Ridgell's Originals

Kent Brantly is healed.

It is amazing, wonderful, awesome, and a source of incredible happiness.

It is not surprising, shocking, or unexpected.

Kent Brantly is healed.  He was released from the hospital today.  His story has been all over the news.  His life threatened by Ebola, Kent has survived.  Many news outlets, commentaries, blogs, and social media have made much of this amazing story.  As a fellow Christian, I have been thrilled to see Kent and Amber living out their faith and giving God the glory, praise, and honor for his healing.

And it is amazing.  It looked for a long time as if he was going to die.  And now he is out of the hospital.  I join with people all over this world who are speaking of this "wonderful miracle".

But I am not surprised.  None of us Christians are.  It is what we expected.  That is what we prayed for.  We prayed for healing because we believed that was what God would do.  And he did.  Nothing surprising for us there.

Amber grew up in the church we attend.  We prayed constantly, earnestly, without ceasing.  We prayed as a community of faith publicly, and we each prayed constantly as individuals.  But so did thousands of other churches.  And millions of individuals.  And God answered our prayer.  Just like we expected.

And right about now is where some are thinking... BUT WHAT IF HE HAD DIED? What if God answered our prayers in a different way.  So let me tell you what we believe... and what Kent believes.

In the book of Daniel, some men of God were threatened with a fiery death if they did not worship the false gods of Nebuchadnezzar.  The stated that they believed their God was able to save them, but if he did not they still would worship only their God and not false Gods.

 Us too.  So the prayers offered for Kent were an act of faith in the one we believe always knows what is best.  Always.  We are praising God for healing Kent.  And if Kent had died, we would be praising God that someday we would be together again and that death does not have the final victory over a Christian.  Grieving, but weeping as believers with hope.

So we pray that God's will be done.  We know we are not God.  We know he knows things, sees things, plans things we do not even understand.  We operate totally under his will.

We know we have already passed from life to death.  We believe we were crucified with Christ when we were baptized into his death and buried with him in that baptism.  And then raised to a new life.  Real life that never ends.  We really believe this world is not our home.

This story is amazing.  But it is not about Kent and Amber.  They believe this was God. And that is what their families believe, and what their church believes.  After all, they believed it was God who brought them together and gave them a family for his glory.  And they believed it was God who called them to serve him in a hard an dangerous place for his glory.  And just like they believe this part of their lives is for God and his glory.

Just like my life.  And my family.  And my church.  And all of us Christians.  It is never about us.  Always about God and his son.

So for those that wonder how we could not be surprised... here is how my prayers went.

God, we love Kent and want him healed.  We do not know if medicine and Doctors can heal him.  But we know you can.  So we ask you to do that.  If in your will you do not answer the way we think best, we will still love you and praise you.  We will still believe.  But we ask you to heal him, and when you do we will give you all the praise and glory.  And we believe you will heal him.

AND NOW:  You did it God.  Just like we thought you would. Thank you, thank you, thank you.  Use Kent and Amber as witnesses to your power.  May your son be seen and glorified, and this world come to know him.  Use all of our stories to witness to your salvation.  You are our God forever.