These were reminders I needed to hear. Jesus said that those who believe would lay hands on the sick, and He said the sick will recover. He gave believers – and yes, I find it difficult sometimes to personalize that and say “that includes ME” – authority over every kind of disease (Matt. 10:1).
And when Jesus and the Apostles prayed for the sick, they prayed with expectation. They expected healing to take place. They knew the authority they possessed, and they believed the truth of God’s promise. No wonder they spoke with such confidence: “get up and walk”, “receive your sight”, “go, you are healed”, and so on.
For some reason, I find that authority difficult to utilize. It just sounds strange coming out of my mouth, so I find myself falling back on default modes of prayer: “Father, I ask you to release your healing power”, “Father, if it is your will”, “Father, please just touch this person with your healing hand”, and other such phrases.
It’s not that those kinds of prayers are wrong. It’s just that they don’t strike me as entirely lining up with what I see in the Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles. Do I believe I have been given authority or not? When Jesus says, “you will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover”, do I believe Him or don’t I? When Jesus says “you have seen me do these works, and greater works than these you will do”, why do I normally find it easier to believe those words for everybody else except me?
It was with these reminders rattling around in my head that I drove home, when it happened. Her left eye started itching, watering, and swelling up. “Ow, it itches, it hurts, I think I’m having an allergic reaction!” To what, she couldn’t tell me. It made no sense, but her eye was definitely starting to swell and puff up, and this wasn’t a moment for diagnosis. What really didn’t make sense was the fact that she had just, only moments earlier, been the recipient of prayer for healing of her allergies. And now, with no seemingly related stimulus, her eye was itching and swelling.
My mind was racing, the fear was starting to settle in, and then I heard that quiet voice in my thoughts again: “Why aren’t you praying for her?”
Duh. What have I been doing for the past hour?
Whenever I hear stories like this one, this is the part where the story-teller says, “and then I prayed for healing.” And I’m the curious one, so I’m always thinking, “yeah, ok, but what did you pray?” So I’ll tell this story the way I would want to hear it; I’ll tell you what I prayed.
I laid a hand on the afflicted eye, and with one hand on the wheel, I prayed the way I had just been reminded to pray during that service: “In the name of Jesus, I command this itching to stop now, and leave your body; I command this swelling to go down right now, in Jesus’ name, and with His authority; this allergy has no business being here, and so I break and remove its power, and command it to leave now, in the name of Jesus.”
No need for shouting, really. Just a prayer of confidence, knowing that Jesus did give me that authority, and that I needed to use it right then and there.
I took my hand off her eye, and the swelling was gone. The eye was normal again. She exclaimed, “the itching is gone, it stopped hurting!” And together, we had a little exchange of grins and “God is so amazing!”, “Yeah!”, “Thank you, Father!”, and so on.
I want to remember that moment. I want to remember it the next time I’m wavering in my belief. I want to recall that experience the next time I’m presented with an opportunity to pray for the sick. Because I want to pray believing, with confidence, and press right through to the end result, which is to see God move and be able to praise Him on-the-spot with all kinds of excitement. He really, really does some incredible things.
