Why does the Lord heal us? Why does He answer our prayers? Why does He work out the difficulties in our lives when we ask Him to? (Even if His timing and way of working things out is different than what we had in mind)? I mean, yes, God is a loving father who cares for us, his children (1 John 3:1), but what’s it all for? These questions all came to my head the other day as I was reflecting on all the prayers the Lord has answered over the years of my life. And I asked myself what had I done with these blessings? The Lord has healed me from a lot of emotional pain in my life, and I am grateful. Thank you, Jesus. But to what end? What am I doing with my healing? Jesus’s blessings and healings certainly help create the full life that He promised for those who believe in Him (John 10:10 NIV), but surely these blessings and healings are not just healing for healing’s sake, right?

As I’ve been thinking about healing, I thought about an old Andrae Crouch song “Can’t Nobody Do Me Like Jesus.” Part of the lyrics are “He healed my body and told me to run on.” This life we live is indeed like running a race. The writer of Hebrews says “Let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith…” (Hebrews 12:1-2). Paul, in his letters to his mentee, Timothy, even says, “I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 7).

This race that we’re running together as followers of Jesus should be a relay, not an individual event. As followers of Jesus, our mission is to know Christ (Philippians 3:7-11) and to make him known (Matthew 28:19). We are healed and set free not just for our own ease and comfort and to just continue living our lives, but to allow us to then touch the lives of others and thereby further the cause of the Cross, the spreading of the Gospel. Our healing and answered prayers place us in a position to better help those around us and help spread the message of Jesus.

We can see this practice throughout scripture. Just look at the mother-in-law of Peter, one of Jesus’s disciples. When she encountered Jesus, she was sick with a fever, which I imagine may have been much more serious and life-threatening back then. Jesus touched her hand, and the fever dissipated. She immediately got up and began serving. (Matthew 8:14-15). Admittedly, we could have a whole discussion about the historical roles of women serving others at the expense of themselves–which is an important conversation–but I don’t want to detract from the focus here. The focus is that after being healed, Peter’s mother-in-law served Jesus. Jesus healed her and she got up and she began working to accommodate and amplify Jesus’s presence in Peter’s home. Also, let’s not overlook the fact that Jesus touched her hand to bring healing, a literal and figurative instrument of kingdom work in the Bible. (1 Corinthians 12:12-16).

Also, there were the two blind men who were on the side of the road and called out to Jesus for healing. (Matthew 20:29-34). Jesus heard their cries, had compassion on them, and healed them. Matthew then tells us “Immediately, they could see, and they followed him.” (Matt. 20:34). These men couldn’t see Jesus, but heard he was coming and they started shouting, I’m sure to the embarrassment of others. People told them to shut up, but they wouldn’t. (Matt. 20:31). Seeking Jesus and getting their healing was more important to them than anything else. I’m taking a little bit of creative license here, but can you imagine what kind of Christ-followers they were if they were shouting Jesus’s name before they got healed? Oh, from that day on, if you ran into those men, you were going to know about Jesus, you could bet on that. The two men didn’t receive their sight and just go off back to their homes. They were healed and they followed Jesus and made him known.

Whether we’ve experienced mental, physical, or emotional healing, we should arise, run on, and help and serve others and tell them about Jesus. I take this as a personal challenge because it’s not always comfortable or convenient to do those things. But may the reality of our answered prayers and healings and our faith in Jesus, compel us forward.