At the turn of the last century, John G. Lake prayed with success over so many sick and injured with miraculous results that they shut down hospitals in his home town of Spokane, Washington. Spokane was declared the healthiest city in the US.
Aimee Semple MacPherson saw so many people healed from paralysis in answer to prayer that she filled mammoth rooms in the then brand new Angeles Temple with wheelchairs, walkers, and crutches. They are there to this day, a museum in honor of a move of God.
Stories like these inspire me, and yet they make me sad at the same time. Since God is no respecter of persons, I am left with a dilemma. So many healing needs surround me, including my own. I am convicted by the words of Jesus, “Preach the gospel, heal the sick, raise the dead.”
I want to learn how to pray and see God heal!
There, I said it.
Frustration with the status quo has brought me (finally) to this goal. I have begun to see that I don’t have the power I need to really miraculously change lives. Now, don’t get me wrong. I have seen amazing and miraculous happenings… more than just about anyone I know. But I am so aware of the need around me, and the power I have experienced is not up to the needs I see all around.
...the power I have experienced SO FAR is not up to the needs I see...
A couple of concepts come to mind. I believe I can grow in this. I remember 26 years ago when I came to believe that God did not live in the box I had put Him in… that He could do miraculous works and especially that He wanted to talk to His children.
It took quite a few years… a lot of fits and starts and failures before I could say with certainty that God was talking to me… showing me to do this or that. It was a few more years of trial and error to where I could tell someone else with certainty that God was telling them something and have confirmation it was revelatory truth.
Now I don’t believe it probably should have taken me so long to get to this point. I was not in constant fellowship during these years as I have been in recent ones. Since the point, almost 12 years ago, when I began meeting with people committed to my growth (and vice versa) at least weekly without a “Bible Study” agenda, my growth has been exponential. Being able to talk out my struggles and get insight and encouragement has been priceless. Also, back when I started this journey, I didn’t have a doctrine and church that supported that growth. Recently, I have read several terrific books on prophecy which lay out very clearly concepts I agonized over and despaired of ever finding out… finally learning from much pain and after giving up, sometimes getting stuck on one failure and so discouraged for up to five years.
All of this is to say that I want to go on that process in the area of healing and supernatural intervention. This time, I am in fellowship consistently with people who challenge me. This time, I will read anything I can get my hands on. This time, I am committed to failing faster, knowing that God honors the process of growth and that He loves it when His children want to walk in all the power He plans for them.
99% of Jesus' power goes to bring in the unsaved
For a while now, my concept has been that I need to pray for more people who don’t know Jesus, and THAT would bring me more miracles. Evangelist Ed Silvosa taught me that God spends 99% of His energy on the unsaved, because He leaves the 99 sheep in the fold and goes out after the lost one. I began the journey by deciding to pray for every person God put in my path with a physical need.
Last Friday, I was turning in some paperwork in a medical office. I was in line behind a man who was at his wit’s end. A former athlete, now in his forties or early fifties he could barely walk due to a serious accident for which doctors wanted to do a major surgery. Just before the accident, he had lost his job. He had moved to Corvallis to get adequate medical care, but there he had no friends or family, and no support. So he was in this office, trying to figure out if there was any way to pay his medical bills and fund the new surgery. I was so moved with compassion for this man that I told him I might have something that would help him. We went outside, and I clumsily said, “I know God. Sometimes I ask God to heal people and He heals them. Would you mind if I prayed for you?”
He was so open. Lifting his hands up in a surrender pose, he responded, “That would be wonderful! Would you??” So, standing outside of the Samaritan billing office in the brilliant afternoon sunshine, I just started praying.
At this point I became a bit self-conscious, as it was awkward to sort of “pick up” a male stranger that way. The awkwardness took a bit of attention away from my prayer focus and put it on myself, and as I prayed and considered later the ways I could improve the conductivity, if you will. I wish now that I had laid my hand on his shoulder or hand, as I have experienced that sometimes the power is better transferred through this means. I have recently been prayed for by people who have a lot of power in these gifts, and while praying since then, I started shaking and my hands got hot. I could stop it if I wanted, but I believe it is the Holy Spirit moving through me. So then the question is, “If I know the Holy Spirit is best moving through the hands, why didn’t I use them?” and the answer is I was afraid of what people might think… this man and others around. I think of Jesus putting mud in the eyes of a man who got healed of blindness as a result, spitting and putting his saliva in a man’s ear. I’m sure everyone thought that was pretty strange…until they got healed that is. And Jesus reminds me that when I am afraid of people, I am not as focused on Him.
And then I was in Safeway this week. An older woman was in front of me in line was struggling to breathe. Every breath was a supreme effort. She turned around and asked me if I had a cigarette. I told her “No. I don’t smoke,” and she replied, “You’re a smart girl.”
She then turned to the man behind me and asked him if she could buy a cigarette. He said he would just give her one. I watched her as she paid for her food and rolled her shopping basket toward the door, struggling to breathe all the way. All the time, I remembered what Peter and John said when they went to the temple to pray and met a man begging for money because he was lame. He approached them, so they obviously figured they were supposed to pray for him. I tried to talk myself into praying for this woman, but I couldn’t seem to muster the courage to approach her again.
"Break my heart with what breaks YOURS, Lord!"
I sat in my van and watched her loading her groceries. I prayed, “God, I probably should go over there and pray, but please give me what I need. I am afraid you won’t heal her and I will look foolish again.“ Finally as she drove away, I felt despair over my lack of boldness, “God, You know where I am, and You are going to have to change me so that I can do this sort of thing. I want You to change me, Lord.”
That night, I had a dream. I was going to have an audience with Jesus, and I was excited. I got dressed in my best clothes, and entered a huge building with soaring ceilings and marble walls that reminded me of the state capitol edifice. I walked toward the place where I was to have an audience with the King of Kings. He was supposed to be there sitting on His throne, but He wasn’t there yet. And where He was expected was a long line of people stretching through the building and out the door out of sight. What was amazing about this group was their diversity. They were young and old and middle-aged, very rich, middle class, and very poor, every color and size.
I wondered if these too were here to meet Jesus. I had an appointment, as it were, and I was in my own line facing them. I had nothing to do, so I watched the people, idly wondering how long I would have to wait to see Jesus. And then a thought began to present itself to my consciousness. I didn’t want to look at it first, but eventually I had to see the real truth. I had come to meet Jesus, and these people WERE Jesus! Instead of meeting with them, I had merely observed them, categorizing their characteristics dispassionately. I was not interested in meeting them.
"As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it to ME"
“Break my heart with what breaks Yours!” I have sung these words in the song, and thought them risky and life-changing. But never so as now. I realize that my prayer that night in the Safeway parking lot brought the dream as a sort of answer. He was showing me what is in the way. I don’t have enough love to compel me to pray for the sick who do not express their need. To put it succinctly, my problem is a lack of love for strangers. Jesus tells me, “As you have done it to the least of these, you have done it unto ME.”
I have made a commitment to pray whenever I see a physical need. I am becoming aware that I have relied on my own wisdom to deal with most physical needs that present. If the baby is teething, I administer Tylenol. When Faith hit her head on the metal swing at the park, she came over, crying all the way. I felt her head, which was beginning to knot up already and was still extremely painful. My Mommy mind begins to think, “How quickly can I get some ice?” and then the Lord reminded me of my commitment. “Oh, okay.” I thought, “I can pray for this, but it isn’t that big of a deal…. But when we prayed, the pain immediately left, and so did the lump! And Faith was touched by Jesus.
Foundational truth
I was very convicted when things went down this way. First, I realized that, though I have accumulated a lot of wisdom over the years of being a mama, my truth was what Bill Johnson would call “foundational truth”. Sure, it’s true that ice would have brought down the swelling and taken away most of the pain, and that my daughter would have been fine in an hour or so. But with every foundational truth, God always has higher truth, His superseding power to intervene in the affairs of men. This is the truth I am seeking in the area of healing, and I need all the practice I can get. I will FAIL FASTER and someday see the mountains move!
By God's grace, I'm going to pray for healing for every single physical need that comes across my path.
Anybody want to join me?
Really enjoyed your blog...Along that line, I was reading in the book "Face to Face with God" by Bill Johnson last night. Here's a quote that I've been chewing on. (pg 4)(I think it relates)
ReplyDelete"The question for every believer is whether we will be satisfied with only a partial transformation or whether we will be captivated by who He is that we will allow Him to kill everything in us that would inhibit us from becoming a mature manifestation of Christ.
This quest for His face is the ultimate quest. But to embrace the quest for the face of God, one must be ready to die. Thus, this journey is not for the faint of heart. It is far too costly to pursue for mere curiosity.
Still, I hesitate to warn of the cost of fully seeking His face - Not because a price doesn't exist; it costs. I hesitate because the reality is that what a person gets in return makes the price we pay embarrassingly small by comparison."