In the past six months, I’ve seen miracles happen. I watched a fifty-year-old woman stand up from her wheelchair and walk for the first time in her life. I prayed for a baby with fluid on his brain and felt something move beneath my hands. I saw smile after smile appear on people’s faces as we prayed for pain to leave their bodies and it did. And let me tell you, watching God heal people builds faith.
But something else that does so just as powerfully is the faith that stands strong in people who aren’t healed.
Tonight, we met a sweet man named Lalchawlsiek. He’s seventy-one, has been an elder in his church for the last twenty years, talks about his children and grandchildren with pride, and has been blind for eight years. When his vision started to go, he saw doctor after doctor with no success and couldn’t afford to go to Nepal where better treatment might have saved his eyes. But instead of saying even one thing to invoke pity, his quiet, steady voice told us that he’s content. He said he is happy with the eyes he has because he knows his time on this earth is only temporary and when he gets to heaven, he will see again. He told us he has no fear because God has given him a good life and is taking care of him. One look into these eyes—the ones that cannot see—showed a faith anchored so deeply in God’s goodness that his world couldn’t shake it.
As we gathered around him to pray, I thought of so many times in the Bible when Jesus healed the blind. I thought of Jesus’ words to His disciples: “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. And I will do whatever you ask in my name.” (John 14:12-13.) And I thought about how Lalchawlsiek deeply trusts God’s goodness, and I so badly wanted him to be able to see it all around him. So we prayed in full faith that Jesus could heal him, half expecting to see yet another miracle. When we were done, he opened his eyes… and he was still completely blind. So we prayed again because even Jesus sometimes prayed more than once. This time, his family gathered around him and we gathered around them. I watched tears roll down his daughter’s face as she prayed with everything in her. We prayed that his sight would return and God would get all the glory. But when he opened his eyes, he was still blind. It would be easy to lose faith, but instead, I gained even more because what I saw spoke volumes about the goodness of God. I saw a man sitting in front of me who wasn’t healed but whose peace and trust were still as deep and real as before. And when I closed my eyes, I saw God smiling gently at him, as if He was saying, “I love you too much to give you your sight back.” God wasn’t withholding something from this man but rather allowing him to keep something that is so good. I’m not saying he wants to be blind, but it was clear that he has something beautiful in the place of sight: faith. Hebrews 11 tells us, “Faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see.” He can’t see anything, and I imagine the sweet moments he has with Jesus as he lives by faith alone instead of trusting his sight.
He told us not to be discouraged and to keep praying for people—because it has power. And together, we all sang a song we had learned in their local language… a song that comes to life in the way Lalchawlsiek lives. Part of it translates as follows.
The life I have with Christ is worth more than fame, glory, or riches. What heals my inner soul and what makes me content is that my name is written in heaven.
Even though hardships and troubles test me and surround me every day, the wonderful love of Christ will not leave me throughout my life.
I will dance with joy and gladness. I will sing the sweet song of victory. I have a life which the world does not know about. Amen, how glorious it is to be a child of the King!
As we sang, I thought of how hard it would be to no longer see the beautiful mountains and sunsets that colored his days for so many years. I wondered how it feels to have never seen his granddaughter and to only be told that she has dark brown hair and the cutest round cheeks and loves to wear red shoes. I imagined the frustration he must have to fight daily to let peace win. And then I looked over at him and saw him smiling and clapping his hands to the music, sending a powerful message that God’s goodness and love are so much deeper than what our eyes can see.
You can’t fake the kind of peace and joy I saw in a man who has a great reason to be bitter instead. These things were real because you also can’t fake or ignore the power of knowing Jesus like he does.
And this is why on Sundays, Lalchawlsiek’s grandchildren lead him to church so he can stand before the people and preach… because he wants everyone to know the God who is the reason for his indescribable hope and contentment.
Tonight, I’m celebrating a God who loves us too much to give us the lesser things, and I’m celebrating people who help grow my faith in the most unexpected ways. Life is good, my friends, and God is even better.
