The God who Heals | Exodus 15: 26

By Simplice Njike

God is saying "I am the LORD, who heals you" right after delivering the Israelites from Egypt and making bitter water sweet at Marah.

What I love about this verse is that it's not just saying God can heal, but that healing is part of His very nature - He is the God who heals. Whether it's physical, emotional, spiritual, or relational healing, this verse reminds us that restoration is at the heart of who He is.

Here's what is surprising though, it didn't just happen to be a favorite scripture because of how well it is written (although it is). There are moments where I prayed and asked God to heal a loved one but He chose somehow not to. When I was a teenager and my mom was sick, I prayed for her healing but she passed away the very day she was taken to the hospital. It happened again and I lost my dad 15 months later after being so afraid and prayed everything I got in hope to touch God's ears. Since then, I wasn't sure healing was something I could say about God with all of my heart. 

Now more than a decade later, my wife was diagnosed with stage 4 cancer and doctors didn't know she could make it. Here I was at the hospital, remembering the same events that happened for my parents and I just wanted to hide. I didn't know what to believe or hope for. Each day was a scary one for me as I had been so afraid of hospitals, being there was terrifying. Yet, my wife got healed from that cancer and walked out of that whole "nightmare" cancer-free! That's when things changed for me.

Many of us have wrestled with believing in God for healing, especially when we've prayed earnestly and haven't seen the results we hoped for, or when we've watched others suffer despite faithful prayers. Those experiences can make it hard to trust that God truly is "the God who heals."

The fact that this verse is now one of my favorites suggests God has done some beautiful work in my heart - maybe not just healing my wife through prayers, but healing my own ability to trust Him in this area. Sometimes our greatest testimonies come from the very things we once struggled to believe.God doesn't just dismiss our fears or tell us they're invalid. He actually takes those very fears and transforms them into something meaningful. 

There's something beautiful about how God works through our wrestling, isn't there? Like Jacob at the river - the struggle itself becomes part of the blessing.

Fear has a way of making us think we're disqualified or that our faith isn't strong enough. But God sees that fear and says "I can work with this." He redeems not just our mistakes, but our doubts, our struggles, our very human inability to trust perfectly.

He can use your season of doubt to deepen your understanding of who He is, and now that verse carries weight it never would have if that belief had come easily. What are you afraid of today? Your fear can become the raw material for a stronger, more authentic faith.