Healing Prayer

This is the latest installment of the weekly prayer letter I send out to the group of Christian students at my school. I hope someone out there may find it useful.

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"I believe; help my unbelief!" shouted the father of a demonized child as he stood before Jesus, the only one who could heal his son. This statement has echoed throughout the generations that have past since Jesus' day. Who can say that they have never prayed for a healing of a loved one, a friend or just someone you pass on the street? It is almost a first nature to cry out to God in times of pain, anger, or unbelievable odds, begging Him for the chance to be better, to be healed or to overcome an illness. We believe that God has the power to heal, but we do not often act out on it, revealing that ultimately we do not actually believe God has the power. Healing Prayer is perhaps one of the most seen prayers (even though it is not always uttered) in the Bible, but yet it is faced with, hopefully, a healthy dose of skepticism.

If you are skeptical about Healing Prayer, take heart because one of the greatest early Christian fathers was as well - Saint Augustine. In Augustine's city of God, he recounts this personal experience, which Foster paraphrases, "In his early writings, he [Augustine] doubted the validity of healing prayer and that Christians should not look to the continuance of the healing gift. But in 424AD, a brother and sister came to his town of Hippo seeking healing from convulsive seizures. They came every day to his church to pray for healing. Nothing happened until the second Sunday before Easter. Suddenly the young man fell down as if dead. People nearby were seized with fear, but the next moment he got up and stood staring back at them, perfectly normal and fully cured. Augustine took him home for dinner and talked at length, and slowly his skepticism began to crumble. Finally on the third day after Easter, Augustine had the brother and sister on the choir steps where the whole congregation could see them - the brother quiet and the sister convulsing. He had everyone sit and began a sermon on healing. Augustine was, however, interrupted by shouts from the congregation, for the young woman had also fallen to the ground and was instantaneously healed. Once more she stood before the people and in Augustine's own words, 'Praise to God was shouted so loud that my ears could scarcely stand the din...once I realized how many miracles were occurring in our own day, I saw how wrong it would be to allow the memory of these marvels of divine power to perish from among our people.'" We can read about other accounts of healing prayer from Martin Luther, Charles Wesley, and George Fox just to name a few.

A healthy dose of skepticism is helpful when dealing with healing prayer as many times it is distorted out of proportion. It is touted as "faith healing" where one should not go to the doctor as the action shows doubt in God's healing. On the opposite spectrum, scientific cultures brush off the idea that an all powerful God can have some hand in the act of healing in such a modern and sophisticated medical system. We welcome praying for someones spiritual strength or a change in a life situation, but we shrink away from praying for someones health. Foster writes, "The ancient Hebrews, in particular, saw persons as a unity, and for them it would be unthinkable to minister to the body without ministering to the spirit and vise versa" We are afraid that if someone is not healed on the spot, it will heap guilt on that person or on us. We do not want to put God on the spot because we are afraid we are testing Him. The list can go on and on. However, we can rest assured in Jesus' promise when he said, "I 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. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it (John 14:12-14)."

In Prayer, Foster relates his first experiences with Healing prayer, "My early experiences in praying for the sick were dismal failures. First I prayed for a cancer patient--he died. Next I prayed for a lady severely crippled with arthritis--she continued to be crippled." He then asked God to teach Him to pray for healing and his answer came from an elderly woman who did not know his request to God who said, "When you are first learning to pray for healing, do not start with the most difficult cases. Instead, begin more simply." "In one sense, healing prayer is incredibly simple," writes Foster, "like a child asking her father for help. In another sense, it is incredibly complex, involving the tangled interplay between the human and the divine. The one thing we are to do is show compassion. Always! Jesus could have kept his distance from the man with leprosy, but instead he touched him." Putting your hands on the person being prayed for dates back to the ancient Hebrews with tribal blessings and is shown throughout the New Testament as a way to impart spiritual gifts and healing. The apostle Paul, Mark, Jesus, James - all of these men of faith are shown to have put their hands on a sick individual and prayed for their healing. The writer of Hebrews even considers it an elementary teaching (Heb 6:1-3).

The excuses to this type of prayer are many and perhaps insurmountable unless we begin somewhere. Foster gives us four areas to focus on as we begin to pray for those we come in contact with (and let's face it, as medical students, that is a lot of people). The first is to listen--we listen to the people, to their complaints and to their illness, showing them compassion and love. We also listen to God and to His Spirit moving inside us, urging us to pray. I cannot tell you how many times I have concealed the spark of inspiration within me to pray for someone because of fear. We need to listen and ask for boldness to pray even when we are afraid. Second, we must ask--a step of faith to invite God's healing to come. "We speak a definite, straightforward declaration of what is to be. We do not weaken our request with ifs, ands, or buts. We speak with the boldness of Martin Luther when he prayed for his sick friend Melanchton, 'I besought the Almighty with great vigor quoting from Scriptures all the promises I could remember, and said that He must grant my prayer if I was henceforth to put faith in His promised.'" This is not what is called "faith healing" by some where if we doubt, we are not healed, or "proclamation healing" where unless we proclaim with loud words and a boisterous spirit the healing will not come. Rather, we are trusting in God's love and goodness to fill that person, continuing the spectrum of healing that Jesus promised with His death on the cross to heal mind, body and soul.

Third, we believe--regardless of whether we feel strong or week in our belief, we remember that our assurance is not based upon our ability to conjure up some special feeling. Rather it is built upon a confident assurance in the faithfulness of God. Fourth, we give thanks--simple courtesy leads us to express our thanks for what we have asked to happen. We do not pray in bold pronouncements of expected accomplishment, but with thanks that God is the ultimate healer. We do not consent defeat by praying, "I ask for this, but thy will be done" or "I place soandso in your hands as there is nothing else we can do." I once had a teacher who likened God to a steam engine. "God," she said, "is ready to move to heal or to deliver or to pour out blessing, but He cannot always get there unless we lay down the tracks for Him through our prayers. While this may be a simplified view, it does express a simplified idea of our prayers.

Like I said earlier, this prayer must be taken with a healthy dose of skepticism. However, we may never be able to overcome that skepticism unless we start somewhere. With these four principles in hand and a love for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and those who are yet to come, let us go out and pray for a world that is suffering in spirit, in heart and in health. And, just as the father of the possessed boy, let us join in his prayer, "I believe; help my unbelief!"

Intercessory Prayer

Here is the latest installment of the discipline e-mail I send out to Wayne's med students...Hopefully it will be of some encouragement.

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Among his many other outstanding qualities, gifts and failings, one thing about Moses stands out far above the rest - he truly knew what intercessory prayer means. In Exodus 17, we are told of the battle between the Israelites and the Amalekites. Moses instructed Joshua to lead Israel to war against the Amalekites while he lifted up the battle before the Lord. In perhaps one of the most tangible examples of intercessory prayer, Moses lifted His hands toward the heavens, praying that God's will be done through the armies. As his arms were stretched towards the heavens, the tide of battle shifted in favor of the Israelites. However, when he became weak and lowered his hands, the Amalekites began to overpower their forces. In an example foreshadowing how we are to conduct prayer, Aaron and Hur stood alongside Moses, giving him a rock to sit on when he became weary and even held Moses' hands high with their own strength to ensure the Lord's victory on that day. This is the intercessory prayer that P.T. Forsyth once wrote about, saying, "The deeper we go down into the valley of decision the higher we must rise...into the mount of prayer, and we must hold up the hands of those whose chief concern is to prevail with God."

In the Old Testament, priests were called from a specific lineage, beginning with Aaron, continuing from the tribe of Levi. These priests were responsible for entering into the battle of intercessory prayer before the Temple of the Lord. This line remained for the calling of priests until Jesus came into this world. With His glorious death and Resurrection, Jesus entered into the priesthood, in the order of Melchizedek to always make intercessions (Heb 7:25). Paul reminds us that now, "There is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus (1Tim 2:5)." Through Jesus' eternal priesthood, we are invited to share in the prayer of intercession on others' behalf. It is through the gift of the Holy Spirit that we become engrafted into the "royal priesthood," offering spiritual sacrifices and declaring the glory of God.

Jesus tells us that we are to ask and pray for anything in His name, so that our joy might be complete (John 16:24). However, we know that praying in Jesus' name is more than a simple formula which adds the words "in your name I prayer Jesus" to the end of any prayer. Instead, Foster tells us that praying in Jesus' name means much more. It is to pray in full assurance of the great work Christ accomplished. Donald Bloesch seconds Foster by writing, "To pray in the name of Christ means to pray in the awareness that our prayers have no worthiness or efficacy apart from His atoning sacrifice and redemptive mediation." We have been given His name to use with full authority to pray as Jesus would pray. We are given two examples of people who did not pray with this authority in the New Testament. The first was Simon Magnus who asked for the power to lay hands on people to receive the Holy Spirit. He wanted this for his own gain, which Peter realized and rebuked him (Acts 8:14-24). The second are the seven sons of Sceva. They saw Paul cast out demons in Jesus' name and tried the same by saying, "I adjure you, by the name of Jesus whom Paul proclaims." The evil spirit replied to them, "Jesus I know, and Paul I know; but who are you?" as it then overpowered them, causing them to flee "naked and wounded (Acts 19:11-16)." Jesus tells us how we can know what He would pray for when He tells us, "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you (John 15:7)." We must learn to abide in Him just as a branch must abide in the vine if it is to bear fruit.

"Learning" intercessory prayer is a life-long task that is not easily mastered, but it is persistence that wins in learning how to pray and in praying for others. Intercessory prayer is lifting others up to God for their well-being, their help, and it is an act of love. This prayer is not always easy, however, as it is a mix of divine influence and human autonomy. We pray for God's actions to be done, but we realize that the individual we are praying for has the final say in the matter. We are often not patient enough to wait upon the person, or on God, and often give up the fight, but we are admonished by several parables to never lose heart. Think of the old widow who comes before the judge, pestering him to give her justice from her adversary (Luke 18). Or think of the neighbor asking for bread to give to a visitor (Luke 11). The term used to describe this behavior is supplication - asking with earnestness, intensity and perseverance. John Calvin sums this up well saying, "We must repeat the same supplications not just twice or three times only, but as often as we have need...we must never be weary in waiting for God's help."

In intercessory prayer, we are responsible for lifting up the needs of those in our circle of influence or those that come into our lives. George Buttrick recommends that we begin the prayer of intercession by praying for our enemies, perhaps one of the hardest things to do. Some may keep a prayer journal and go through it daily/weekly to lift up those they know in prayer. Still others may rest in a time of prayer, asking God to place people on their hearts to pray for. As they come to mind, they will lift them up in prayer until the Holy Spirit gives them release from that concern. Whether you feel you pray in intercession too much and without guidance or too little with no desire to lift others up, we should pray for love. In the end, it is love that God has blessed us with that drives us to care enough for others to lift them up before the glorious Mediator, Christ Jesus. "By means of intercessory prayer, God extends to each of us a personalized, hand engraved invitation to become intimately involved in laboring for the well-being of others."