The Solution To "Permanent" Problems

I was talking to a passenger this morning on the way back from Austin. She has a certain medical condition and was telling me about it. After a while, I asked her if she had any hope of ever being fully healed. She responded with a statement that stuck with me the rest of the day: "Any surgery I could be given would only be a temporary fix to a permanent problem." I was merging onto the interstate and she said her voice was getting tired, so that was the end of the conversation.

However, I got to thinking about her statement and I was saddened by the sheer lack of hope it contained. All too often this world offers only temporary fixes to permanent problems. We see it in holiday cease-fires during a war. We see it in ever-growing landfills. We see it in the medical field like my passenger referred to. Heck, I even see it in my job when construction projects, designed to build new roads and ease traffic congestion, actually compound the problem. All of these are never ending cycles.

There is an alternative: come at the problem from the opposite direction. Something we view as permanent can't stand up to God's perspective of it. Next to Him Who is eternal, everything's temporary, even our most treasured accomplishments and feats of monumental engineering. That's right: some day, Hoover Dam will crumble. My point is this: if what we consider permanent can't be fixed by our temporary solutions, maybe it can be fixed by God's eternal solutions.

An example? Cancer is a horrible illness that modern medicine can treat but not cure. The blood of Jesus, God's eternal solution to so many things we face in life, can totally knock out cancer. Or a headache. First Peter 2:24 says "by whose stripes ye were healed." God's not limited in His power to heal. We limit Him by our insistence that our condition (cancer, headache, or even nearsightedness) is too permanent for anyone to handle, including God. This is unbelief. Unbelief cancels out faith, which is what motivates God to act on our behalf.

Leprosy existed for thousands of years with a cure coming only recently, yet Jesus healed many lepers without it. There is not a pill to bring sight to blind eyes, but Jesus healed several blind people. Broken limbs have to be set and require lots of time for the bones to mend; Jesus just offered His hand to the lame and they got up, leaping and dancing and shouting for joy.

Hebrews 13:8 boldly declares that "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever." This means He is still doing miracles today. He is still offering eternal solutions to permanent, and even temporary, problems. Ask Him to help you. Trust Him to help you. His answers will last...forever.