Around Wycliffe I am sometimes seen as a bit dodgy because of my views about miraculous healing. I believe that when Christians ask God to physically, emotionally, spiritually, mentally or any other -ally heal somebody, they can do so in the confident expectation that God will do so. This is seen as dodgy or weird mainly because quite manifestly God does not always do so. Such a view is also sometimes associated with 'name it and claim it' theology which asserts that you can have anything you want if you just have enough faith that God will give it to you: health, wealth and happiness are yours from God's cosmic sweetshop in the sky.
Well, to some extent that is what I really do believe (except for the wealth part). Before you reach for your stones to throw at me, here's the reason.
The 'confident expectation' I mentioned above is a combination of two Christian virtues: faith and hope.
Christian faith is faith that God became human in Jesus because he loves us. In becoming human, God reveals to us what he is like in a way we can understand, i.e. in a human way. And one of the things that Jesus reveals is that God hates sickness and loves people. Jesus shows us, in short, that it is God's will to heal. If you believe that it is not God's will to heal, then you are in effect saying that Jesus does not really reveal God.
Christian hope is hope that in Jesus the kingdom of God has begun to break in. Therefore we can always trust that God wants things to be his way - on earth as it is in heaven. Sickness is not God's way, it is not part of God's plan of things. Hope is therefore the expectation that the kingdom of God (i.e. things being the way God wants them) can advance now, can break in now into our situation, into our lives and our needs. Hope refuses to be frightened into giving up by circumstances and experience. The challenge is always: will you let your experience dictate your theology or will you let the life of Jesus dictate your theology?
Does this mean that we should tell people that God will always heal them? No - this would be a lie (there are plenty of examples in the Bible where sick people are not healed). But it does mean that we should pray expecting God to do something, that we should believe that God really is interested in our lives, that we should hope against hope i.e. even when humanly speaking the situation is impossible - because all things are possible for God.