Yahweh-Rapha

The LORD that Healeth. This one has been popping up in my study of the names of God but I keep scrolling past it.

Honestly, I struggle with this one.

Next month will be 8 years of chronic pain.  I have asked the Lord a thousand times to fix it.  And He hasn’t.  Frankly, its frustrating.  I asked then if it could at least be diagnosed.  And I’m not.  Its embarrassing to have to explain to people that I can’t do certain things, or admit that I spent the day in bed, or that I couldn’t fall asleep at night from the pain, but I don’t know why.  I have a few close friends that I joke with about my “illness” and we laugh about it being an excuse for everything, but mostly, its just hard.  And I’m not healed.

And what about my friend who was sent home from the hospital to her four kids not being able to walk.  And told that its probably nothing.  Or my friend that just started being a friend but is now dying of cancer.  I’ve been thinking over this name of God in relation to those two women for a while now.  Why aren’t they healed?  Where is the Great Physician in all of this?

Then I started to actually study this out in depth.  Did you know the words “The Great Physician” cannot be found in the Bible?  Um, what?  I’ve been saved since I was a little girl and been studying and teaching the Bible for years and I fully expected that phrase to come up when I typed it in.  Nope.  Not there.  So I looked up physician.  There are actually only 11 verses that have the word physician(s) in them.  The times in the Gospels that Jesus refers to Himself as a physician, He’s talking to the Pharisees and telling them they need healing for their souls.  It actually has nothing to do with the physical body.  One other time He uses the word physician to say that the people are going to eventually tell Him to heal Himself.

Where The LORD that Healeth appears in the Bible is in Exodus 15.  The Israelites had just crossed the Red Sea on dry land.  In typical human fashion, they started complaining.  To be fair, they were in the desert and the water was bitter.  So the Lord told Moses to put a tree in the water and then it was drinkable.  More than that, it was sweet.  Then the Lord says that if they follow His commands, he will not bring on the diseases of the Egyptians and calls Himself the Lord that Healeth.

So where is all this going?  Why does it make a difference if we say the Lord that Healeth or the Great Physician.

Well, maybe it only makes a difference to me, but this study changed my whole thinking on this name.  You see, to me, doctors have failed me.  (If you’re a doctor reading this, I don’t hate you personally, I just dislike your profession.  No offence.)  I have been to doctor after doctor and had test after test and it has done exactly nothing for me.  So when I think of God as the Great Physician, it makes me think of Him as someone who has the ability to heal my body, but just decided not to.

But a healer is totally different.  A healer cares about much more than just the physical body.  He takes into account my emotional health, my mental health, and most importantly, my spiritual health.  And instead of just deciding not to heal my body, He is instead choosing not to heal it because,

He’s healing something else.

But He is always healing.

This is so profound for me because instead of focusing on what is not healing, I can focus on what is.

Because He is always working to heal me.

In some way.