The Bible says a lot about “defects”.  According to one source, just the word “defect” is mentioned 18 times (Defects in the Bible (18 instances). I suspect that these mentions of the word “defect” do not include mentions of blindness, deafness, and other infirmaries which are considered defects in the Bible.  The Old Testament says that only defect-free animals are to be sacrificed to God (Number 28:11 and many other places). God gave defects like leprosy to Miriam who sinned in Numbers 12:10 and to Gehazi in 2 Kings 5:27. The Lord also gave a defect to Jacob/Israel of a defective hip in Genesis 32:31-32. Jesus healed many with defects of the skin and eyes and ears and legs and others. There are people with defects and deformities and diseases and just problems all over the Bible.

Yet, the Bible tells of God using many people with defects—defects He refused to heal them of! Also, there have been people who have had problems and defects and diseases all throughout history who have been used by God to share His messages and purposes. Examples of this have been Saint Paul, who healed people and yet had some kind of a disease as described in Galatians 4:13. There was also Smith Wigglesworth, the great British preacher of the early 20th century. He would have revival meetings and healed people and yet lived with kidney stones and died of a stroke. Why wouldn’t God heal Wigglesworth of his defect when Wigglesworth had so much faith that God healed so many through him? There are people used by God in so many different ways today who have one leg shorter than the other, are blind, have skin blemishes, who are Deaf, who have mental retardation, who have defects.  Why would not God heal them? Why would the Lord not YOUR relative when you believed that God had the power to do so and when He still heals others today?

While God MAY heal your physical and mental defects, these are things that God can use to teach you to depend on Him. They can be reasons you learn that God’s grace is sufficient for you — as was His answer to Paul. In the meantime, we can depend on Jesus to make us spiritually defect free in the presence of God. That is the reason that Jesus came, to wash us clean in God’s presence.

James 1:2-4 Count it all joy, my brothers, when you meet trials of various kinds, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness. And let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.