Crammed with Heaven is a monthly column in which Jenni Pretorius Hill shares stories of hope which bring Heaven’s perspective to Earth
I like that faith is never wrong. There have been times when I thought I heard God, only to realise later that I’d missed Him. In those moments, I acted on what I believed I’d heard. It’s easy to kick ourselves afterwards or cringe in embarrassment, but faith is pleasing to God. My husband always says, “rather do the wrong thing with faith, than the right thing in unbelief.” I sometimes imagine God shaking His head at me, and smiling: “I didn’t tell you to do that! But you know what? I’m going to back you anyway.”
When I was 18, I wore a back brace for scoliosis. It was made of fibreglass and completely encased my torso. It was my first year of university and, although I was a Christian, I had never encountered God in a tangible way. One day, a man visited the church I was attending. He prayed for me and I felt a thrusting pressure that caused me to fall backwards; it wasn’t the man who pushed me. It was my first experience of being “slain in the Spirit”. Part of his prayer was for a supernatural healing of my spine.
A statement of faith
I hadn’t felt anything happen in my back, but I decided to take my brace off and never wear it again as a statement of faith that God had healed me. Looking back, it wasn’t the wisest thing to do, and if this happened to someone else, my advice would be not to be hasty, because God heals in more ways than one. There is no “inferior” healing. Wearing the brace and having my spine straighten through medical intervention would also have been cause to praise and thank God. But being young — emotionally and spiritually — I felt that continuing to wear the brace would be an act of unbelief.
I remember returning home for the holidays without my brace and telling my family that “God had healed me”. The more my parents expressed concern, the more I stood my ground — outwardly at least. Alone in my room, I was far less certain. Without the encouragement of my friends, I cried often, afraid I had made a terrible mistake that would eventually lead to surgery.
One day, I was on my knees, crying in anguish. I only wanted to please God, but I did not know what He required of me. Then the same feeling of being pushed over by an invisible hand thrust me backwards. Again and again, I couldn’t stay upright and repeatedly surrendered to the pressure. I believe it was the weight of the Holy Spirit, reminding me of His presence — but nothing more. No assurance that I was doing the right thing. Yet, knowing I wasn’t alone revived me, and I continued to stand by my decision.
Months later, I returned to the specialist, who said my back had straightened enough that I no longer needed a brace. I didn’t tell him I had worn it for only about a quarter of the prescribed time. My back has never fully straightened, and sometimes I wonder whether it would be arrow-straight now if I had worn the brace for the full year. But I don’t live with regret. I chose to believe God for complete healing, and that wasn’t wrong. I think God was kind to me; He stabilised my spine in those months after abandoning the brace, “I’ve got you kid: I didn’t tell you to take your brace off, but I saw your heart.”
I think we put far more pressure on ourselves to “get it right” than God does. We only see in part, after all. Though I’ve walked with the Lord for many years and matured deeply in my faith, I still haven’t begun to scratch the surface of His infinite and marvellous nature. My perspective is limited to what I know of Him through the Bible and through my own testimony. And while the Bible is a treasure of immeasurable value, it does not contain the whole of God. How could it? The book has a beginning and an end, but He does not.
It’s foolish of us to take what we know of Him and build boxes to force Him into. We like to say, “This is how God heals,” or, “This is how God works.” But the more I come to know Him, the more certain I am of how little I actually understand.
Trusting God with the mystery
This is a great paradox. God made Himself knowable through His Son. He longs so deeply for relationship with us that Jesus paid the ultimate price, becoming like us so that we might see ourselves in Him, and Him in us. Yet, at the same time, we must still make room for mystery. We simply cannot know God entirely, nor can we fully understand His ways. This is deeply uncomfortable, because we live in an information age — all knowledge is at our figure-tips; we cannot resist seeking to understand and then offering our opinions, as if we are all-seeing oracles. And so, faith must remain the eternal test of our devotion. We either trust God with the mystery, and relinquish our desire to understand when things don’t go according to what we believe He said, or, we choose to go our own way, and follow whatever path feels right in our own eyes. I have chosen the former. My back taught me, that in the end, He is the prize, my exceedingly great reward — not the thing I am trusting for.
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