Get ready for a little glimpse into the metal struggle I’ve had for the past month and a half. Honestly, It’s been longer than that. It’s been my whole Christian life.
What is true about spiritual healings and what is false? Does spiritual healing happen to and through people like me?
In South Africa, we are partnering with a church that is much more charismatic than my church at home. Talk of healings, speaking in tongues, divine appointments, and constant and radical interaction with the Holy Spirit is extremely common. It’s something the people of the church LOVE to talk about, and it’s something I want to grow in knowledge and awareness of, so I’ve asked lots of questions and listened intently.
So now I have two ideas rattling around in my brain: Spiritual healings are absolutely guaranteed at all times to those that believe in the power of Jesus’ name and walk in His Spirit – AND – Spiritual healings are rare and only possible if it’s in God’s will, which is hidden from us as Christians, and it is arrogant and false to believe that we can command healing and demand pain leave a person’s body, because God is actually in control.
Two extremes. Both, I believe, hold truth and falsehood.
DISCLAIMER: I am still learning, still asking the Lord, still studying scripture and turning to the one place I know holds absolute truth. I DO NOT HAVE ALL THE ANSWERS. In this area of uncertainty for many Christians, all I have to offer is my stories of things I’ve experienced, what I’ve learned through scripture, and the things the Lord has spoken to me and shown me through it all.
ZANELI
Psalm 37:5 Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act.
My squad made a spontaneous trip to Swaziland this last week and had the gift of an incredible afternoon of outreach. My team of 4, Zach, Lillabea, and Paige, got the absolute privilege of going to a woman’s house and witnessing something incredible. A little girl named Suetti waved us over as we were walking through the village. We were greeted warmly inside by a woman named Zaneli. Her feet were propped up on the couch with pillows behind her back and arms. As we talked to her, she told us that she had been completely numb and nearly paralyzed on the entire right side of her body for two whole years. She spent her days trying to clean her whole house, with only the ability to take small, hindered steps, stopping to rest because of the difficulty. She had felt nothing for two years in her leg, arm, and hand. We all offered to pray for her, one at a time, seeing how she felt after each prayer. She would walk around, smiling at the incredible changes that happened each time. At first, she said “I feel so much lighter!” Next she said she felt pins and needles all through her foot and shin, which slowly spread to her whole leg and hand as more and more people prayed. We were in awe and shock as we watched this incredible miracle take place. The even more amazing piece of this story is this woman’s faith. Zaneli said over and over how much she loved prayer and how confident she was in the Lord’s constant and steadfast presence. She truly believed in the power of His name.
This is one of the first times I have been confident that God miraculously healed a person through our prayer and faith before my eyes. I was incredibly blown away and in awe. It became clear to me that healing comes from a place of complete and total dependence on the Father. It’s something to boldly ask for, have wild faith in, and ask for in great measures.
PONTIOUS
Philippians 1:18-20 Yes, and I will rejoice, for I know that through your prayers and the help of the Spirit of Jesus Christ this will turn out for my deliverance, as it is my eager expectation and hope that I will not be at all ashamed, but that with full courage now as always Christ will be honored in my body, by life or by death.
In a very small house, with two tiny bedrooms and a two burner, electric stove, a woman, Magdelaine, takes care of her dying husband, Pontious, as their three year old daughter watches, not totally grasping the weight of the situation. Josie and I were with students from the Bible college, doing outreach together. Our goal was to pray with the lost and the sick. Jesus put an opportunity right in front of us, to practice the things that were a normal part of His life. He gave us a chance to walk in His footsteps and speak the words He spoke. We got to pray for healing from a terminal disease that Pontious had been suffering from for a year. You know when you pray with everything in you? With all your strength and gut and power? I gave that prayer everything I had. Now, I don’t say that to make myself look good or any better than the next person, but I want you to know that I really, truly, fully believed that this man would be healed from His illness. Josie and I returned a few days later to pray with Him again. There hadn’t been any change in his health, which was discouraging, but we prayed again anyways.
When we returned from Swaziland, we got the news that Pontious had passed away. My heart broke, and, to be extremely honest and vulnerable, my faith took a hit. This was after the miracle I watched happen in Zaneli’s life, yet, because this man hadn’t been restored to his earthly, healthy body, I chose to see it as something gone wrong. There must have been some misinterpretation between me and God when I asked him to heal this man. God must have taken what I said and not understood what I was really asking for. Beyond that, I started to question the authority I’d been reading about in scripture (1 Corinthians 12). Things just made a lot less sense.
With hopes a little dashed, I took it to the Lord to see what He had to say for Himself. (Pardon my frank honesty, but sometimes that’s just the way it feels. “Why?” is a question God is more than capable of handling. I promise He’s not offended.)
He began to show me the ways He actually had been unwavering and steadfast in His faithfulness. Not only did He answer my prayer of healing Zaneli in her earthly body, so that she could continue to care for her family and children, but he also gave health to Pontious in a way that we long for. This kind of healing looks a lot like death to us, because that’s as far as we can see. But to the Lord, it’s a restoration to full perfection and wholeness before Him that honors Him. Paul says, “whether by life or by death, Christ will be honored in my body.” The testimony of Pontious becoming healed in this life would have been absolutely mind-blowing and radical. But instead, he, through his death, honored the Lord. We asked for healing, and the Lord answered in totality and strength.
OUR GOD IS RESPONSIVE.
He will not ignore you, brush you off, or leave you hanging. He will never not answer your prayers. Scripture says clearly that the Lord is not slow to fulfill His promises, but is FAITHFUL.
All I can say, when it comes to something as crazy and supernatural as healing, is that God is ALWAYS faithful. Never wavering. Never changing. Jesus healed in the power of God, and that SAME spirit rests in me, in us, in the church. Fear and doubt are weapons meant to hinder us from bringing glory to the Lord, and when things don’t go exactly our way, it often discourages us.
But. I would ask you to still rejoice. Praise Him. Let the worshipers worship. Hold tight to faith and hope and see what happens.
