I’ve been struggling with the concept of healing for about the past two years now. I myself have never seen or witnessed a full healing before. I’ve seen moments where the pain may “drop” a few notches and its only after praying multiple times that the pain is “reduced”. In my head, I didn’t believe it was actually a healing because I just thought the brain receptors were firing neurons to that part of the body and the brain would make the body feel like the pain was lessening but it really wasn’t. Something I also struggle with is the prayers we say for healing. We pray these long, wordy prayers, but you look in the Bible and Jesus and the disciples would either command them to be well or touch a person and they would be healed, but not by their authority by God’s. Yet I find this conundrum at work where we feel we have to pray these long drawn out prayers as if the prayer is what heals someone. Whenever you look in the Bible, it’s either the person who is getting healeds faith that heals them, or it’s the person who is healing.
I still didn’t believe in healing even after reading that all in scripture. My team had team time where we were reading through the book of Matthew together and we got on the topic of healing. I told my team I didn’t have the faith to put mud on a blind mans eyes in order for him to see or to put my hand on someone with a contagious disease and tell them they are healed. My teammate Jenny asked me “Well why don’t you have that faith?” My answer was that I’m not there yet.
The next day, when I woke up, I heard God tell me that I was going to pray for healing for someone. The first guy I came upon, I prayed for his eyes to be healed but they were not healed. I immediately got frustrated and was like “well God, I prayed and no healing.” He told me to be diligent and keep praying. The next piece of land we came to, we had actually been to before. We had prayed for the man who was here the week before for his vision. His vision was very blurry and he could only see on about a ten to fifteen foot radius in a circle around him. We walked on to the property and I was like “alright God, I know you’re going to heal this mans vision, I know it!”
Little did I know, as we stepped onto this plot of land, my teammate Abby got a sharp shooting pain in her left leg, and she said she had never ever felt pain like that before, but as soon as it was there it was gone. She was going to speak up about it but didn’t. This man, was laying under a tree just like he was last time. When we came over, he propped himself up against that tree and began preaching to us in Bsotho. What’s crazy, is that this man started telling us a story of how he used to work in the mines. One day while he was working, the mine collapsed and a large rock fell and broke his left lef. They were trapped in the mine for three days. That was back in 1984. To that very day we were talking, he still had severe pain in his left leg and he had a cane because he couldn’t stand or walk without it. In that moment I got frustrated again and thought “But God, you want to heal his vision!” And God said “no, I want this man to walk”.
I immediately started racking my brain of what to say next, and I was about to offer to pray when I heard Holy Spirit prompt me to say “What do you want Jesus to do for you?” Our translator Teboho translated and the man replied back “I want him to heal me”. In my head I heard “this is what the disciples and Jesus asked, now it’s your turn”.
So I asked “Do you believe Jesus can heal you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you have faith that Jesus can heal you?”
“Yes.”
I also found this out later in the five seconds between me asking that second question and making the last statement I’m about to type out, Abby received a word of knowledge from the Lord to tell me “just say it”, however she did not.
“Stand up and walk, your faith has made you well.”
This was the exact statement I told him. I told him with boldness and authority knowing the Lord was going to move. I don’t know how to this day I knew that I was so sure, but I knew God was going to heal this man. As he reached down to push himself off the ground, he slowly but steadily stood up. His can remained by his feet. He tentatively took a few steps forward. I then asked him to walk towards me as I stood about fifteen feet away. He walked towards me with pride and with confidence. There was no swaying. No stumbling. He looked at me and told me he was never going to use his cane again. He said without his cane, he would always fall over due to lack of balance in his left leg, but he felt completely new and refreshed. I won’t lie to you and say that I didn’t get misty eyed, because I did. I had seen God move! I had seen God heal someone!
However, the enemy attacked immediately. I had the same thoughts a lot of you who are reading this proabably have.
“You never saw him walk before you prayed for him.”
“What if he never needed the cane in the first place?”
“What if he wasn’t healed?”
As we were leaving, I asked for the mans name. His name is Thabang. I prayed with Thabang and left the lot as Thabang sat down under the tree again. As we reached the gate of this field, Jenny and I stopped to talk for a little bit. As we were doing so, I glanced back over at Thabang and saw that he had grabbed his cane and was standing back up. My worst fears were realized.
“He wasn’t healed.”
“He faked it.”
“Man, you look so dumb now.”
Why is it that we fear the unknown? I hadn’t even seen what was going to happen and I was jumping to conclusions.
As Thabang stood up, he placed the cane in both hands behind his back, and started walking back and forth. He then threw the cane down, took off his cap, raised his hands and started praising God. Mind you, he couldn’t see us even though we were about thirty feet away, but in that moment God whispered to me “all you have to do is have faith.”
And so I want to encourage you today. Have faith. Realize that our faith changes the world. Realize that faith can heal a mans heart, but it can also restore a mans leg. Don’t be afraid of the unknown or the uncomfortable. Growth comes in the uncomfortable. Step out in faith and watch what God can do through you. I’m telling you, it will take your breath away.
