Inspiration that God provides reveals a landscape that is entirely spiritual and constantly a distinct reflection of God’s essence and nature. Absent from this divine landscape are physicality and all material limitations. God causes each of us to exist spiritually, and we remain permanently intact as evidence of God’s perfect work. To recognize just a hint of the glorious nature of God and God’s perfect, spiritual creation is the foundation for prayer that cleanses and cures.
With God and His flawless manifestation comprising all of reality, prayer does not function to exclude real evils; instead, it brings us into the solid realization that evils, such as illness, lack, hatred, and death, are not constituents of the landscape of God’s creation in the first place, and therefore aren’t to be battled as genuine enemies. In contrast with sensory input, divine inspiration affords accurate, comforting views of God’s perfect, entirely spiritual and good reality.
Jesus certainly felt compassion for those suffering with afflictions, yet he loved God so much that the divine inspiration he received in prayer took precedence over any dire allegations suggesting evil’s presence or action. To a man he met who’d been living with the misery of having a nonfunctioning, withered hand, Jesus said, “Stretch forth thine hand.” The biblical account then relates, “And he stretched it out: and his hand was restored whole as the other” (Mark 3:5).
