Our attitude towards sickness and healing

Here are some thoughts, jotted down after listening to a teaching by Bill Johnson on unanswered prayer. I hope you will find some encouragement and/or some food for thought and further reflection. God bless!

• "If you just had enough faith, you would be healed!" This is not a cruel thing to say to somebody who is sick (even though it certainly can come across in a condemning way), but it is throwing them a life-line, pointing them to the only solution to their problem. It is actually cruel not to tell them that they should have faith for their healing!
• The opposite of "a little faith" is not GREAT faith, but NO faith! Jesus said that with faith as small as a mustard seed we could move mountains – no "great" faith required even for such a monumental task. Jesus also simply asked whether He will find "faith" on the earth when He returns – again no "great" faith required or expected. Similarly, Jesus asked the disciples after He stilled the storm WHERE their faith was. He did not rebuke them for not having "enough" faith, but simply made it clear to them that their faith was in the wrong thing (i.e. in their own ability top maneuver through the rough sea, in this case).
• "Complacency and ignorance tolerate unanswered prayers." Bills Johnson
• Accepting sickness in our lives somehow seems to be easier than believing God for healing, as you will not be disappointed (you cannot be disappointed if you didn't really expect to get anything in the first place), but it simply does not glorify God.
• If we pray for somebody to be healed, but doubt that God wants to heal that person, we are actually saying that we have more compassion for that person than God, but that is impossible. That makes me think that God wants to heal me more than I want to be healed myself!
• If we expect to be healed because of some kind of merit from our side, we are doomed. God is our Father, and as such we do not have to and we cannot do anything to earn His favor. He heals us because He loves us.
• I want to be healed so that my life glorifies God. It's a sad, man-made theology that says God would be glorified when we accept sickness because He wants to teach us something or build character in us. Jesus never told that to ANYBODY who came to Him for healing!
• Rather than shaking or being bedridden or being dependent on medicine, I am convinced it glorifies God much more when I am hiking through the mountains, enjoying His creation while snorkeling off the coast of the Cayman Islands, riding a bicycle to a waterfall around Chiang Rai, or playing football, being fully alive FOR Him, IN Him and together WITH Him.
• I do not want to be healed merely so that I can SERVE God better, but to ENJOY Him more (even though it will certainly be much more fun to preach, teach, drive busses, clean stuff or do whatever, rather than being miserable, unable to do anything. Jesus did not die on the cross because the Father needed servants… He wanted CHILDREN J
• God wants us to pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. There is no sickness in heaven, thus to "seek His Kingdom" here on earth entails for people to be healthy and whole.
• 2. Timothy 3:12 says that everybody who wants to lead a godly life will suffer PERSECUTION, not sickness.
• I do not want to accuse God ("You don't want to heal me") and neither do I want to blame myself ("I deserve to be sick") but I am guilty of self-pity, believing that I have to convince God of how miserable my situation is – as if He had not noticed.
• Healing was God's idea, not ours.
• Mt 6:33 ("Seek first His Kingdom"): We should never make our needs the primary focus of our prayers, even though it is absolutely legitimate to pray for our "daily bread" – instead, we should always be praying for what is on HIS heart.
• "Answers to prayer reveal God" – we need to pray for more than one thing at any given time, not to focus on just one issue. The breakthrough in one area will give us the hope and perseverance to see breakthroughs in other areas.
• Some things God does not give to soldiers / fighters, but only to sons and daughters. This point seems to be the easiest one, but often turns out to be the hardest, because we grow up being taught that we only get what we deserve…
• Just in case you were wondering: No, I am not a parrot. God created me to be a son, made in His image, not a parrot who just says what we think He wants to hear…

The Gospel

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I don't know how the gospel was presented to you, but I am convinced that Jesus will not come into anybody's life as a guest. He will either enter as Lord or He will remain outside. God opened my eyes to this reality on what began as a normal Friday in February 1989.

I had driven about 3 hours to the city of Muenster, Germany. While driving, my friend and I listened to a teaching tape by Wilhelm Pahls, a German evangelist. I had never heard a man speaking so passionately about bringing people to Jesus, never before and hardly ever since. I knew that the things he said were true, and it was as if he spoke directly to me. Every word pierced my heart. Without having a scientific proof for it, I knew that the Bible was God's word. I had no defense, no reason not to accept what Jesus had done for me and that He now wanted to come into my life as Savior and Lord. After we finished listening to the tape, I had maybe the most terrible two hours of my life. We went to visit my friend's girlfriend in a hospital, but I could not participate in the unfolding conversation whatsoever. There was a war going on inside of me! A part of me wanted what Jesus was offering, another part of me wanted to stay in control of my life, and reasoned against it. And one of the main reasons why I hesitated was that I knew I could never have the kind of sex I desired if I really followed Jesus.

I finally found a reason to leave the room and went back to the parking lot. I could not look into anybody's face and everything seemed to be dark and gray around me. I arrived at the car, but instead of getting my guitar out of the trunk I sat down in the driver's seat and prayed.

I do not remember what exact words I used when I prayed, but when I opened my eyes, the world looked different. Everything dark and gray was gone. I got out of the car and I recognized trees, people, LIFE! I literally saw the world with new eyes! I read later in 2. Corinthians 5:17 that those who are in Christ are a new creation, and I sure felt like that!

From my book "Tempted, But Holy!" You can purchase the book from Amazon and other online bookstores or directly from me here!

Instant prayer answers Part 3: God sends a friend!

It had been a long journey already. After a 2-week excursion from my university in Germany to the Greek island of Naxos, I had traveled by myself to Turkey in order to see the ruins of Ephesus. It had been an exciting time to walk where the apostle Paul and other heroes of our faith had walked some 2.000 years ago. This morning I had taken a bus from Selcuk via Izmir to Bursa, where I now had to wait for a ferry that would take me across the Sea of Marmara to Istanbul. Being alone in a different culture (Turkey is a Muslim nation) and not speaking the local language I was feeling quite lonely already, and when I found out that I had to wait several hours for the next departure, I couldn't help but feeling a little bit downcast. "Lord, I could really need a friend," I prayed silently, just in my thoughts. Immediately, as soon as I had had this thought, a man approached me and said in perfect English "You look like you could need a friend!" He invited me to have some tea and for the next couple of hours we talked as if we had known us for years. This was a great example for me that our Father in heaven really knows what we need even before we ask him, as Mathew 6:8 says. Because the man must have started to approach me from where he had been sitting before I even prayed! Needless to say that the waiting time for the ferry flew by in no time. So, dare to ask for a friend even when you are far away from home and it seems impossible that there should be anybody near by who cares for you. Our Father knows what we need, always :) Oh, by the way, this was before the time of cell-phones, internet and Facebook. Are we missing out on opportunities like these because of technology? Just wondering...

Healed on Halloween!

Times Prayer Changed Everything - Instantly! Story # 2

Once while visiting a missionary friend in Kolkata (at that time it was still called "Calcutta"), India, I got very sick: I had fever and stomach pain, threw up, and felt completely miserable for about two days or so. I tried various remedies, but nothing worked until I realized that it was Halloween. Knowing that Halloween is the highest holiday of Satanists around the world,* I broke the power of curses put on missionaries by Satanists by claiming the power of the blood of Jesus and Proverbs 26:2 which states that an undeserved curse will not come to pass. Within an hour, I was completely back to normal!

* A day lasts 24 hours - in one location. But taking in account the different time zones and the international dateline, a calendar-day actually lasts almost 48 hours globally. So I think that I started to get sick when Satanists in Eastern Asia began to "celebrate" Halloween by worshiping Satan and making sacrifices to him, and when the Holy Spirit brought my attention to it some 36+ hours later, it was still October 31st in the US and other parts of the Western hemisphere...

Times Prayer Changed Everything - Instantly

We all believe it: Prayer changes things. But sometimes change seems to come slowly. And when we don't see a prayer answered after a while, we more often than not give up prayer altogether. After all, we reason, it must not have been God's will, otherwise He would have done something already. As I thought about this today, I was reminded of some situations in my life when the Lord responded to prayer instantly and the idea was born to write them down and post them on this Blog. Thus the start of this little series today. I hope that you will be encouraged to be uncomplicated and spontaneous in your prayer, as it seems to be the pattern in the stories that came to my mind so far: It is when we pray simple, childlike and not pre-meditated prayers that our Father in heaven rushes to move heaven and earth, and even people's hearts!

Story #1: A drug addict set free!

"Are you willing to make an experiment tonight?" I asked. He looked at me with big eyes and said "What do you want to do?" "I want to pray for you, and see what the Lord will do." That didn't seem to be too threatening to him, and so he agreed. We were in downtown Los Angeles on a rather chilly night. Together with a team of students from our Discipleship Training School I had come to what is known as "Skit Row" to hand out sandwiches, hot coffee and cocoa to the homeless that populate the streets here after business hours. In many ways it was a crazy night. Hundreds of men were more or less aimlessly walking around, some had made fires on the street to keep warm. Drug dealers waited for their regulars, many of the men were drunk, here and there were quarrels with people yelling at each other. A police car had stopped by a few minutes earlier and one of the officers had made it clear to us that we should not be there as it was too dangerous. They urged us, just as some of the homeless people themselves, at least not to go into certain side streets, but I am not sure whether all of the team members even heard the warning and thus some of us probably went there anyway. I was glad that I had called a prayer meeting before we had jumped into our two vans to get here. This way we knew that God wanted us to be here and we felt completely safe and were very much aware of the peace of God surrounding us. While I had talked to Peter*, an obviously demon-possessed man tried his best to make us scared by yelling at us and rolling his eyes weirdly. But he kept a respectful distance to us. So did the drug dealer who was eager for me to finish talking to his client. "Okay, let's pray: Father, I pray for Peter, that in the moment he walks away from here you would change his heart so that he would no longer want to use drugs. In Jesus' name. Amen." When I opened my eyes after this short prayer, Peter looked at me curiously and maybe just a little bit mockingly. "So you think God will answer your prayer?" he asked. "Yes," I said, with a confidence that you cannot manufacture by your own effort even if your life depended on it. "But I don't feel any different," he said, and I heard his dealer laughing a few meters away from us. "You remember," I reminded him, "I prayed that in the moment you walk away from here God would change your heart." I had never prayed like that before, and I had not thought about what to pray before I had closed my eyes. And I certainly had not thought about how to respond to his questions after the prayer. As it was time for us to go back to our base on the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains, I pointed to our vehicles and asked Peter whether he wanted to walk with us to send us off and maybe grab another sandwich. He agreed. We had walked just a few steps when he pulled his drug equipment out of his pockets and cheerfully handed them to me: "Here, please keep this, I don't want to do this anymore!" I was stunned, but then again not even really surprised. Rather, me and my friend who had been part of this encounter were genuinely happy and thankful. Don't ask me what it was that Peter actually handed over to us, because I have been blessed with total ignorance in regards to things related to drugs - I've never tried anything but cigarettes and never made it my mission to study up on the subject in regards to how exactly to use the various drugs, whether you smoke, inhale, shoot, sniff or simply eat them. I do know the difference, though, between a fake surrender for whatever reason and a genuine change of heart. And Peter didn't pull a stunt on us, but he was delivered from his drug-habit in an instant. As our vans had parked at one of the Missions that are offering meals and shelter for the homeless in the area, we connected Peter with it for follow-up and discipleship. 

This happened in January or February 1996. I haven't heard anything from Peter since, but I trust that the Lord continued what He started in this young man's life. I also have never prayed for other people in this way again. I simply was led to pray in this way on that day for that man. I didn't use any "technique", didn't go through 10 steps of intercession and didn't even spend time listening to how the Lord might want to have me pray. I just prayed whatever came to my mind in the situation and God answered. 

I guess you could write volumes of books on the theological implications of this incident, and maybe someday I will do that. But much more do I wish for the same child-likeness in my everyday prayer-life. To help me (and maybe some of you who read this) to get there, I wrote down this little story. If you were encouraged by it, please feel free to post a comment, click on "Like," share or let me know in some other way. I want to post more stories in the weeks to come, so come back to this site every now and then. Be blessed, and be a blessing! :)

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* Probably this is not the actual name of the person we prayed for that day. It's a long time ago and I don't remember the person's name. The rest of the story, however, is a true report, with the quotes reflecting the heart of what was said, not necessarily the exact words that were spoken.