Jan Smith – 02/08/2008
I wrote recently about how God healed my feet and ankles of pain I’ve had since Army training long ago. That really happened, right in church, and right during a church service.

I realized that my “alleged” healing was not nearly as dramatic as — for instance — someone being totally healed of a life-threatening disease such as cancer. Still, I thought the church people might be interested in knowing what had just happened. So I sought out the priest after the service was over.

There he was, greeting parishioners as they left the church. When I finally had his attention, I shared my story. “Oh”, he said, “that’s nice”. (Or something like that.) There were many others pressing for his attention, and thus my conversation with him was over rather quickly.

“Unbelief?”, I thought, or perhaps just not a spectacular enough sign from God? I don’t know. But this I do know: it really happened.

That was then; this is now
As I said in my previous blog post, that pain in my ankles and feet never returned. However, in recent years the bottoms of my feet have developed an affliction. Sometimes they feel like they are in fire. I don’t know if satan has anything to do with that. I know from the Bible that he has the capacity to inflict misery on God’s people. But I also know that God has satan on a leash. The Bible says, “…He who is in you [God] is greater than he who is in the world [satan]” (1 John 4:4) As long as that continues to be true (and it always will), I have nothing to worry about.

I don’t know why God has allowed these afflictions regarding my feet, but I’ve noticed something about them. For most of two years, I taught lessons about applying Biblical principles to a men’s fellowship group at our church. I always stood up to make my presentations, which meant I would be on my feet for the better part of an hour. As I’ve said, this no longer causes the intense pain in my feet and ankles that I used to have. In recent years, being on my feet that long would always cause pain in the bottoms of my feet.

But I’ve noticed — get ready for this — whenever I stand up to teach the Word of God, I never have any pain. Not in my feet; not in my legs; no pains of any kind!

Now, let me just ask you who are skeptical and believe that either God doesn’t exist, or that there’s no way He is involved in the moment-by-moment details of everyday life: how do you explain that?

jan