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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!"
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