Written to a couple whose baby was born with deformed feet

My dear loved ones,

Our prayers are with you for your baby’s feet. The Lord has a promise for feet: “How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news, who proclaims peace, who brings glad tidings of good things, who proclaims salvation, who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns!’” (Isaiah 52:7).

Remember that nothing happens by accident! God has a purpose in everything, even if it is only to force us to exercise our faith for healing, and to demonstrate it for the encouragement of others. Maybe the Lord is going to give you such a ministry. He needs more Christians with gifts of healing, not only for our own sake, but to inspire the faith of unbelievers and to encourage them to trust in the Lord.

So “be not faithless, but believing” (John 20:27 KJV). In prayer for you and your child just now, the Lord reminded me of the following Bible verse, taken from the story of the blind man in the Gospel of John: “Neither this man nor his parents sinned, but that the works of God should be revealed in him” (John 9:3). Is anything too hard for the Lord? No, this is a small thing for the God of creation (Jeremiah 32:27). If He can create the baby, He certainly can straighten his feet. The One who made him can certainly fix him!

I suggest that you pray earnestly for your child to be healed, perhaps with others, and then expect a miracle! You do your part by praying, and the rest is up to God.

“With God nothing will be impossible,” and “all things are possible to him who believes” (Luke 1:37; Mark 9:23). Trust in the Lord. He never fails. “There has not failed one word of all His good promise” (1 Kings 8:56).

My family and I have had many serious diseases and injuries, but God has never failed to heal them. “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers him out of them all” (Psalm 34:19). When I was three years old, an automobile ran over my foot and severely damaged it. The doctors said that many of the bones in my foot were crushed, and that I would never walk again. But my parents believed God and prayed, and I’ve been walking ever since! The Lord healed it completely, just as though it had never been broken!

I once worked for one of the greatest Christians I have ever known, Dr. A.U. Michelson. I never knew a humbler, sweeter, more compassionate, loving and hard-working man. He was a famous missionary to his fellow Jews in America, He founded the world’s first Hebrew-Christian Synagogue, and produced a Gospel program that was heard on hundreds of radio stations around the world — a man who undoubtedly won thousands of people to the Lord, for which I’m sure he has been gloriously rewarded in Heaven!

There are no exceptions: God can heal anything!

Yet this dear man’s foot was pitifully deformed so that he had to hobble around on crutches, in constant pain. Maybe this is one reason he had such compassion on others. We comfort others with the same comfort we find in the Lord (2 Corinthians 1:4). How can we be more than conquerors? — By being good losers, and even praising God in our affliction! Dr. Michelson had miraculous faith for souls and for the finances needed to support missionaries around the world, and he prayed for many others who were healed, but he never seemed to have the faith for his own healing.

So who knows the will of God? All we can do is believe His promises and pray, and expect some kind of answer. Sometimes these things happen to draw us much closer to the Lord, to keep us humble and more dependent on Him, and sometimes they are to help us learn and grow spiritually. In any case, God has a loving purpose, and when we have learned the lesson that He’s trying to teach us or the conditions are ready for the result that He wants to bring, He says He would rather that we be healed (Hebrews 12:13). God prefers to heal. He wants to heal us, but He also wants us to learn through our afflictions, and He wants us to let them accomplish His purpose.

In some cases, it took years of patient waiting before Jesus or the disciples came along to bring people healing, but when the time was right, the Lord did the miracle — like the healing of the man who had been lame since birth, which resulted in the conversion of more than five thousand in a single day and launched the Early Church on paths of glory (Acts 3:1–12; 4:4). So expect a miracle for the glory of God!

Search the Scriptures and see what these verses mean: “The lame take the prey” (Isaiah 33:23). “The lame shall leap like a deer” (Isaiah 35:6). “But to you who fear My name the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings” (Malachi 4:2). Jesus even said that He caused the lame to walk, as one of the proofs of His messiahship (Matthew 11:5). He also promises: “I am the Lord who heals you” (Exodus 15:26), “who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases” (Psalm 103:3). There are no exceptions: God can heal anything!

The day of miracles is not past! Our God is still a God of miracles. In our day-to-day ministry, we’ve usually emphasized the miracles of salvation and the spiritual transformation of people’s lives, but God is still in the business of transforming the bodies that need it, as well as the hearts, minds and spirits.

I myself am a living witness to His healing power, having been given up for dead thirty years ago. At the age of twenty-two, my heart was in such bad condition that the doctors said if I would stay in bed, I might live a year. However, I promised to serve the Lord if He healed me — and I’ve been busy for Him ever since. Now at the age of fifty-two (1971), I’m in better health than ever. Jesus never fails! God not only can do it, but He wants to do it! He’s more willing to give than we are to receive.

“Therefore do not cast away your confidence, which has great reward. For you have need of endurance, so that after you have done the will of God, you may receive the promise” (Hebrews 10:35–36). Believe God! He never fails — even when we are faithless! Hold Him to His Word. He says, “Command Me” (Isaiah 45:11). Demand and expect an answer! God has promised it.

And remember that “all things work together for good to those who love God” (Romans 8:28), and that this, too, has befallen you for the glory of God. Love and trust and praise Him more than ever, and I know He’ll not fail. He cannot deny Himself. He is bound by His Word. Remind Him of it, cling to His promises, memorize and quote them continually, and never doubt for a moment that God is going to answer — and He will! He has to! He wants to! Trust Him! And thank Him for the answer, even if you don’t see it immediately! Your faith is much more precious than gold (1 Peter 1:7). God bless you! I’m praying for you.

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