improvement which might conceivably be the result of a momentary resurgence of strength.
For example, may I relate a healing experience written for me by a woman whose reliability and judgment I profoundly respect. Documentation in this case is thorough-going and scientifically impressive. This woman was told that an immediate operation was necessary to remove a growth which had been diagnosed as malignant. I quote her exact words: "All precautionary treatments were taken, but the manifestations returned. As may be expected, I was terrified; I knew further
hospital treatments were futile. There was no hope, so I turned to God for help. A very consecrated and spiritual child of God helped me by prayer to realize that the right knowledge of God and His healing Christ would help me too. I was most receptive to this kind of thinking, and placed myself in God’s hands."
‘I had asked for this help one morning, as usual, and spent the day going about my household duties, which were many at that time. I was preparing the evening meal, all alone in the kitchen. I was aware of an unusually bright light in the room and felt a pressure against my whole left side, as though a person were standing very close beside me. I had heard of healings; I knew prayers were being offered in my behalf, so I decided this must be the healing Christ who was with me.
"I decided to wait until morning, to be sure; if the symptoms of the trouble were gone, then I would know. By morning, the improvement was so noticeable, and I was so free in my mind, that I was certain, and reported to my friend that the healing had taken place."
"The memory of that healing and the presence of Christ are as fresh in my mind today as then. That was fifteen years ago, and my health steadily improved until I am in excellent condition now."
In many heart cases the therapy of faith (a quiet, serene faith in Jesus Christ) undoubtedly stimulates healing. People who experience "a heart attack" who thereupon’ thoroughly and completely practice faith in Christ’s healing grace, observing at the same time the rules prescribed by their physicians, report remarkable recovery histories. Perhaps such a person may even gain a greater degree of health than previously for having learned his limitations and, realizing the excess strains he has been placing upon himself, now conserves his strength. But more than that he has learned one of the greatest techniques of human well-being, that of surrendering himself to the recuperative power of God. This is done by consciously attaching himself to the creative process through mentally conceiving of recreative forces as operating within himself. The patient opens his consciousness to the tides of vitality and recreative energy inherent in the universe which have been barred from his life through tension, high pressure, and
other departures from the laws of well-being.
An outstanding man suffered a heart attack about thirty-five years ago. He was told that he would never be able to work again. The orders were that he must spend much of his time in bed. He would likely be an invalid the remainder of his days, which days would be relatively few in number, so he was informed. It is doubtful whether such statements would be made to him in present-day medical practice. At any rate he listened to these dire prophecies about his future and considered them carefully.
One morning he awakened early and picked up his Bible and by chance (or was it chance?) opened it to the account of one of the healings of Jesus. He also read the statement, "Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and today and forever." (He 13:8) It occurred to him that if Jesus could and did heal people long ago, and that if He is the same as He was then, why couldn’t He heal today? "Why cannot Jesus heal me?" he asked. Then faith welled up within him.
Therefore, with simple confidence, he asked the Lord to heal him. He seemed to hear Jesus say, "Believest thou that I can do this?" And his answer was, "Yes, Lord, I believe that You can."
He closed his eyes and "seemed to feel the touch of the healing Christ upon his heart." All that day he had a strange sense of rest. As the days passed he became convinced that there was a rising tide of strength within him. Finally one day he prayed, "Lord, if it is Your will tomorrow morning I am going to get dressed, go outside, and within a few days I am going back to work. I put myself completely in Your care. If I should die tomorrow as a result of the increased activity, I want to thank You for all the wonderful days I have had. With You to help me, I shall start out tomorrow and You will be with me all day long. I believe I will have sufficient strength, but if I should die as a result of this effort, I will be with You in eternity, and all will be well in either case."
In this calm faith he increased his activities as the days passed. He followed this formula every day for the entire period of his active career, which numbered thirty years from the date of his heart attack. He retired at seventy-five. Few men I have known have been more vigorous in their undertakings or have made a greater contribution to human welfare. Always, however, he conserved his physical and nervous strength. It was invariably his habit to lie down and rest after lunch, and he never allowed himself to get under stress. He was early to bed and early up, always employing rigorous and disciplinary rules of living.
In all his activities there was an absence of worry, resentment, and tension. He worked hard but easily. The doctors were right. Had he continued according to the debilitating habits of his earlier life he would probably have long since been dead or at least an invalid. The advice of the physicians brought him to the point where the healing work of Christ could be accomplished. Without the heart attack he would not have been mentally or spiritually ready for healing.
Another friend of mine, a prominent businessman, suffered a heart attack. For weeks he was confined to his bed, but presently returned to his important responsibilities where he now accomplishes all that he ever did previously, but with much less tension. He seems to possess a new power that he did not enjoy before. His recovery proceeded from a definite and scientific spiritual approach to his health problem. He had competent physicians and followed their directions explicitly, which is an a important factor in such situations,
In addition to the program of medication and treatment, however, he worked out a spiritual healing formula. He outlined it as follows, writing from the hospital "An intimate friend of mine, only twenty-five years old, was brought into the hospital with an attack similar to mine and died within four hours. Two acquaintances of mine have suffered a similar fate in rooms near by. It must be that I have work yet to do. So I shall return and apply myself to the tasks before me with the expectation of living longer and more abundantly than I might have done without this experience. The doctors were wonderful, the nurses grand, the hospital ideal."
He then proceeds to outline the technique of spiritual convalescence which he employed. The formula consists of three parts. "(1) During the first stages, when absolute rest was demanded, I heeded the admonition of the, Psalmist, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’ " (Ps 46:10) That is to say, he completely relaxed and rested in the hands of God. "(2) As the days grew brighter, I used the affirmation, ‘Wait on the Lord: be of good courage, and he shall strengthen thine heart.’ "( Ps 27:14) The patient put his heart under the care of God and God placed His hand of healing
upon his heart and renewed it. "(3) Finally with the return of strength came a new assurance and confidence to which I, . gave expression in the affirmation, ‘I can do all things through Christ which strengthened! me.’"( Php 4:13) In this he affirmed positively that strength was being conferred upon him and in so doing he received new power.
In this three-point formula this man found healing. The able ministrations of his physicians conserved and stimulated the healing forces of his physical being. The equally wise application of faith completed his recovery by stimulating the spiritual powers within his nature. The two therapies together draw upon the two great renewal forces within our life, one the recuperative power of the human body and the other the restorative forces resident within the mind. One responds to medical treatment, the other to faith treatment, and God presides in both areas. He
made both body and mind and He established the processes of health and well-being governing both. "... in Him we live and move and have our being." (Ac 17:28) In the prevention of sickness and in healing mind and body, do not fail to draw upon one of the greatest resources available to you—the faith that heals.
In the light of the principles outlined in this chapter, what can you do of a constructive nature when a loved one or you are ill? Following are eight practical suggestions:
1. Follow the advice of a prominent medical school head who said, "In sickness, send for your minister even as you send for your doctor." In other words, believe that spiritual forces as well as medical technique are important in healing,
2. Pray for the doctor. Realize that God uses trained human instrumentality to aid His healing powers. As one doctor has put it, "We treat the patient and God heals him." Pray, therefore, that the doctor may be an open channel of God’s healing grace.
3. Whatever you do, do not become panicky or filled with fear, for if you do, you will send out negative thoughts and therefore destructive thoughts in the direction of your loved one when he requires positive and healing thoughts to assist him.
4. Remember that God does nothing except by law. Also remember that our little materialistic laws are only fragmentary revelations of the great power flowing through the universe. Spiritual law also governs illness. God has arranged two remedies for all illness. One is healing through natural laws applicable by science, and the other brings healing by spiritual law applicable through faith.
5. Completely surrender your loved one into the hands of God. By your faith you can place him in the flow of Divine power. There is healing there, but in order for it to be effective the patient must be completely released to the operation of God’s will. This is difficult to understand and equally difficult to perform, but it is a fact that if the great desire for the loved one to live is matched with an equally great willingness to relinquish him to God, healing powers are amazingly set in motion.
6. It is also important that harmony prevail in the family, that is, a spiritual harmony. Remember the emphasis in the scripture, Mt 18:19: "If two of you shall agree on earth as touching anything that they shall ask, it shall be done for them of my Father which is in heaven." Apparently disharmony and disease are akin.
7. Form a picture in your mind of the loved one as being well. Visualize him in perfect health. Picture him as radiant with the love and goodness of God. The conscious mind may suggest sickness, even death, but nine tenths of your mind is in the subconscious. Let the picture of health sink into the subconscious and this powerful part of your mind will send forth radiant health energy. What we believe in the subconscious we usually get. Unless your faith controls the subconscious, you will never get any good thing, for the subconscious gives back only that which your real thought is. If the real thought is negative, the results will also be negative. If the real thought is positive, you will get positive and healing results.
8. Be perfectly natural. Ask God to heal your loved one. That is what you want with all your heart, so ask Him please to do it, but we suggest that you say PLEASE Just once. Thereafter in your prayer, thank Him for His goodness. This affirmative being will help to release deep spiritual power and also joy through reassurance of God’s loving care. This joy will sustain you, and remember that joy itself possesses healing power.
(Source: Power of Positive Thinking by Norman Vincent Peale)
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