This Week

This week at praxis... God's HMO

Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them. ----Luke 6:17-19

 

Observing myself as well as others, I began to realize that there is a deep connection between our inner healing and our growing, healthy life of prayer and relationship. I began to realize that Jesus’ passion for healing was a tremendous aspect of his ministry and that this ministry is still his life and the center of his relationship with us. I began to realize that we have laid far too much stress on concern for sin rather than concern for inner wounds and that we have depended on good resolutions and willpower rather than on the healing, transforming touch of God.

----Flora Slosson Wuellner, Prayer, Stress, and our Inner Wounds

 

If Jesus, Muhammad, and Buddha had had penicillin, they probably would have used it – along with prayer. I believe that prayer and standard medical approaches can be used together. So, although this book deals with why prayer is good medicine, I am not suggesting that it is the only medicine or that it must be relied on instead of other medicines. Prayer is not "better" than modern medicine. Prayer, medications, and surgery – they are all a blessing, a grace, a gift. Why not use all of them, with reverence and gratitude?...

"Statistically, God is good f or you," says David B. Larson, M.D., of the National Institute for Healthcare Research in Rockville, Maryland, which studies the relationship between spirituality and health. Larson, a former senior researcher at the National Institute of Mental Health, says, "I was told by my [medical school] professors that religion is harmful. Then I looked at the research, and religion is actually highly beneficial. If you go to church or pray regularly, it’s very beneficial in terms of preventing illness, mental and physical, and you cope with illness much more effectively. If you look at the research, in area after area, it’s 80 percent beneficial. I was shocked."

----Larry Dossey, M.D., Prayer is Good Medicine

Diana Hydzik, a doctor in Chicago, sent me this story of her experience with a chronic and painful joint disease: ...Most significant, however, has been coming to see my illness as a crisis of my spirit: of coming to terms with my life experiences, my purpose, and the source of all existence. While I had had spiritual experiences with different healers prior to this year, my resistance to spirituality caused me to dismiss them as coincidences, which I was willing to use for healing but did not consider "real." I thought faith healing was effective for believers, but I was, after all, a scientist. I now believe that the spiritual work has been what truly brought healing, while all the supplements and treatments only gave me symptomatic relief – until I could accomplish the spiritual growth I needed.

----Andrew Weil, M.D. Eight Weeks to Optimum Health.

• How important do you think Jesus healing ministry was in the midst of all his work?
• Do you believe that faith healing is possible? Under what circumstances?
• How effective is prayer in our healing process?
• What do you think the relationship between medical practice and spirituality should be?

Do you think your faith or spirituality affects your health?