One cannot heal by oneself, for no human being can truly heal without God—Jesus Christ alone can heal, His children only with and through Him. In this way the Lord’s apostles can testify to the power of His love.
This is the secret of healing: that the child of God makes himself available to Jesus, serves Him as an instrument, and at the same time is himself permeated and finds redemption in the healing ray of Jesus Christ’s love.
Healing, then, is possible only when a human being unites with Jesus in love—in the consciousness that there is only one power and one mercy, and that is Jesus Christ. All compassion we feel is God’s presence in our hearts. Without Him we would be cold as stone. In this awareness of how deeply our heavenly Father loves all people, we place our hands in spirit, or actually, on or over the head or the affected place of the person concerned and say:
‘Dear brother, dear sister—or dear animal as well—Jesus loves you. May He bless you and heal your body and your soul.’ Then you place the fate of that person or animal entirely into Jesus’ hand and heart. You must truly let go with the words: ‘My Father, not My will but Your will be done.’ Then Jesus will be there and permeate what is happening.
But what meaning and purpose do illness and distress have?—for nothing happens without reason or arbitrarily.
When we or those we love are ill or in a difficult life situation, we usually ask why. Why does God allow this or that?! This question bundles our energy and carries us away from the actual meaning and purpose of the distress and of the fateful challenge of existence. We should therefore not ask, ‘Why?!’ but rather, ‘What is it good for? Where is it meant to lead me? What does God want of me?’
Nor should we first and foremost fight against it and expend our energy on eliminating an illness or a conflict situation by every means, or on finding its supposed cause. In distress it is always first of all a matter of coming closer to God. It is that simple.
So when we are ill or existential hardships burden us, we should give God the honor in them and not call His action into question. We should use our helplessness to allow humility—and not raise complaints against our fate in fear, self-will, and pride. We should learn to trust Jesus Christ in life and death. Nevertheless, we may and can ask the Father to free us from an illness or lead us out of distress, for at the request of a child who loves Him He will act extraordinarily.
In illness or after an accident, one may of course seek a doctor according to one’s individual physical condition, faith, and awareness of God’s presence; sometimes this is absolutely necessary. Each person must decide this for himself, however.
It takes a great measure of trust in God to surrender oneself completely to Jesus Christ, or to a healer in God’s service, in a fatal illness or another life-threatening situation. That does not work if one drags God along beside the world. It does not work if one loves the world more than God. It does not work if one continues to reserve worldly pleasures and rights for oneself and thinks that an occasional luminous state of faith is enough for comprehensive protection because the Father is merciful and good. There must be an actual surrender which, from then on, even if gradually yet decisively, tolerates no hidden habits or qualities contrary to God. This must be clear and unambiguous for the human being and for God.
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If, for example, you bump your head or break something, you feel the pain immediately. If you eat wrongly, you may not develop pancreatic cancer until twenty years later, or a smoker may develop lung cancer in old age.
As in matter, so it is also in the realm of the soul. Some effects of good or bad, or misguided, thinking and acting are felt immediately; others take effect only after months or years, or do not appear until old age—or in existence beyond this world.
Fundamentally, it is usually the effects of going astray in the present incarnation that one experiences, and not, as is often portrayed, those from an earlier earthly existence; for the latter is comparatively rare, even if one does not see it that way or does not wish to see it that way. It is easier and more pleasant to relate difficult circumstances of life to a long-past existence than to look at oneself in the present, admit misguided behavior, and act accordingly.
Yet the weak points and faulty attitudes of our souls are so well disguised beneath the cloak of worldly intellectual activity, psychological rules of behavior, and the accompanying justification that we can see them only with a proper attitude of humility in Jesus’ light of love. As a rule this happens step by step, for if we could suddenly see ourselves in the light of truth, we would be ashamed before the whole world and hide, because there is still so much misguided and false material in the abysses of our souls that has a negative effect on our present life (this will, however, happen during the three days of darkness, when God comes and, as truth, permeates human souls).
In souls that have already lived once or twice on this Earth, an earlier earthly life can be the trigger for a particular challenging experience which, when rightly recognized and understood, always bears within it the power of redemption. On this the Father says that only about 1–2% of the Earth’s population incarnate here repeatedly. With the present nearly eight billion, that is not a small number either: after all, about 80–150 million.
In illnesses or disabilities present from birth, sinful lives of parents or ancestors can be the cause. Here, through a Christian way of life, the person affected can help redeem his entire ancestral line as well.
With souls called by God who, during awakening, training, and maturation, continue to sin even though they already dwell at the heart of the heavenly Father, He takes the sins upon Himself; as far as possible He takes His child out of the universal law of cause and effect. This is the grace and mercy in which Jesus Christ envelops His struggling child. The love of the Godhead (the Father in Jesus Christ) protects His child from the all-judging divine lawfulness and the inviolable holiness of the Godhead. Yet the Father occasionally gives His child a small cross to bear, whose weight He Himself determines; He places, as it were, the stern effect of the cause into His heart and unites it with His mercy.
Then there are evil people who continually harm others yet remain healthy to the end of their lives and are even overtaken by a quick death. Through them the Father tests, on the one hand, our self-righteousness and our readiness for selfless love; on the other hand, for reasons of divine wisdom, these people experience the consequences of their reprehensible conduct only in the beyond.
So are there chance and arbitrariness? Yes, certainly for people of the world. They are helplessly exposed to the godless activity on the surface of material existence. The Father does not look there, for He does not wish to be seen; therefore merciless storms of fate determine the life—really the death—of God’s creatures.
It is not so with His children. They too live amid the storms of the world, but according to their trust, surrender, and love for Jesus Christ, everything that happens to them first passes through His heart. He looks very closely; more than that, He is with His children, He knows all their worries and fears, and He has only one need and one goal: He wants to redeem His children from all their distress and suffering. He permits only what is absolutely necessary for their liberation. Or, for their protection, He takes them home to the spiritual homeland by means of a short illness.
Is an illness or an accident then caused by ourselves or by God? Where is the difference? Within us operates the universal divine law of cause and effect, which fundamentally always seeks to correct and heal. One’s own cause determines the divine effect, one way or another. As a creature, within the lawful severity of God; as a child, within the loving mercy of the heavenly Father. As an undecided or lukewarm Christian, life is a stormy back and forth between divine law and fatherly mercy—and the human being does not really know what determines his fate. This is why it is so important to enter wholly into God’s heart and, there, in childlike humility, let oneself fall into His love. Then all will be well.
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