I watched the movie “Henry Poole Is Here” the other day. The basic premise is that this guy Henry (Luke Wilson) finds a water stain on the back of his house which some neighbors think looks like the face of Christ and has healing powers. I thought the movie was a cleaver and well-executed story about healing and I absolutely loved everything but the ending. Without ruining it for you, I’ll just say that the ending was just too simple for me. It seemed to take an incomprehensible topic and package it up into a simple cookie-cutter message. We all want to do this, don’t we? We want life to provide simple and predictable outcomes, but from my experience that’s not usually how it works.
The topic of healing is one of those things. I believe that healing happens and God is powerful enough to heal at will, but I can’t comprehend why he would heal sometimes and not others. Trite answers won’t suffice, so I settle for unanswered questions.
Do you believe that prayer can heal?
Updating…
Karin Maney is the director of prayer ministry at Vineyard Community Church in Cincinnati, OH.
Music by Jeremy Riddle (Vineyard Music). You can buy his CD here or download it on iTunes.
The acknowledgement of having questions – and not having all the answers is significant, and provides a place for integrity – I love this. The simplistic ‘love God; love others’ is also something I have adopted as a personal mantra – these are very doable and necessary actions, and yet represent our ‘limitedness’ in the outcomes of life. I can choose to provide a place of acceptance and embrace, yet not impose a set of values and expectations of which I have no control. Beautiful story.
I’ve been on both sides of healing. God has healed me many different ways in many different situations from many different things. I am also honored to be on the prayer team at my church. I have been elated when prayers were answered the way I had hoped for(or even beyond what I had hoped) and distressed when they didn’t. I have learned/am learning to/am trying to learn to let Him do His thing in His time. For me it’s about trust & obedience which are areas I need to improve in! But through my personal experiences & praying for others, He has given me glimpses of His perspective. I hang on to that when He doesn’t do what I want Him to when I think He should be doing it. It’s kind of a “sometimes He calms the storm & other times He calms the child” sort of thing.
This is one of the toughest topics for me. I want to believe. I think I believe. I know people I think have been healed. But I struggle against an unbelief in my heart. I talked about this with my wife before. I think my fear is that healing happens, just not when I pray. I don’t say that often because it conflicts with what I say I believe. I still pray for others, though, not as often and not where most would be aware.
Yes I believe that prayer can heal.
And no, I don’t believe that prayer can heal.
And it seems to me that it necessarily follows that to whatever extent prayer can heal, to that same extent prayer can also harm.
To me there are simpler, clearer things that can often be done, to promote healing, both inside and outside the medical model. Prayer feels very messy, and I feel at best ambiguous about it. In the past I’ve granted permission to people who asked if they could pray for me, when I really didn’t want them to, simply because I felt some sort of social obligation. I have better boundaries now =). I have often found prayer from other people, both in public and in smaller groups, personally obnoxious or offensive. I’m a bit more mellow now about it than I have been in the past.
It seems to me that prayer can be used as a tool for graciously giving away power, for coming under people, but it can also be used as a tool for selfishly taking and holding onto power, for being over people.
I myself don’t pray anymore. I reached a certain point where my prayers were filled with such an excess of anger, sarcasm, rage, disgust, pain, etc., that it was hurting me more than it was helping me. So I quit.
I really enjoyed Lucius Shepard’s “Handbook of American Prayer”
Many thanks to Karin for her honesty, openness, and willingness to embrace gray.
I don’t believe prayer heals. I believe the idea of being healed or healing can inspire the mind/body to respond correspondingly to adapt to ones expectations. It’s been exemplified many times in medical documentations (blah blah blah). My belief is cut off there until I have personally experienced something more than science has proved. But this also forwards my thinking to how awesome is the human body to be able to act in such a “supernatural” way, as to persuade itself to heal, if there was not some type of design involved. It’s almost as if we were created with an “oh shit” button to push, or to be pushed, if we have the spiritual/mental vigor for it.
Daniel,
Love your “‘Oh Shit’ Button” =)
It is probably worth pointing out that “Praying for healing” is based on James’ comment about “the prayer of faith” will make the sick person well.
Jesus never told us to PRAY for the sick – he said to HEAL them. He actually rebuked the disciples several times for ASKING God to do for them what he was training them to do themselves.
He died so that we can access EVERYTHING through the Holy Spirit resident in us. We have to go do it. It makes sense to start with the little things and build faith for the bigger (baby steps). If you expect “Jesus results” you have to have “Jesus submission” to the Father. Few of us have anything close to that.
I’m wondering why these “healer folks ” find people in other countries that can’t speak their language and you really don’t know if the locals are really blind or what, and you just “believe it” without any real truth. All the while there are tens of thousands of folks in our own country with all sorts of imperfections, but I don’t hear the lady on the video saying she went to an American hospital and showed the healing love of Jesus. I wonder.
Howie,
I know some “healer folks” who do this here in the States as well. I’m kind of glad they don’t do it in hospitals though. If I were in hospital, I would find it pretty offputting. It’s nice to give people the option to come to your gig, or not come to it, as they wish.
Hey Benjie, I wonder how many people struggling in a hospital would be able to “get” to a gig? For those who can’t, I can’t believe they would be put off by a potential “healing”. Could save a lot of money and pain.
There are other issues at work here. Why isn’t this lady sharing the Gospel with the locals. “Healing” their eyes or body so they will see when they step into Hell is not God’s idea of love.
This video belongs with the clips of Benny Hinn, a false teacher and blind leading the blind. I liked the tire pump video by Recycle, not this silly portrayal of sentamentalism.
Howie, I don’t think I understand your point. Are you suggesting that Karin is a false teacher solely because she offered healing prayer? Is that to say that you don’t believe that people should pray for healing? Or is it because it was a part of a missions trip? What about Karin’s clip makes you so certain that she is a false teacher?
The Scriptures give us clips of Jesus and others doing these things for a specific purpose and point, all during the establishment of the Gospel message. Much of what Jesus said to do in his “Kingdom teaching” is not followed today by any of us. Why?? Because Jesus said that the fullness of the “Kingdom” will have to wait till the second coming. Karin may have had good intentions, but her ideas of “healing prayer” is not within biblical direction and context. I have personal contact with those who go over to those countries and do what Karin did. All those villagers go on screen for those gullible American missionaries all the time. Craig, if Karin has such a gift, again, why not take it to the hospitals and “American villages” too!! There is no way that one can establish that that lady was blind in one eye and that Karin helped her find healing. It didn’t happen, and to imply such in a photo op is misleading people. I think Karin has been mislead into thinking like Benny Hinn. That’s my point.
Howie,
So how do you feel about the stories where Jesus healed people–especially when he didn’t “share the gospel” with them while he was doing it? And what about all those people at the pool of Bethesda that he didn’t heal? That one has honestly always bothered me. He left a lot of people out too, just like Karin or any other limited human being is going to have to do.
Howie,
I missed the part in the video where Karen said she only prays for healing for those outside of the US and I must have missed the part where she said that “she has a gift” to heal. How do you make these assumptions from such a short clip? Please help me understand.
Howie,
I know we aren’t suppose to debate so I will try to ask questions and keep this more like “dialog.” I initially responded to this video talking about my struggles with believing in healing. Let me clarify something. I believe in “supernatural healing” as the bible CLEARLY talks about. I just struggle with healing occurring when I pray. Regardless, scriptures, especially the New Testament, speak largely on the topic of healing. Jesus, Paul, the apostles, all talk about it. In your previous posts, you have challenged and critiqued others for ignoring scriptures. Now you seem to be contradicting them. Do you believe in supernatural healing today? Are you saying that God doesn’t care about our earthly bodies, only about our eternal salvation? Is it wrong for Christians to pray for healing in other countries? Is supernatural healing sentalmentalism?
Dan,
“Are you saying that God doesn’t care about our earthly bodies, only about our eternal salvation?” God made us with Physical Bodies. We are going to have eternal, physical bodies. God’s plan is to “bring all things, both heaven and earth, together in HIM.” We were created to be spirit inhabiting flesh. God has never changed that plan.
The Gospel message is one of restoration. Restoration of our relationship with God is paramount, but it is wrong to separate the restoration of everything else that is going to happen as an outworking of that relationship coming to fulfilment through Christ, from salvation. Jesus never separated preaching of the gospel from Demonstrating the gospel (Matt 10:7,8, Luke 9). He told the disciples to “Preach the gospel, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead,” FREELY.
He only ever gave us a package deal. It was the church that progressively lost the giftings and power of God, and then rewrote theology to explain their depleted experience.
My favourite verse it the “trump” verse in scripture – it leaves all theologies standing. Jesus said:”ALL THINGS are possible to those who BELIEVE” (Mark 9:23). It is the church that has put restrictions and lack into the Christian message, robbing us of the chance to grow in faith.
And faith without WORKS is dead. Sounds like some of our churches these days….
Praise God for forgiveness and restoration. The best is yet to come.
Dan, I too am troubled at times about the whole healing issue. But the trumped-up claims of this video and people like commenter Paul only makes sorting out the “rightly divided” scripture that much more difficult. “supernatural”, yes! But verifiable, indisputable claims of instant healings from people blind from birth, or dead people raised, or truly crippled people “immediately” walking?? Nope. Isn’t happening. Hospitals not being visited by these “instruments of healing power” and great verifiable stories just isn’t because it ain’t real. The Bible examples are indisputable in a court of law or public observation.
There are lots of things done in the Scriptures that we do not emulate; parting the sea for one. Some things commanded by scripture were for a specific time and point. God tells us to bring our petitions to him and to pray. Does God intervene?? Yes, and we praise him and continue to focus on sharing the Gospel to save souls from Hell.
So are you saying, Howie, that we should not believe for supernatural healing or are you saying it doesn’t happen right now? If the latter, do you believe it can happen? I just find it difficult to make some of the claims you do when your perspective is only human. If you’ve never met the lady on the video or the people who claim to have been healed by God, then how do you really know? How is telling someone who suffers that God promises to healing, giving false hope? Doesn’t the new testament tell us that “you will lay hands on the sick and they will be healed” ? (Actually, those words are in red in my bible, so I think it means Jesus said them.)
Sorry Howie, but if you’re not praying for healing you’re NOT sharing the gospel. Jesus only ever gave a package deal (matt 10:7,8;Luke 9 etc). Moreover, Jesus MODELLED God’s will on the issue by healing all who came to him.
On what basis do you say it isn’t happening? You obviously need to open your eyes a bit, and listen to the thousands of testimonies from various ministries all over the world. Just ’cause you haven’t personally witnessed anything yourself doesn’t mean it “isn’t happening”. Go to where it is.
In Western Hospitals the staff are very opposed to ministers coming in -unbelieving doctors especially. We usually only go in at the invitation of a patient.
You don’t just decide yourself to go clear out a hospital. That needs to be directed by the Holy Spirit, just like Jesus was.
Biblical basis: Jesus at the Pool of Bethsaida only healed the one guy (that we’re told), because he only ever did “what he saw the Father doing.”
yes, Craig – I believe that prayer can facilitate healing. It doesn’t always look the way I think it is going to look or isn’t always in the form I was praying for…but, I’ve experienced it.
Since I know Karin Maney, I believe what she said here is what she experienced. Some people were physically healed and others weren’t. Why? Only God knows why. I can accept that.
Why is it important to you to know why God doesn’t not heal everyone? Does he really have to explain himself to us? and are we even capable of understanding the answer?
(my ways are not your ways. my thoughts are not your thoughts.)
I am just as confused as everyone else about healing…..but also about life and death…..when young people die and older people who are in pain and agony still hang on……none of it makes sense outside of the fact that God is in control and we can’t see the big picture…..I know people who have had physical changes in health after prayer, but I also have friends who have died after serious rounds of prayer. I still believe prayer to be an important part of speaking with God.
Thank you Karen for your transparency on this subject.
Hi Elaine- I would like to know why God doesn’t heal everyone, but I wouldn’t say it’s “important to me”. Like others here have said, I don’t think we will ever fully understand the logic (if there is one), so I’m not too worried about figuring it out. What IS important to me is to be careful not to over simplify these things. It would be too simple for me to say “God always heals” or “God never heals”. It feels to me that it’s somewhere in between, but I think that even trying to define that in-between place is a way of simplification for me. That’s why it bothers me a little when I hear people talk about something being “God’s will”. Thinking that way may help some people in their grief/etc, but when I start thinking that way it seems to dismiss the complexity of the situation (boiling it down to a simple statement). I think the closer you are to a situation the harder it becomes to simplify it. I went to a 4 year old boy’s funeral a couple weeks back. I can’t imagine that the boy’s parents are able to simplify it down to being “God’s will”. I would think the whole thing is very complex to them right now, I can’t imagine.
Craig, Elaine, others,
The question of “why that person, and not that person?” touches, of course, on the classic problem of pain. It is arguably a fairly large problem for a lot of people, when it comes to believing in God or relating to God, don’t you think?
I totally admire people who are able to trust God–able to trust that, as Bears Kaufman puts it, the universe is ultimately a benevolent rather than a maleficent place.
Orson Scott Card, best known for his sci fi novel “Ender’s Game”, wrote a really interesting take on the problem of pain in his novel “The Worthing Saga”. His story helped me a lot to create/find a mental place where I could begin to believe the universe is ultimately beneficent in the face of all the pain and all the “that person, but not that person” stuff.
Thanks to all for making RYF such a fascinating, open place.
Craig – thanks for responding to why it is important to you…and I get what you are saying. Talking in absolutes about whether prayer always heals or never heals – is trying to make the unknown manageable/controllable/predictable…well that doesn’t quite articulate it – but I hope you get what I am trying to say.
Benjamin – your mention of the problem with pain reminds me a of a book by Philip Yancey. It is a biography of Dr. Paul Brand who ran a leprosy clinic in Louisiana. It is called “The Gift of Pain”. Very powerful book and has given me a different perspective on pain…all pain even non-physical.
In a “nut shell”, the inability to feel pain because of the nerve damage caused by leprosy, leads to damaging the body. Without the pain mechanism, we ignore the damage we, or the disease, are causing our bodies. Self-medicating is a way to ignore the pain instead of getting healing for the real pain. (Those with leprosy would go so far as to remove protective gear to allow them to “tighten” a bolt – even when they knew they were damaging their hand.) We human beings are strange creatures.
BTW Craig – I am not applying this to the young child that died recently. That is a different kind of pain – and I have not found an explanation for children – the innocent. I have to actively work to celebrate what gift the child was – for the time he/she was with us.
After reading the book, I now look at pain as a gift. My body or mind telling me something is wrong…to listen and seek out what is needed.
It also reminds me that in most circumstances I can choose my attitude – to use it for good or ill – an opportunity to learn.
Reaching this place for myself has not been a simple straight line. It has taken years of seeking, observing, praying…and I am not done. Maybe in a year, I will be in a new place with this.
there is actually some interesting evidence that prayer actually *does* effect healing. See for instance: http://members.cox.net/decenso/smj.pdf
Here’s another one: http://www.thefreelibrary.com/Research+on+the+healing+power+of+distant+intercessory+prayer:…-a0142151266
Both published in peer reviewed journals.
” I believe that healing happens and God is powerful enough to heal at will, but I can’t comprehend why he would heal sometimes and not others”
Hi all, as a member of a Christian Healing Ministry, I have learned an awful lot about Divine Healing in the past 20 years. I was raised Sydney Anglican (Evangelical anti-charismatic), but discovered God was still doing stuff in the 80s, during the “Third Wave”. I have seen many miraculous healings (I am a Biomedical Scientist by training so I have a clue what Science can and cannot do), and we see the miraculous every week in our Meetings in Adelaide. Suffice to say, I am speaking from experience here. Check our website for testimonies, etc.
Lets be very clear. “I am the Lord who Heals you”, is one of the character-defining Names of God. He CANNOT act contrary to His nature, and His nature is to Heal. Jesus modelled this on earth, and declared; “He who has seen me has seen the Father.” Jesus healed them all (with the only exception being a case of such unbelief that he “could not”). It is clear from the Gospels that God’s will is to heal in every case.
The only blockage, throughout the Gospels, is unbelief, which is not necessarily the opposite of Faith. Most of us see faith as being general. Unfortunately, it isn’t. One can have faith for provision, but not finances, for example. Faith is specific to the situation, or the mountain, in front of you. When Jesus was asked by the disciples: Why couldn’t we do it? (heal the epileptic boy) he answered: because of your unbelief. He then taught them: “This kind (of UNBELIEF) only comes out by prayer and fasting.” Maybe this is a key. Every successful healing ministry in the last 150 years was birthed and maintained out of the prayer closet, with fasting. This teaching is sadly lacking in modern Christianity, to the extent that it is regarded as Ascetic by many believers.
Acts 10:38 says: “Jesus went about doing good, and HEALING all who were OPPRESSED BY THE DEVIL.” There is your source of sickness. Never God, who HEALS YOU. We have authority over the devil and all his works. Learning to walk in this authority, push down your flesh-man (by fasting) and build up your spirit man (by praying in the spirit) is the key to seeing regular success in healing.
More importantly, it opens your ability to hear the Lord. “My sheep hear my voice” is sadly NOT a reality for the majority of christians. Yet “faith comes by HEARING, and hearing by the WORD of GOD.” The Evangelical church has assumed that this means the written word, yet several hundred years of little power and authority challenges this assumption. I believe this refers to the Living Word, who is a person: the Man, Christ Jesus. When He speaks to you, you have the faith needed to get the Job done. I see the fruit of this regularly. I’m not hearing as clearly as Raf, our senior minister, but I’m getting there.
I can introduce you to the first person in the world to live longer than 49 days with the worst form of bone cancer; to a lady currently getting better from MS. Last night I witnessed an elderly lady (who had been told by doctors she needed a knee replacement) get one from the Lord. I have prayed for a mostly blind girl whose eyes opened immediately (photos on the India page on the website), for 3-4 year-old children born deaf and dumb whose ears and mouths opened immediately, so that their parents broke down weeping.
Finally, witchcraft of any sort is a major blockage to healing. Any form of occult involvement, whether personally or in the ancestral line, gives the devil a legal access to oppress. This is easily repented of and broken, and opens the door to healing. But faith is always the key. Raf encourages people to start declaring the Promises of God over their lives (get the Word into them) and to “take their medicine”: “Thank you Jesus for Healing me,” as often as needed (100 times/day if you can).
Feel free to email questions via the website. Check out the testimonies. Listen to the weekly meetings (Videos are free online) and read the testimonies from the 50s Voice of Healing Revival.
Blessings,
PauL D
PS Ben Ady: Clearing out hospital wards is fun, but you need to hear from the Lord, not go in presumption. I’ve seen a cancer sufferer come out of hospice (where the doctors have given up on treatment and just give unlimited pain meds), put on 13 kilos, see his cancer counts drop (14000 – 1000 in a week). THAT spins out the doctors.
Paul,
I am curious as to how you and others maintain a positive attitude at those times when it doesn’t “work”. Maybe it’s a type of thing that works better for those whose disposition is more optimistic. Don’t you ever get really really angry at God when you feel like you’ve done everything you possibly could–fasted, prayed, and so forth, and healing steal doesn’t happen? Or does that not happen in your circles?
It’s not God’s fault that we can’t get our act together. It is hard when you’ve done everything you know to do, but it’s very much tied to the patient’s ability to get faith/willingness to live – especially with cancer. Because of the constant pain of treatment, if they give up, they die very quickly, and there’s little we can do about their free will.
By the same token, their refusal to let the enemy rob them will keep them going far beyond anything the doctors can understand. I’ve seen a guy, who looked like a skeleton in the bed, come out of hospice and get better.
Again, it comes back to basics. “I am the Lord who heals you”, and “God is Good”. All other outcomes are the enemy being able to rob people. Sometimes, we get sought out too late to help someone – they just don’t have the time needed to come into faith and overcome the negativity of the medical profession and their well-meaning, pitying friends.
Few christians these days have faith to be healed. That’s why Jesus said: “When the son of man returns, will He find faith on the earth?” We know whether or not they have faith if it works for them.
PauL D
Craig, I’m sure your must be bothered when the ‘stranger than fiction” folks come to the dialog table. Paul is an example of that to me. How do these folks talk a big talk of healers, yet their ‘practice” does not look like the biblical examples? No raisings from the dead. No blind healed. Wait a minute. That’s right. Compare the blind healed in Scripture to those telling us about their healings. NO similarity. No cripled from birth to IMMEDIATELY walking!! Seems these folks claiming to be instruments of God’s healing power aren’t showing verifiable proofs as found in scripture. hmmm. I think your video guest and Paul are misguided by a zeal without “RIGHTLY dividing the Word” and they don’t clear out hospitals because It’s not real. Praying for healing and all that goes with calling on a holy God for our petitions is sound and necessary, but this stuff promoted by the video is unverifiable and giving a false hope to those suffering from the broken world.
Sorry Howie. I’ve prayed for a blind girl whose eyes opened immediately. I’ve seen cripples immediately healed. As for “verifiable proofs found in scripture”, find me christians these days who have the foundational faith of the average first-century jew and you’ll see similar results.
It’s why we see far greater miracles in India and Africa than here in Oz – they don’t have “doctrines” that rob them of faith. They hear the gospel, see the results, and they get healed too.
I’d much rather minister to unsaved than to (un)believers – it’s much more successful and more fun.
Paul, with all due respect for your desire to walk the walk, I don’t believe you helped heal a blind person or a crippled man. Perhaps I have a Thomas faith on this one or I have seen the charlatans too successful at convincing folks like you into a perception that does not really exist. And it still does not answer the question as to why you and others are not in hospitals. Are you saying a child suffering in the bowels of physical pain would not have the faith to be healed or a child lying in a burn ward would not listen to your zeal and be healed???????????? The lady in the video and you must go into a cancer ward for children and “hug” on these kids and offer them healing or I don’t believe you.
Again, Jesus only did what he saw the Father doing. He walked into the equivalent of a hospital and we’re only told he healed ONE guy (there may have been more, we’re not told).
The key is hearing Him speak. There’s not point walking into a hospital where there is little faith on your own presumption. We can assume all we want about why or why not something occurs, but the Bible is clear that:
1. It is God’s will to heal all the time.
2. It is our actions/inactions that prevent His will from being manifested on Earth.
3. We are COMMANDED to “heal the sick”, so it’s an obedience issue to try.
4. Jesus said time and time again that Faith mattered. So many Christians try to get around this issue, but it’s Biblical. If we had the faith, it would happen. If we don’t have the faith, we keep getting into the prayer closet until we do.
PauLD
OK I guess this chick is Jesus b/c she said that she put her hand over a blind person’s eye and now that person can see. I mean that is just amazing. I don’t understand what this video has to do with faith, basing it on some woman’s claims that she has healed someone. This is a very deceiving video for people to be watching, how dare someone claim they performed miracles and give people the impression that prayer will heal them?
How dare she???
How dare she not? Jesus said to “preach the gospel, HEAL THE SICK, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, raise the dead”.
The first stage of Scientific Method is OBSERVATION. If you observe a blind person seeing after being prayed for, it’s clear that something has happened.
Don’t judge by your own lack of experience.
Wow! I love the dialogue that the video has generated. My whole goal for working with Craig is to get the message out there that it’s o.k. not to have all the answers, especially with regard to divine healing. I do want to make some clarifying comments to some assumptions that were made about me though. First, I never said that I healed anyone. I have no capacity to heal anyone but I do believe that God has the capacity to heal through me. Just like he does with doctors. Secondly, my experience with prayer for healing has actually been greater in the US than overseas. In both places there are times God will physically heal and sometimes he doesn’t. But there does seem to be one exception. In third world countries since doctors are less available, especially in rural areas, people are more open to having someone pray for them for healing especially when coupled with the gospel message. Here in the US, it is just too easy to pop a pill or go to the doctor, which is often the first response to illness versus praying and asking the God who created us to heal us. We are a society of “not needing God” and healing is one more example of that.
There is also verifiable proof out there for those who desire to seek it out in lack of personal experience. But I’m sure that those who are set on not believing in divine healing will find fault with that documentation as well. Again my desire is not to convince anyone one way or the other only God can do that, but it is my desire to be faithful to what God is called me to. To love people in praying for them. If their desire is to be healed physically, I will join in prayer to a God who loves them to do just that.
Thanks for the opportunity to participate and dialogue about this Craig!
Karin, you are so brave! Thank you so much for opening up your stories and questions for us to nitpick! How do you respond to the more absolute comments on the pro-healing and anti-healing sides? Do you get defensive or hurt? Why aren’t you out on a mission to bring people to your point of view?
I wonder why some interpret these videos as “promotion” of a certain message? I simply want to present a point of view and stir up dialog. Oddly enough (as Karin is aware) I don’t necessarily agree with Karin’s point of view, yet I wanted to interview her because I thought it would stir up some interesting conversation. Do you (everyone) think that presenting a particular point of view denotes “promotion” in our culture?
Paul,
I hope it won’t be offputting if I say that what you are saying sounds to me like it could really easily slip into blaming a sick person because they haven’t been healed.
I have a very close friend whose younger brother died when he was 3 years old of a heart condition. I don’t want to reveal her name, so I’ll call her P. P was 17 at the time, and she and her father and mother and 4 other siblings were all deeply committed Christians. I’m totally going to start crying writing about this. I’m going to call her brother S. P has shared with me this heartbreaking story of holding her delightful three year old brother, who was sick, malnourished due to inability to eat, wasting away–definitely dying. S was sitting in her lap and P managed to help him eat a chicken egg she had prepared for him. She started crying with the joy of the fact that her beloved little bro had gotten down this chicken egg, as he could hardly ever eat anything at that point. Then he vomited it back up. She was devastated.
P and her mum, dad, and 4 siblings all believed, as best I can tell, in a similar way to what you seem to be describing about healing. They prayed for little S. They fasted. They sought out other deeply spiritual people who believed in healing to pray and fast with them, and anoint S’s little body with oil. Finally, after a really difficult gradual wasting away due to his heart condition, delightful little 3 year old S died.
That was quite a number of years ago, and it took poor P a really long time to stop blaming herself. “How did I not get it right? How did I not have enough faith. What else could I have done? If I only could have gotten it right, S wouldn’t have died.” Etc. Etc.
This strikes me as astoundingly toxic. I much prefer Karin’s take on it to yours, to be really honest. Leaving some space for ambiguity seems a lot healthier and less potentially soul damaging than insisting that healing is all about whether the patient has enough “faith”.
Hope I make some sense. I seriously don’t want to put you down or hurt you. I’m totally sure lots of really hurting people have been helped by you and your friends who pray for healing for them.
(I wish this darned software would allow for paragraph breaks. All my writing looks shoddy/run on/unreadable. grrrrrrr.)
It’s not all about the patient. Faith is personal and corporate. The actual mechanics in any situation are ambiguous – who can say in the above situation where the lack was, unless the Lord revealed it (which he sometimes does as a teaching point).
What we can be clear on is that: WE (the church) didn’t have enough to get the job done. Therefore, back to the lifestyle of prayer and fasting.
Jesus told a story about the unprepared Bridesmaids. When the Bridegroom showed up they didn’t have the oil ready, and they missed out. Theological purists would argue its application in this case, but observation indicates it applies. When faced with a life-threatening situation, it’s very hard to start getting into faith for healing, especially when all of your Christian experience, environment, etc is against success. Even in a faith-filled environment where healings are common, the enemy still Robs people (fear, doubt, undealt-with issues in the heart, witchcraft) – there are blockages to receiving the healing power of the Lord.
But we need to be honest about this, regardless of whether people’s feelings are hurt. It’s OUR fault, not HIS. He gave His precious Son so that we could access everything about him (Ro 8:32* He who did not spare His own Son, but delivered Him up for us all, how will He not also with Him freely give us all things?). His NAME is: The Lord who HEALS you. If we are not accessing what is available through Jesus’ death on the cross, is that HIS fault or ours?
The Church needs to stop blaming God for things that are OUR responsibility.
Have a look through the gospels at all the times where Jesus rebukes the disciples for their lack of faith. It’s mostly about asking God to do for them, what they were being trained to handle themselves. It’s an issue of acceptance of responsibility (=maturity).
We (the church [BOC]), need to get our act together, recognise that he has given us “all things”, and start being faithful about spending the time with him in the prayer closet until we break through in hearing his voice.
If we can’t hear his voice, does that mean we’re not his sheep?
We have had a cancer patient last week who gave up and died. We had been praying for months -the doctors told her she’d be dead in March. We had broken the witchcraft curses (islander background), her fevers had gone, and she had started getting physically better, but she could not give up the fear. Two weeks ago she told Raf she’d had enough and wanted to “go home”. This is very common with cancer patients, but we’ve yet to see one survive who has made this decision.
It is THEIR decision, to die. We encouraged, prayed, etc, but unless they repent(?) of that decision in their heart we are limited by their free will.
For those who don’t like this, sorry, but even Jesus “COULD NOT” do any miracles in a no faith environment.
So, we teach faith, we encourage faith development, we encourage people to spend time with the Lord in the prayer closet. We encourage fasting (to put down the flesh-man), and praying in tongues (to build up the spirit-man [1Co 14:4* One who speaks in a tongue edifies himself]) – this is God’s Fast Track, for Spiritual growth. We teach people to aim for the Highest place (Divine Health), and recognise that few are anywhere close to that yet. We NEVER speak to give the enemy a cheap shot (one of the ladies had a dream that the above-mentioned patient would die. Raf told her to keep it to herself. Our view is that any negative revelation is the Lord revealing the Enemy’s plans so we can pray against it. To speak such a thing undermines the ability of family etc to maintain faith for the patient).
We don’t blame the patient for not having enough faith -it’s obvious from the Bible that WE (collectively) didn’t have enough.
How do you know you have enough – when it works!
In the meantime, we have to be obedient and “heal the sick”. We take baby steps growing in faith, and we gradually see improvement and advancement. We see miracles regularly, though nowhere near what we would like to see. We see salvations every week, as unbelievers witness the power of God and believe.
Remember, there is a maturity thing going on – we cannot write off divine healing and blame God for stuff just because we’re not yet seeing Jesus-level results.
Maybe we’re simply not as spiritually grown-up as we often like to think?
Blessings,
PauLD
I feel the idea of a person not being healed because of their lack of faith, or insufficient faith by the body of believers praying for them, is—well, to be blunt—damaging. Before I explain my point of view, let me say I believe that faith can be a very valuable component in healing, just not a requirement. There were those who were healed by Jesus who had faith (ex: woman who touched Jesus robe). There were those that did not have a faith component (ex: John 9—the man born blind). There were those who needed a healing of their “unbelief.” But when we say a healing did not occur because of a lack of faith we are implying that God cannot (rather than in some circumstances “does not”) overcome our insufficient faith. God is all powerful and is not limited by our human response. We (believing Christians) can pull the perverbial rug out from under other Christians by telling them their loved one died because they did not have enough faith. This happened in my family in the generation before my father and the ripple effects have been tragic—my father, for one, has never gotten over this.
It’s a very challenging video with a compelling question. We simply do not and maybe cannot know the answer. We can ask “why me?” or “why was that person healed and not this one?” but I don’t expect any more answers than Job received (which was none).
There has been a supernatural healing in my own family, I know first hand of others. There is no question in my mind of God’s ability to heal or to heal through us. I believe in healing prayer. But if we believe that God is who He says He is (through revelation in scripture), then sometimes we just have to resign ourselves to the idea that He is God and we are not. And probably most of the time He won’t reveal to us the answer to why.
Paul,
Wow. What I hear you saying to my friend, who still struggles with guilt, is “Well, it *is* your fault your three year old brother died.”
This message is beyond unpalatable to me. It pretty much makes it impossible for me to hear anything else you have to say.
Not at all. It’s the Devil’s fault (Acts 10:38). My point, absolutely, is that it IS NOT God’s fault. The fact that we (the church, collectively) could not “get it done” should cause us to respond appropriately – prayer, fasting, seeking to grow spiritually in the knowledge of Him.
There is NO condemnation. But I have seen Raf get specific Words of Knowledge as to why an illness came on a person that leaves them stunned (us too), and the fruit is repentance and healing. Isn’t that straight New Testament?
My issue is the: “Oh it didn’t happen therefore God mustn’t want to do it” argument, which is just NOT Biblical.
Your friend needs ministry to break off the guilt – that is fairly easy to do, and will set her free.
PaulD
Paul,
So in your understanding, it’s kind of like God wants to heal people, but the Devil wants to prevent that from happening, and we are somewhere in the middle trying to hinder the Devil and help out God? And if we don’t quite get that middleman thing right, it’s totally fine to blame the devil, but we most certainly mus’n't blame God? Am I hearing you correctly?
I think that’s a good summary. Please remember there are levels of faith and maturity. You do not hold an uneducated child responsible for not knowing how to properly fly a plane. The same holds true for Faith and Healing. Hosea 4:6 says: “My people are destroyed through lack of knowledge.” Jesus lamented that he often wanted to gather Jerusalem to himself but they “would not.” Many orthodox Christian writers have commented that we are as close to God as WE want to be. Maybe we would be further along if more churches actually taught Christians to practise walking in Faith – taking baby steps – so they have confidence that God will back them up in the harder cases.
This is why we try and point believers to the highest places of Faith, while meeting them at the level they are at, fully recognising that is we ourselves were walking at Jesus’ level we would be far more effective at helping others to “get there” in their battles/illnesses.
So we fast and pray to grow ourselves, and rejoice over every “Win” where the devil doesn’t get to Rob someone, and use every “loss” to pursue the Lord more so it doesn’t happen next time.
The Father’s expressed will is to heal. He has chosen to limit himself to work through us (the body of Christ, corporately AND individually). It is simply true to acknowledge that we (collectively) didn’t have what was needed to get a particular battle won. We have access to everything we need through the Spirit, but just couldn’t get it together in this case.
Blame = NONE. Responsibility to press in closer to Him so we do better next time = all of us.
Also, consider where the point of view of a capricious God who chooses some to heal and not others leads – a very Greek view of God. How does this encourage Faith in believers? How can they trust a cruel God who behaves in this way? It contravenes everything Jesus demonstrated when he walked the Earth, and declared: “If you’ve seen me you’ve seen the Father.”
The Lord gave me a picture tonight that may help. You needed to bridge a chasm in a short time to save someone’s life. You know how to build the bridge, but in the time available you don’t have time to gather the materials AND build the bridge.
If you have spent the time gathering the materials beforehand, you can do the task in the necessary time.
Therefore, prayer – spending time with Him, learning to hear his voice better, knowing His heart more closely, and becoming more equipped for the situations we are going to have to face.
Blessings,
PauLD
Ben, PaulD has mismatched scripture. It’s called NOT “rightly dividing the Word”. Even Peggy has given some truth without getting to the meat of the matter. “Sound doctrine” is not being explained here and the issues of why that Karin and PaulD don’t go to hospitals in America and “heal” the sick is not addressed by their attempts to explain why peopls aren’t healed. Paul’s zeal is misguided by his mismatching scripture to create a doctrine. That’s why it’s sounding like a game. Peggy doesn’t help in the dialog when she rightly states that God sends us to different fields, but wrongly gives the impression that our location determines God working in us. God said “go into ALL the world”. So trying to defend Karin’s African healings with her lack of healing power in America does not fly with me.
Sure are a lot of words being thrown around when you can’t verify your healings!!
Howie,
Sounds like it’s really important to you to know for sure whether something is true or not. Is that coming from the way you were brought up, or some experience, or is it just an important piece of who you are as a person, or something else? Tell me about that.
There’s much here to respond too and I love that Karin’s willingness to be interviewed and be transparent has created a forum for conversation on the topic. I like Karin have way more questions than I have answers and I find the best place for me to explore these questions are in the Bible.. you note that I stated explore not always obtain the answers I’m looking for. (Now don’t run the wrong with that one – it’s not that God hasn’t given us the answers, I just sometimes lack the understanding to gleam that understanding when I study.)
I think often about the man at the pool of Bethesda in John 5:3-4 “Here a great number of disabled people used to lie—the blind, the lame, the paralyzed. One who was there had been an invalid for thirty-eight years.” When this scripture is read and taught on there are many things that come out of it – but seldom have I heard a teaching (answers) as to why did Jesus only heal the one man, the man that had laid by the pool for 38 years desperating wanting to be the first into the waters when they were stirred so that he could be healed. Why not the other blind, lame and paralyzed individuals laying by the pool that day? Did Jesus heal them and the scripture just not speak of it or did He not? I have to say I don’t know. But I do know that one option is that He only healed the one.
Why does God do the things He does? Can any one of us answer that question? Personally I can’t understand a love that is so strong that someone who send their only Son to take my punishment and die for my sins in my place. But I am so glad that He did.
I don’t know why God sends us where He sends us. Some he sends to mission fields abroad – some he sends to mission fields in our workplace, our neighborhood, our area hospitals, etc. Just because in the interview Karin speaks of a mission field God sent her too doesn’t mean that He isn’t sending folks to other mission fields mentioned in some of the comments above.
In Luke (4:17- 21) Jesus states:
17 And there was delivered unto him the book of the prophet Isaiah. And he opened the book, and found the place where it was written,
18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, Because he anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor: He hath sent me to proclaim release to the captives, And recovering of sight to the blind, To set at liberty them that are bruised,
19 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.
20 And he closed the book, and gave it back to the attendant, and sat down: and the eyes of all in the synagogue were fastened on him.
21 And he began to say unto them, To-day hath this scripture been fulfilled in your ears.
Jesus futher tells us in John 14:9-14
9Jesus answered: “Don’t you know me, Philip, even after I have been among you such a long time? Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? 10Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you are not just my own. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. 11Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. 12I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. 13And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. 14You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.
Seems to me that He is telling us that with faith we should be doing what He was doing. So again, loads of questions – but not all the answers. The only thing I know for sure it that I don’t stand much of chance of really displaying the love of Jesus to others if I’m not in relationship to Jesus and if I’m in relationship I don’t need to know all the answers I just need to follow where He directs me. He’s a big God and He does have all the answers, it’s just my job to trust in Him and believe what He has told me.
Thanks Karin for your leadership, transparency, insight and willingness to show the love of Jesus in all aspects of your life!
Peggy
Howie,
I can’t see where Paul mismatched scripture in his replies. Each one that he stated is included in the Bible that I have. Can you give me specific instances and proofs where he mismatched? That would be helpful to me. I know there is one scripture that I try (notice I said try) to apply to my life each day. Philippians 4:13 states, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength.” The problem is that I too often get caught up in the affairs of the day and miss the opportunity that God has put in front of me where He wants to do something through my availability to Him.. He is the one who does the work not I, God just wants us to be faithful and He will do what He wants , when He wants and in His way and time.
Blessings, Rod