What If Someone Doesn’t Want to Be Healed?

You cannot force healing on someone who doesn’t want to be healed.  You cannot override another person’s free will with your faith.  Some people don’t want to be healed.

Some people would rather have people feel sorry for them, pamper them, and generally dote over them, than be healed.  Some people would rather have something to crab about than be healed.  Some people would rather get their disability payments from the government or the insurance company than be healed and have to work for a living.  Some people are just tired of life and want to die.  Some people are so unhappy with their lives that they are willing to commit “Satan-assisted suicide” by letting a disease kill them.  Some people are worn out from battling a chronic illness for a long time and they’re unwilling to continue.  It’s sad, but you cannot force healing on them.

Some people who have been near death have caught a glimpse of the glory that awaits them.  Heaven must be an indescribably wonderful place because people who get a peek at it can lose their will to continue living here.  Once they see where they’re going and compare it to what they have here, especially if they are in constant pain, they may want to “check out” right away.  You can’t stop them.  A famous minister raised his wife from the dead.  His wife was upset because she did not want to come back.  He had to let her die again!  I knew someone who had a similar experience.

The only way to deal with people who do not want to be healed is to love them, pray for them on your own and try to tell them the gospel concerning healing.  You can let them know that God loves them so much that He does not want them to suffer with illness.  But if a person does not want prayer for healing, you are wasting your time and probably annoying the person as well.

Does this mean that if the person has given up, you have to give up too?  Don’t write a person off just because he doesn’t want prayer right now.  The person may decide later that he wants you to pray for him after all.  Unfortunately, he will just have to stay sick for now.  If the person wants to die, God will respect that decision, even though it may not be what you or his family members want.