Faith and Health

As a Christian, I know that I cannot save you.  Only Christ can do that.  I can, however, lead you to Christ where you can be saved. Most Christians see it this way and understand that they do not actually save people.  God Saves!

For me healing is the same way.  As good as a chiropractor as I might be, I cannot heal even the simplest of problems.  In fact, no doctor can heal or cure you. There has never been a doctor at any time in any place who has healed or cured anything.

Who heals you ask?  The answer is the same, God does.  You see, if I could heal, then I could walk into a funeral home, give a great adjustment to a corpse and the person would rise and walk again.

What is required for healing is the one thing that only God puts in you, Life itself.  So what do I, or any doctor for that matter do?  Well the best we can do is to remove obstructions from that God-given ability to heal, that everyone already possesses.

Each one of us can heal just as long as there is life in our body.  The human body is a wonderful creation of mechanisms that control every aspect of health and healing.  As a chiropractor, I remove interference to the nervous system that controls all function in the boy, thus allowing the body to heal. 

Even a surgeon, faced with a patient with a bullet wound, can only remove the bullet, the obstruction to healing.  Then it is up to the body’s own God-given ability to heal the wound caused by the surgeon.

People often underestimate the amazing ability God has built into our bodies to heal and be healthy. All too often we, as a society, turn to drugs and procedures that do not heal and in fact decrease health.  Fear, and lack of faith in our God-given healing power are often the reason that people turn outside first, instead of looking for a healing answer within.

For over 30 years I have been blessed to see what many may call miracles. People call them miracles because they did not expect the result.  I just call it another day in the office.  Maybe it is because I expect miracles.  I see life itself as a miracle.  My job is simply to remove interference from the God-given ability to heal, and watch the “miracles” unfold.  

Many Pray – Few Listen. Nowhere is this more true than with health. I have noticed over the years that one of the things that people pray for the most is health. In many Sunday church services, there is a time where the congregation prays for the health of people in their church, community or family. One of the most heart wrenching prayers has to be one where someone is praying to God for help with a health problem they themselves are suffering with.

I can recall years ago a young couple that came to me in search of an answer for a very painful spinal problem the young man was experiencing. They mentioned that they felt God had sent them in to see me. The young man was scheduled to have surgery in four days, and he had come to me as a last resort. Since he had never been to a chiropractor before, he was skeptical, as are many people new to chiropractic. 

After performing an examination and x-rays I determined that although he was in a lot of pain, the underlying cause of his problems was actually a relatively common problem that we see in my office and that correction would not be overly difficult. I explained to him and his young wife that I felt fairly confident of a positive outcome, as I had seen this type of problem many times before. I then asked him if he wanted to start care immediately.

I was a little disappointed when he did not want to start care but said that he would need to pray on this further. After all, he did say he felt God had sent him to me, so in my mind what else was there to wait for? I then expected the young couple to go home and pray on the situation. To my surprise, they grabbed my hands and started praying with me right there. Since I’m always up for a good prayer, I was happy to join in.

In their prayer, they asked for God's guidance on where they should go. I thought to myself that God had already given them that answer. Then they asked for an solution for the young man’s problem. Again, my thoughts were that this prayer had just been answered for them. Then they asked for God to create a healing in him for this problem. Now since I believe only God heals, this prayer has been answered since the moment the young man came into this world.

After they finished their prayer, they then left without receiving any care. I felt that maybe my explanation was inadequate, or I had failed them in some way, as I was sure that the young man could be helped and could be spared the ordeal of spinal surgery. Fortunately, the next day they returned, he started care, and within two days he was feeling good enough to cancel the surgery. He went on to have a full recovery. Additionally, his wife also started care. She was unable to conceive after trying for several years. Within a few months of chiropractic care, she became pregnant.

I mention this story to make a point about how many people pray. It has been my experience that many people pray, but only want to hear the answer they expect. I’ve heard prayers by people asking for a drug to help them, when in my opinion; God has given us a body that produces all the internal chemicals we need. Additionally, many people are not open to help that God places before them because it may be outside their preconceived ideas on healthcare. God often offers help in directions that some are not open to look into.

Years ago, I heard a short story of a small hungry boy growing up during the great depression who would often go without food and would turn to God in prayer. The story reports that the boy said, "When I pray to God to give me a chicken, I almost always go hungry. But When I pray to God to give me the strength to catch me a chicken, I almost always eat."

Our Heavenly Father did not put us on earth and leave us insufficient to be healthy. He gave us everything we need to be healthy our entire lives. Our bodies were created in his image and therefore with all the magnificent abilities to keep us healthy. The more anyone studies the human body and its function, the more in amazement we are. We realize how great this creation is. Yet we should also realize how little we really know about it.

I have seen people pray for their blood pressure or diabetes, while totally neglecting their weight or diet. I have seen people pray for relief from pain, while leading a sedentary life and not wanting to be active at all. I have seen people pray for many thing related to health, while leading lifestyles that created the health problems they are experiencing.

God gave us the “good fruits” of the earth. He gave us clean air for our lungs. He gave us clean blood streams and organs to filter out impurities. He gave us the ability to move and be active. Maybe the answer to many of our health problems isn’t that we are lacking in some pill, some surgery, or some new technology. Maybe the answer to our prayers is, and always has been available for us all along. Maybe we are just not listening.

Do we have more faith in our science, than belief in our faith? There are questions that we need to ask ourselves to see if our belief systems are where we claim they are.

• If God made us in his own “likeness” did He do such a poor job of making us that we are suppose to break down, get sick and be unhealthy?
   
• If Genesis 6:3 says, “My spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years.” Then why are we considered old not much more than half way at age 65?
   
• Did God forget to give us what we need to be healthy by not giving us vaccinations until man created them a few hundred years ago?
   
• Did God not give our children a good enough mind that we should have to give them drugs to calm them down and allow them to think properly?
   
• Why did God send his son Jesus to us in such unsanitary conditions before the invention of hospitals, antibiotics, doctors, and surgical procedures?
   
• When doctors can no longer help someone, and they believe the patient will die, why do they say, “It’s in God's hands now.”  - When wasn’t it?
   
• If Jesus said, “They that are whole need not a physician; but they that are sick,” then why do we bring babies to physicians for well-baby checks?

God gave us everything we need to be healthy. Many of man’s health issues are due to choices we make, both as individuals and as a society, that impact our health.  Chiropractic respects the fact that the body, by design is a self healing, self regulating organism. The focus of chiropractic is to remove nerve interference to the body, and allow the God given abilities to work the way they were intended. When this happens healing occurs.  Some call this healing a miracle. We know that all healing is a miracle; because that is the way it was intended to be. 

The above words are not mine. I heard these words at a sermon given by David George, a missionary evangelist, (www.davidgeorgeworldministries.org) at Trinity Chapel (www.trinitychapel.org) on May 30, 2010.  The title of his sermon was "He is Able, But Is He Willing?" Without recanting the entire sermon, one of the key points David George included in his sermon was that "God wants you to be healthy."

In this sermon, pastor David used many scripture verses to demonstrate that God does indeed want us to be healthy.  He also refuted one common myth that I have heard people say, "It's God's will for me to be sick." Pastor David noted that if being sick is God's will, then why do sick people try to get healthy?  If being sick is the will of God, if that is truly what He wants, then trying to be healthy is against God's will.  This is certainly not the case.

Pastor David’s point was very succinct, and very much in line with my beliefs that God not only wants us to be healthy, but He made us to be healthy. The more you study the human body, the more you appreciate the wonders of this creation that many of us take for granted.  As I went through my chiropractic education, and I learned the details of human anatomy and physiology, I was constantly amazed at just how magnificent the human body is.

We have within us, everything we need to live a healthy life. Our bodies have all the mechanisms and systems needed to be healthy, and to remain that way.  There is a saying in chiropractic that goes, “Nature needs no help, just no interference.”  If we think about this, we could just as easily say, God needs no help to keep us healthy, just no interference.

Following this thought, if He wants us to be healthy, and has provided us with everything we need to be healthy, then the only way we can lose our health, is if we interfere with “God's way”.  Now before you react to this, I am not suggesting that we get sick because of our sins, or because of any willful turning away from God.  (I'm sure that is possible, but I will leave that discussion to theologians.) What I'm suggesting is that God has created us according to His plan.  He has given us a world to live in that we are perfectly suited for.  It is only when we stray from His plan that our health suffers.

For example, look at the air that we breathe. God gave us clean, fresh air to breathe.  If we pollute our air and breathe in poisons, our health will suffer. As individuals we may not make a conscious decision to breathe polluted air.  But when we do breathe polluted air, it is obviously not what God intended, and our health suffers.

Let's look at another example. God gave us this wonderful earth to grow fresh food for us to eat.  Yet today, most of our diets consist of a large percentage of processed and radiated food, genetically altered food, and food with chemicals and additives that we were never intended to eat.  No I'm not suggesting that eating this food is a sin, (again I leave that discussion to others), but I am suggesting that since this is not what God intended, it is not healthy.

This concept also applies to our physical lives, such as the work we do, or the activities we either engage in, or fail to engage in.  It also applies to our emotional states, such as stress.  There are many areas in which we live out lives different from the way I believe God intended.

One such area where I believe we have grossly strayed from the way God intended is in our own blood streams.  As a population, Americans take far more medications and drugs of all kinds than any other nation in the world.  According to a study out of Boston University in 2006, "In a given week, an average of 82% of adults in the U.S. are taking at least one medication, 29% are taking five or more."  Probably even scarier is the fact that according to this same study, "In any given week, 56% of children are taking at least one medication and 27% take two or more."

I am sure that God did not create us, and yet forget to give us a bunch of chemicals in order for us to be healthy.  Now I'm not suggesting that if you are reading this you should throw away all your medications.  But I am asking if we have gone too far.  Was it God’s plan for us to become the most drugged society in the history of mankind?

Allow me to suggest that we look at health from His plan and ask ourselves if we are following it.  I've attended many a Sunday church service that included prayers for members of the congregation who were sick.  I do believe in the power of prayer, and that people do heal because of it.

I also believe that He has already answered most of those prayers in our basic design. Genesis 1:27 says, "So God created man in His own image, in the image and likeness of God He created him; male and female He created them." Since this is true, then would God have created us with so many defects that we were supposed to get sick and require medication for the rest of our lives?  I’ll assume God does not get sick, and since we are created in His likeness, that we were created to be healthy.

I also know that all health comes from God.  Having been a doctor for 32 years, I can unequivocally state that I do not heal or cure anyone.  I have always believed that what I do is remove interference from the God given ability to be healthy.  God gave us everything we need.  Therefore, I am in agreement with David George that “God wants you to be healthy”.

I have often noted that people do a lot of praying for healing. In most cases this prayer is for some kind of physical healing from some sort of ailment or condition. At the church I attend, there is always a portion of the service dedicated toward praying for others and much of that is praying for healing in others.

We know that Our Heavenly Father hears all our prayers. But, I have often observed that some people believe that those prayers have not yet been answered, and that they are waiting to get an answer. In many cases people who continue to suffer wait and pray patiently hoping for a resolution to their health problem.

It has always been my belief that God answers all prayers immediately, and continually. The problem is that we are sometimes unwilling, or unable to hear or accept the answer.

Many of you have probably heard the old story of a man who was stranded on his rooftop in the midst of a rising flood. He prayed to God to save him. While he was praying, a rescue boat pulled up to his house and the people in the boat called to him. He refused to get in the boat saying that God would rescue him. He then continued to pray as the waters continue to get higher. Then, a helicopter came over the house and a line was dropped down. Again, the man refused to accept help, saying he was waiting for God. Shortly after this, he drowned.

Upon arriving in heaven, he asked the Lord why he was allowed to drown even though he had prayed continuously for help. The Lord answered, “I did answer. I sent you a boat and a helicopter.”

Many people act very much the same way when it comes to their health. They pray for healing, yet they ignore an answer that is readily available. I can remember a young man and his wife coming in to see me years ago. He was suffering from terrible pain and was scheduled for spinal surgery in just a few days. In looking him over I determined that he had a problem that was commonly seen in my office, and I felt that he could be helped. When I told him this he said he and his wife would need to pray on this. He then began to pray right there in my office. He asked God to direct him on where he needed to go Unfortunately, after the prayer he left the office.

It struck me that he was already in my office, and that maybe God answered this prayer already by having him find his way to our clinic. Yet somehow, his skepticism about chiropractic care, coupled with his faith in the medical model of care prevented him from seeing that God had, figuratively, sent him a boat and a helicopter. A day later, he returned, started care, was able to cancel surgery, and eventually have a full recovery.

All healing comes from God. And since with God, everything is possible, then all healing is possible. There is no disease entity known to man that has not at some time undergone “spontaneous remission”. Even the most hopeless of cases has healed in certain people. We need to see that God has given us a magnificent body with all the things needed to be healthy. What is needed is that we listen to what he is saying and stop being stuck on the rooftop while refusing to see the help that is available.

I believe that the answer to our prayers for healing has been given to us before we even uttered the words. The problem is that we are sometimes unwilling or unable to hear, or accept that answer. The God-given power that made the body, heals the body, and it doesn’t happen any other way.

Did you know that the word “drug” does not appear in the Bible?

Additionally, only in certain translations does the word “medicine” appear.

Most of the translations that use the word medicine do so in a common language way such as “a taste of his own medicine”. In contrast, Young’s Literal Translation of Proverbs 17:22: says, “A rejoicing heart doth good to the body, and a smitten spirit drieth the bone.”

The word, “Pharmacology” does not appear in the bible. Or does it?

Galatians 5:19-21 says;
“Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, (20) Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, (21) Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.”

Did you know that the word “witchcraft” as used above actually comes from the Greek word pharmakeia? According to the online encyclopedia Wikipedia, “Pharmakeia is a Greek word that appears several times in the New Testament, including the Epistle to the Galatians and the Book of Revelation. It is frequently translated as "witchcraft" or "sorcery."

In a published interview on September 8, 1972, Billy Graham was asked the question, “What part can organized religion play in combating the growing drug problem?” He answered. “The word "pharmacia," which is a Greek word that we translate in the Bible "witchcraft" is the root word that we get the word drug from. And, there is a relationship of some sort.”

There is much discussion as to medicines being either good or bad for us as a society. But we must couch this discussion in several facts. Americans take more drugs than any other society. In fact we take more drugs than any society in the entire history of mankind! Unfortunately, America is far down the list of healthiest nations according to the World Health Organization.

We could continue both a biblical and scientific argument on the usage of drugs and their effects forever. But the one overlying question that I believe is never answered is this. Did God really make us so poorly that we should need all the chemicals we artificially put into our bodies just to experience the health He gave us?   Did God make a mistake and forget to give us things we need to resist disease, or feel good?

My answer to this question is what has continually driven me in my chosen profession of chiropractic. I believe that we have health inside of each and every one of us. All we need to do is to remove man-made interference to experience that God given gift of health. As a doctor, I do not claim to have all the answers. But I do know where the answers are!

Dependant upon which translation you read, Genesis 1: 26 starts off by saying one of the following:

• Then God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness.
• Then God said, Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.
• And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness:
• Then God said, "Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness;

The key phrase here is at the end of this where each of the translations say, “our likeness” or “to be like us”. Unless you believe that God was only speaking about physical appearances, we can assume that God meant that we should be like Him in both form and structure.

In case you are wondering about the picture in this article I'll explain what this is. I was given the wooden hand as a new office gift by a Christian Chiropractor who was attending a talk I was giving. One of the themes of my talks is always, "The Power that made the Body, Heals the Body". When I was given this wooden hand the index finger was pointing up. It immediately inspired me to think that this little "sign" could be used to keep my practice members focused on Who Heals. This sign and hand proudly sits on the mantle in our clinic's education room for all to see.
 

Welcome to the Faith and Health  blog.  I am Dr. Bob Braile and  I am a Christian, Husband, Father, and Chiropractor (in that order), who has been greatly blessed by our Lord and savior, Jesus Christ. I, and many of my colleagues who also feel their lives have been blessed by Christ, have decided to not hide our beliefs behind some man-made unwritten rule that says that you can not express your beliefs in a professional healthcare setting.

This blog, and the newsletter that coincides with it are designed to put the science of healthcare to the test of biblical truths. In future issues we will discuss what is real science and what is pseudo-science. We will look to see if there are biblical confirmations, or contradictions for the health care practices of today.

We believe Genesis 1-26 when it says, “Then God said, Let us make human beings in our image, to be like us.” We believe that God made us in his image, not to be sick and suffer through a life less than He intended for us.

We also believe that science should not be in conflict with our faith. The fact that a process is scientific does not mean that it is not from God, as it is He who set the universe up to work the way it does. However, in man’s own arrogance, we sometimes use pseudo-science to think that we know better than the creator how to care for our bodies.

Some, if not many of the health care views I hold, you may not agree with. That is alright with me. You need to follow the path that you believe you are led to follow. As for me, this is the path l will follow.

I can suggest for starters, that you read something I was inspired to write many hears ago when I first was lead to the Lord. It is called " The Power That Made the Body, Heals the Bod y". The sub-title is, " For all Those Who Consider Themselves Christians and Don't Believe that God Creates Junk ." I believe you will find this of interest, and it will give you a good insight as to where I am coming from. 

All I ask is that you keep an open mind.