From Christianity Today online. A thoughtful and reflective article on the dynamics of healing. Check it out and see what you think.
Marva Dawn, in her book Powers, Weakness, and the Tabernacle of God, reflects on this passage, and suggests an alternate translation for Paul’s statement “for my power is made perfect [Greek teleo] in weakness.” She notes that in nearly every other instance in the New Testament, the verb teleo is translated with some form of the English “to finish.” So she translates this phrase with God saying to Paul, “for [your] power is brought to its end in weakness.” Paul was healed in one significant sense. The healing was not that of an emotional or physical ailment, but through his emotional or physical ailment, God put an end to Paul’s power. As Dawn points out at length in her book, our power—our sense of self-sufficiency—must be relinquished if we are to enjoy God “tabernacling” with us, God’s presence within us.
Specifically this means that what we do and what we suffer does not define us at the deepest level. We are not defined by our infirmities or the fact that we may have been healed from one or more of them. We are fundamentally defined by the flame of God’s presence within, which gives us a new identity that burns in us inextinguishably. Our bodies and souls are the temples of the Lord, and as Volf succinctly says, “Though … our bodies and souls may become ravaged, yet we continue to be God’s temple—at times a temple in ruins, but sacred space nonetheless.”
This is the great Yes that can never ultimately be drowned out by the No of our sin and infirmities. In fact, the No of our infirmities enables us to live into this Yes, and they become a witness of the finished Yes of Christ on the cross and in our lives. Power/self-sufficiency is indeed put to an end in weakness and death.