Perseverence

Here's a weird little story.  On Monday I had awful hayfever,  every year I get it for about a week and it sucks.  Anyway,  I was lying in bed, bunged up and snotty and Helen asked if she could pray for me.  She put her hand on my nose (bold, given the amount of nastiness) and had a little pray.  Straight away there was change,  exactly one half of my face got completely better!  My left sinus stopped hurting and my nose was cleared,  the right hand side stayed exactly the same.  We were tired so I accepted that as gift from God and went to sleep 50% more comfortable and 50% still blah. Funny.

Since then I've been thinking; why did that happen?  Its an experience that's not unique.  Often when I pray for people that Jesus would heal them they tell me things immediately get better; not totally but substantially improved.  I talked to a friend recently who has been asking God for some big provision too - car MOT,  holiday, that kind of thing - and been finding that he's giving them about 1/2 the provision.  The rest they have to save for or work for.

Why is that?  I don't know.  But I have to admit I quite like it.  I guess it fits with the weird life we live right now where we are in the kingdom of God and at the same time waiting for it.   The trouble is that there is still this gap with what I see in the bible stories (everyone who came to Jesus gets healed,  everyone gets what they need in terms of provision) and my experience.  Maybe God allows that frustration at times to keep us hungry,  to keep us going back and persevering but he also gives enough so that we'd keep hope and keep going.

The only bible story I can think of where this sort of happens are in Mark 8 where Jesus heals the blind guy.  First time he puts his hands on the guys eyes and he can see things like trees walking around,  second time he does it and the guy can copletely see again.  I guess its encouraging that even Jesus had to persevere.

Whatever,  I am increasingly confident that God wants to do good things with people,  he wants to heal,  he wants to provide,  he loves.  I'm excited I'm starting to see of that happen in my own life and at the same frustrated that its still only partial.  I'm going to keep asking him to help me and I'm going to persevere.