right?
that’s what i always thought.
you see for whatever reason, american churches don’t really preach and teach about healings anymore. i’m not entirely sure why that is but it’s true, i never really knew what healings and miracles were. i mean i knew jesus performed them and they were incredible and it led masses of people to god but i didn’t truly understand what the bible meant when talked about the bleeding woman who only wanted to touch jesus’ clothes in hopes of being healed. (mark 5:25-34) or how people drug the sick and dying into the streets hoping to fall under the healing power of peters shadow. (acts 5:15) how can someone just be healed? how does that work? is it even real or is it just a strange coincidence that we chalk up to the work of god? these are questions i’ve struggle with (and still kind of do, to be honest) because in my brain, these acts aren’t logical. they make no sense. they’re impossible. how does a regular joe just walk up and pray that the pain in someones leg just disappear? how do people demand demons to leave and never return? and how do those demons actually listen? the reason these things don’t seem logical is because jesus is behind all of them and let’s be real- he totally makes no sense.
in botswana i was able to be apart of and witness gods healing hand in the kalahari desert. my team and i went into the bush to teach at the local primary school. of course that didn’t happen and we ended up doing door to door evangelism but i’m so thankful because what we were able to do and see is beyond words.
a little background about where we were- we stayed in a village called qabo. it’s a village made of sand roads and sheet metal houses with people who have literally never heard the name jesus. we started by going door to door talking to people, just getting to know them, their lives, their struggles and sharing our stories with them. it was awkward at first but as the week went on people started warming up to us, and us to them. i think they saw that we weren’t just some white americans rolling in money stopping by to tell them about jesus and then leave. we were real people who have struggle and who are still struggling but who love god and want them to know about his goodness. they started asking us for prayers, confessing sins and asking for jesus to come into their hearts. it was beautiful.
one of the last days we were there one of our translators got a call about people who were asking us to come pray for their son. all we knew is that he had gone completely mute 5 days prior. so we get to the house and there were 15 people who had gathered there to see what was going on. (later we found out that they were people who had heard about jesus and were incredibly skeptical and wanted to see what would happen) we started praying for the boy but nothing was really happening so we stopped to talk with the family and to see how the kid was feeling. the boy started to drink water, which he hadn’t done in 5 days. we started praying again and all of a sudden we hear him faintly say “by jesus name i am healed.” GUYS. this boy who hadn’t talked for 5 days was able to say jesus name! as soon as he got it out everyone around him started sobbing. they couldn’t believe it. i couldn’t believe it. we just watched a boy whose family didn’t know who god was go from being completely mute, unable to eat or drink, to proclaiming that by jesus he is healed.
we drove away from qabo knowing that god had radically changed not only the village but our hearts as well. god is powerful beyond words, guys. he’s powerful beyond reason and he definitely doesn’t make any sense. he does the impossible simply because he loves us.
that was a mind blowing moment and it’s something i’m honestly still processing through. i try to not get too technical about it because i know that the god we serve is bigger than my little mind could ever comprehend but i do know that what i saw was 100% real and 100% jesus, and that’s all i really need to know.
i may never fully comprehend what it means to see miracles and healings in our present time but i do know that it’s real and it’s happening. it’s happening to people out in the bush of africa. it’s happening to people in the middle of america. god is still so alive and moving in our lives and i want the world to see more of that healing power. imagine if we started praying (and believing) in the things god has given us authority in. imagine if instead of turning so quickly to the doctor we gathered as christians and prayed total and complete healing over people. imagine if we had the faith to cast out demons and strongholds in people. imagine if sunday mornings turned into a time of healing and prayer for everyone who needed it. imagine if we let ourselves go to those places in our faith that seem totally impossible and crazy. man, we would be unstoppable in the kingdom.
