“And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise them up.”
~ James 5:15
When I was in 9th grade, I had my first experience with having a supernatural healing occur in my body.
I remember earlier that week, my old group of skate friends and I were playing ice hockey on a frozen retention pond behind a local development. During this game, I had slipped and fell flat on my tailbone (very classy like in Three Stooges fashion). It hurt so bad to the point where I had to crawl up my friend’s stairs in his house because I couldn’t walk up on my own two feet.
A few days later, at youth group, we had a guest speaker come in and he was talking about God healing people and words of knowledge. I had seen healings before at the church I went to, but had never experienced it for myself. And from the outside perspective looking in, one can be faced with so many questions:
Is this for real?
Did that really just happen?
Are people faking it?
If we get real with ourselves, we may have wondered those things upon first exposure to something so miraculous such as crippled individuals in wheelchairs running around for the first time, blind eyes (or even those who need corrective lenses) being opened, or even deaf ears being able to experience sound for the first time. I’ve seen all of those happen in my old church, but never saw it happen in myself.
Near the end of service, the speaker asked if there was anyone who had pain in their lower back because God wanted to heal it and take all the pain away right now. I was hesitant at first but figured “Well…let’s go for it”.
I went up and he prayed for me, declaring God to heal my back. Keep in mind, I’m still walking very carefully and slowly because tail bones hurt like nobody’s business.
He finished praying and asked, “What’s something you couldn’t do before because of this pain?”
We had just gotten new skate ramps that night at the youth group and I was DYING to skate, so I said, “I can’t skate and I really wish I could”.
His response:
“Go outside and skate”
So what did I do?
I walked outside, hopped on my board, and felt 100% better! It was as if I had never been hurt in the first place.
Since that moment back in my teenage years, I’ve been in groups of people praying for healing and have seen lots of different breakthroughs happen…
But
The other day was something totally new to me that I have never seen before firsthand…
THIS is Cali.
She’s a rad girl with a big heart, and she leads this team of ours super well and I’m stoked to call her my teammate.
The other day, I was sitting on the dock next to Lake Malawi reading my Bible when I heard someone step up onto the dock.
It was Cali.
She had this look on her face like something was going on. So I asked what was up.
She explained that her back had been giving her a lot of pain lately. She had gone out to see a professional about fixing her back the prior months during the race, had people pray for healing, but still nothing had happened. She still had to deal with the pain.
She further told me that the back pain stemmed from a bone in her foot that was growing out of place, which in turn led her hip to be out of place. ALL of that led to the final kicker:
It meant that her one leg was longer than the other by more than an inch.
When she said that, I didn’t believe her because I’ve never seen someone’s leg longer than the other. But she stretched her legs and I was like “WHOA, you weren’t kidding!” There was a significant difference between her legs.
My first thought was, “YO, I should ask to pray for her!”
But…doubt can creep in, as it did, and it can look for alternatives that are cop-outs of doing what you know God is calling you to do.
My response?
“Yea we should get the team together and pray for it LATER”
Honestly: I was afraid of praying and maybe seeing nothing happen. Even though I had a huge expectation that God was going to do something miraculous the moment we arrived in Malawi. But I have always prayed with a team. Few times have I prayed just by myself and seen healings, but THIS?! This was way out of my ballpark of what was comfortable.
I battled myself for the next minute or so and gave in:
“You know what? Let’s go for it and pray for it!”
I placed my hand on her back and began inviting the Holy Spirit to come and begin to mend anything unaligned in her body, declaring healing by nothing but the blood of Jesus; asking everything to come into alignment with the Kingdom of God, on earth as it is in heaven.
I headed back up to the rest of the team, telling her I’m believing God to move and heal her, inviting her to continue to walk by faith.
Literally 5 minutes later, an overly excited (for good reason) Cali, finds me and says:
“DEREK LOOK!”
She sat down and had her legs stretched out…
HER LEG, LITERALLY GREW AND MATCHED THE LENGTH OF THE OTHER ONE!
And all the pain in her back that has been there this whole time?
GONE!
I have never seen anything like that, but it happened here in Malawi! Jesus came and healed Cali and we gave Him all the thanks and glory for what He did.
All believers are called to walk in the light of Christ: praying for all sickness, all disease, for the impossible.
How many times have we felt that stirring in our hearts to pray for what we CLAIM WE BELIEVE God is capable of, but then we clam up under the pressure and get too scared?
I’ve been there plenty of times.
But that’s the thing. God calls us to be His hands and feet.
He tells us in John 14:12:
“VERY TRULY I tell you, whoever believes in me WILL DO the works I have been doing, and they will do EVEN GREATER THINGS than these, because I am going to the Father”
Are we willing to take God at His word?
He asks us to be obedient. If we step out, believing and having full trust for Him to move, that’s it. The rest is up to God. God does all the work. We take the first step and He meets us in our obedience.
Next time you hear that little nudge on your heart to step out and pray for something, even something impossible like for a leg to physically grow:
PRAY!
Do not let fear have the satisfaction because we know:
VICTORY always and forever belongs to Jesus.
EXTRA EXTRA EXTRA
Since typing up this blog a while ago (and just now being able to post it), we’ve seen God show up more in both emotional/spiritual AND more physical healings! All I gotta say is God is so rad! Those stories for another time 🙂
“If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you”
~John 15:7
