Healing Tidbits
or
Miscellaneous Teachings On Healing

In the previous lesson, we talked about how some healings are instant, but others take time to complete. The problem is that we can get used to the "instant" healings and tend to discount the other kind. We call this "all or not at all" mentality. If we don't see the healing take place immediately, it is easy to convince ourselves that nothing happened. (That is bad because it is not a faith-approach to healing).

The previous lesson developed a bible foundation for the fact that some healings take time to complete. We looked at several of Jesus' healings where the person "was healed from that hour." That phrase is Bible language to say "the healing started then and it took some period of time to complete."

It never bothered Jesus when a healing took a while to complete, and He never doubted that the healing had occurred. He was happy with both types of healing--instant and gradual. That should be our attitude as well, but some of us are getting prejudiced against the gradual healings.

Not so many years ago, supernatural healings were rare in most of our lives. We used to get so excited when someone got healed--it did not matter if we had to pray for that healing 20 times, or if the healing took weeks to complete. We were excited and thrilled to see God's power and anointing restore health to someone's life.

But as healings became more common in our lives, we began to get more "sophisticated" in our expectations. At first we were amazed and excited to see a healing complete in a single prayer session. Then we got used to seeing God heal quickly. We started expecting it, which is good for building faith. But at the same time (and without meaning to) some of us became impatient with gradual healings. We started expecting immediate results, and if we didn't see them, we assumed that nothing happened.

Let me share an example from my own life. I injured my knee just before I left for a mission trip to India in 2007. It was a freak thing--I knelt down to lock my suitcase, and the muscle near my knee ripped. It was very painful, but I could not go to the doctor because it happened late at night and I had to leave early the next morning for the airport. God was kind to me on the trip, and the knee did not hurt much unless I knelt down on it or put any type of pressure on my leg. But when I got home, it started hurting really bad.

I went through a three-week period where it hurt so much that it kept me awake at night. It was so tender that the weight of my pants leg bothered it, and I had to wear shorts or dresses. Anti-inflamatories did not help and I was referred to a specialist (an orthopedic surgeon). But I had to wait a few weeks for an appointment. That was a physically uncomfortable 5 weeks for me.

We had a special guest minister at my church about a week before my appointment. God broke out on people during the ministry time. When I got prayed for, I ended up sitting on the steps to the platform, out under the Spirit. I was careful not to put any pressure on my knee and to keep my leg mostly straight. But after a while of being "out in the Spirit," the knee began to hurt to the point of distraction. I tried to ignore the pain and stay in the Spirit longer, but I could not.

I got up and asked someone who had seen a lot of healings recently to pray for my knee. He was pretty drunk in the spirit at the time, but he put his hand on my knee and prayed. (The pressure of him touching my knee made it hurt worse, but I did not say anything.) He prayed for less than a minute and then collapsed back on the floor, still pretty drunk in the spirit. I waited there a few minutes, but it soon became clear that he wasn't going to pray for me any more.

I did not feel any of the things I am used to feeling when the Lord's healing touch is on a person--no heat, no tingling, no sense of God's peace, no relief from the pain. I was convinced that nothing had happened.

I felt frustrated, and decided to just go home and take some pain medicine. As I drove home, I remember asking God why He didn't heal me--or at least keep the pain from bothering me while I was out in the spirit. God did not answer me, probably because my attitude wasn't so good at that moment.

The next morning I was still feeling a tad miffed that God had not healed me. I had a lot of things to do that day, so I did not think about it much. Later that evening, I noticed something that startled me: my knee hardly hurt at all. I thought maybe it was just a "fluke" thing--the pain level tended to go up and down on this injury, so I assumed it was just a down. But the pain did not wake me up at all that night, and the next morning there was no pain. After two days of no pain, I carefully tested kneeling on a pillow. That did not hurt. The next morning was the last day to cancel my appointment without financial penalty, so I tried kneeling on the carpet a few times. Again, I hardly feel any pain at all. It was almost totally gone. I called the orthopedic surgeon's office and canceled my appointment.

The Lord had, in fact, healed me. I did not feel any indication of healing when I got prayed for, but the healing had begun. It was a gradual healing. I had gotten so used to instant and dramatic healings that I completely discounted this healing, and I assumed that nothing had happened. But, despite my unbelief, God had healed my knee.

Let me share another example, from the life of someone I prophesied to the other day at a prophetic ministry session. Let's call him Mike (not his real name).

One of the people on my team gave a word that God was releasing a healing anointing into Mike's hands, that he would pray for the sick and see them recover. Mike gave feedback that he had received that same word before, but he had not yet seen any indication of God healing through him. Then he told two stories of "the closest he came to healing the sick," convinced that he hadn't actually healed anyone yet.

Let me relate one of them to you. One of Mike's friends friend hurt her shoulder and could not afford to go to the chiropractor for treatment. After a couple weeks of constant pain, she asked Mike to pray for her at church one Sunday. He did, absolutely convinced that nothing would happen--and nothing happened at the moment he prayed. But a couple of hours later, Mike got a phone call from the lady. She told him that as she drove home, her shoulder started getting hot. When it cooled down, the pain was completely gone. Mike was glad that her shoulder was better, but he was convinced that healing had nothing to do with his prayer, because nothing happened at the instant that he prayed for her.

Mike contended that her healing had nothing to do with his prayer, because it happened after he'd finished praying for her. His other story was along the same line, expect it was a co-worker's back and it got better the day after he prayed. Mike had successfully prayed for two people and they were healed, but Mike did not believe he had anything to do with those two healings because they did not happen at the precise instant that he prayed for them.

His attitude is not an isolated case. Many of us look for instant results, and if we don't see something happen the instant we pray, we assume that God did not do anything. But the truth of the matter is that some healings don't happen instantly, they take time to complete.

Remember that the next time that someone prays for you (or you pray for someone else) and it seems like nothing happened. Remember that some healings just take a little while to complete and keep trusting God for that healing.