It began in Malaysia. Actually it began before the Race. The hope that I would see more of God’s supernatural power through healings and through gifts being worked out in the Body of Christ. I had read testimonies of past World Racers and I had seen God’s healing power at Training Camp. I fully believe that God still works in miraculous ways and I wanted to know how to trust Him for healings, even if it was not something that I had witnessed very often. After all, James 5:16-17 says, “Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective. Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and half years…”
Anyways, as we prayed for different healings on The Race, I kept hoping that I would see healing from God. Each time we didn’t see any immediate healing, I wondered why. I spent time trying to ask God what His will was so that I could pray according to it and not my own desires. And I clung to the fact that God is good even when I don’t understand.
However, I wanted to step out in faith and believe that not only could He heal, but that He would. And I wanted to remain faithful to persevere in prayer whether I understood what God was doing or not. One of my teammates has had severe knee problems for the entire Race. Every time we prayed for her knee, I knew that she felt loved, but I also knew that she was having a hard time believing that God fully cared as we continued to see no change in the pain.
So, I asked if I could pray for her knee everyday in Malaysia. I wanted to grow in my faith and my endurance in prayer and I wanted for her to know that I cared and that God cares even more. So, I began. Every night, I would pray over her. As I prayed, I claimed every promise I knew to claim, I asked for inner healing, I prayed for wisdom, I prayed for God’s will to be done, I prayed to understand His ways, to be able to see what He was doing, so I could join Him and pray according to His will. Sometimes, I just praised God for who He is and worshipped Him and other times I just prayed for my teammate’s heart. Some days were better than others, but then the next day would be full of pain again for her. And after 5 weeks of praying almost every night for her, my hope and my faith were hanging on by a thread.
I arrived at debrief at the end of the month, just feeling broken-hearted by God. We had some sweet times meeting together as a squad and in one of our worship sessions, Moriah got up to speak about hoping in God still and not worrying about being disappointed. And that’s when I realized I was very much disappointed with God and I did not know how to hope for Him to move anymore. I knew my teammate must have been feeling the same way, so I went to pray for her during worship. And I asked her, “Are you disappointed with God?” She immediately replied, “Yes!” “Ok, me too. We’re going to pray,” I replied. And I began to pray, asking God about how to hope when we keep having that hope unfulfilled.
The verse in Proverbs kept coming to mind, “Hope deferred makes the heart sick.” But then He took me to other verses as I prayed. I Corinthians 13 says that these three will remain: faith, hope, and love. We have a hope that will remain; we have a hope that will not disappoint. When we die, we will not be disappointed. We are hoping in a lasting inheritance, we are hoping in a future salvation, we are hoping in God’s glory, we are hoping in the blood of Christ, and it’s covering over all our sin. “And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out His love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom He has given us” (Romans 5:5).
I was able to speak these truths out because those were the words God gave me while I prayed. And I believe them. And yet, it doesn’t erase my questions about how to continue to believe for God’s healing. I believe in a future hope that will not disappoint, but what about the Kingdom of God coming to earth? I see redeemed hearts, but not the healing, the physical restoration that also occurs in the Kingdom of Heaven.
And then we entered into month 7 in Cambodia. Team changes happened at the end of debrief in Malaysia, so I am now on an entirely new team (more on that later). During our last week of ministry, I found out that one of my new teammates has been deaf in one ear as long as she can remember, and she had been praying and believing throughout the Race that God would heal her. As soon as the team heard, we decided to pray for her. While praying, Travis shared that He felt God was asking us to have the kids pray for her during our next Bible Study with them. We became so excited about teaching the kids about Jesus and how He healed people throughout His ministry and how He put His Spirit inside of us and equipped us to walk as He walked. And we wanted to teach the kids what it meant to pray for each other. This happened the weekend before we would leave our ministry. We only had Monday left with the kids; which was another gift from God since earlier in the month, we considered leaving Monday morning.
Anyways, we decided to fast and pray on Monday in preparation for what God wanted to do Monday evening. We met together in the morning, and after talking through all of our doubts and fears and hopes, we just worshipped together as a team, excited about what God wanted to teach the kids that night. During the afternoon, as I prayed, I couldn’t help but feel like the stage was perfectly set for God to move. To reveal His glory. As the night approached, an incredible thunderstorm swept in, threatening to cancel the entire night. We again came together to pray as a team and as we stepped into the hut to begin the evening, the storm blew away. Although only 5 young kids were there, we began to set up chairs for 30, continuously praying for God’s will to be done. The seats were soon filled by kids and each of us stood up to share. My team did an incredible job of working together in unity, each one sharing what God had placed on our hearts. One shared stories about Jesus’ ministry here on earth, I shared about how Christ’s greatest miracle is that He forgives sin and restores we who were dead in our sin to life. Another shared about the gift of the Holy Spirit and how the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead lives in those who believe in Christ.
Sorry, you don’t need all these details, I just wanted you to know that although we wanted to see God heal our teammate’s ear through the prayers and faith of these kids, that we were faithful to teach them the goodness of God whether we saw His power that night or not. In the end, we invited them to pray over her. It was a sweet time listening to the kids all praying at once over her in a foreign tongue.
But she was not healed that night. I know God worked and moved in ways I don’t understand that night and He had to remind me that His ways are not mine. Because, my way would have been for Him to show up in power, heal my teammate, show His glory and increase these kids’ faith and show them that the prayers of the righteous are powerful and effective.
But He is good and I will continue to proclaim this even in the midst of my questions. Because that’s what faith is all about, isn’t it? “Being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see” (Hebrews 11:1).
