Can I “Believe Away” the Side Effects of the Drugs Being Used to Treat Me?

If you’re undergoing chemotherapy, can you believe that you won’t lose your hair or feel nauseous?  If you’re taking painkillers that list dizziness as a side effect, can you believe not to be dizzy?

Because I’m trying to answer everything from a Bible perspective, I’ll have to say that I can’t find any Scripture where believing away side effects of drugs is mentioned explicitly.  No one went to Jesus for relief from side effects of drugs being used to treat illnesses; people went to Him and received healing for the actual illnesses!  Of course, when they were healed, they didn’t need any drugs or treatments anymore, which solved the “side effects” problem in a much better way.

The woman with the issue of blood in Mark 5:25-34 had suffered many things from many physicians, so whatever treatments they were doing must have had some painful effects on her body.  Despite her treatments and suffering, not only wasn’t she any better; she actually got worse.  However, she did not touch the hem of Jesus’ garment to be set free from the suffering caused by the treatments; she touched Jesus’ clothing by faith and received healing for her condition, at which point she no longer needed the treatments.

Certain chemicals do certain things to your body.  I knew someone who chain-smoked 4 packs a day and ended up with cancer.  She got all kinds of treatments and wanted people to believe with her that she was healed.  However, she continued to smoke 4 packs a day!  (I’m sure that this was inconsistent with her doctor’s instructions!)  So while trying to “believe away” cancer, she kept giving herself cancer.  She died young, despite being a “faith” person in a good “faith” church.

Being a Christian does not cancel all natural laws.  Different foods and different drugs have different effects on your body.  If your daily diet for years has been Twinkies and pepperoni pizza washed down with Jolt Cola, you may have a hard time “believing away” the issues you develop in your body that are “side effects” of your diet.  If you take certain drugs, your liver can suffer after a while, and the doctors and pharmaceutical companies are quite up-front about it.

Having said that, I knew a 2-pack-a-day smoker who was instantly set free of her habit in a service.  I know former alcoholics who were instantly set free from their addiction to alcohol.  Jesus CAN eliminate physical conditions and addictions brought on by chemicals.  He is willing to break addictions in people’s lives because those addictions are “works of the devil” that He came to destroy (1 John 3:8).  The people I just mentioned stopped putting certain chemicals into their bodies rather than believing that they could continue ingesting those chemicals without harmful effects.

What if you’ve been taking habit-forming pills for pain and now you’re “hooked?”  There are many such “unintentional junkies” in society today.  Once the underlying issue causing the pain is solved and you don’t need the painkillers, I would have no problem standing in agreement with you for freedom from your drug dependency.  If the Son makes you “free indeed” (John 8:36), I don’t see why you’d have to live a life that isn’t free because you need certain pills to avoid falling apart.

Overall, my take on this question is that it would require extraordinary faith to “believe away” side effects of drugs, and if your faith is developed to that degree, it would probably be just as easy for you to believe that you receive your healing so that you don’t need the drugs with their side effects anymore.  That is a far better outcome, and one that you have plenty of Scripture (as opposed to no Scripture) to back.