An experience of God's love and (physical!) healing - March 3, 2011

Last Thursday night (March 3), the four major Christian ministries on campus came together for a night of interfellowship worship and prayer. I received healing during this time, and it came on the context of what Steve Choi from Remnant Christian Fellowship spoke about regarding prayer. His primary text was Jesus’ teaching on prayer in Matthew 7:7-11, where he compares prayer to a child asking his father for food:

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

“Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Steve went on to explain why we don’t receive things in prayer, either because we don’t ask or because we ask with wrong motives (James 4:2-3). He illustrated these reasons in light of the example of a child asking for bread as:

1) The child who is starving but won’t ask his father for bread, even though he’s holding a huge loaf of bread

2) The child who is asking for a serpent (or some other harmful thing)

After he spoke, there was an extended time of worship and prayer, and at the very end, the worship leader invited people to come up to the front and receive prayer for healing for physical pain. It just so happened that a few days before, I mildly sprained my right ankle as I was walking, but when I heard the invitation, I assumed that he was talking to people with more serious ailments.

However, as I sat in the back and continued to pray, the worship leader repeated the invitation to come and receive healing, adding, “I know there’s someone in the back who has pain in their right ankle.” By this time, he had my full attention, but I refused to go up front, making up excuse after excuse not to:

· “That can’t be me – there has to be someone else in this room with a hurting right ankle.”

· “I’m staff. I should be on the prayer team praying FOR people, not receiving prayer.” (Oh, how very humble of me…I can't believe I actually thought that)

· “It’s such a minor injury! It’s not like I have a major disease or anything.”

· “I only hurt it 4 days ago. It already feels better, and I’m sure by tomorrow it’ll be fine!”

Yet as I continued to resist, I felt God nudging me even more strongly to go up front and ask for prayer, but I refused to budge until finally he whispered, “You are the child who doesn’t ask!” And he was right – I didn’t want to bother him or inconvenience him with what I thought were minor details in my life, and to be honest, I didn’t think I was worth his time. With this final prod, I finally went up to the front and asked one of the leaders if he had made the announcement about the ankle. He had not, but offered to pray for me anyway, so he placed his hand on my ankle and prayed, and I immediately felt physical relief!

He pointed out the leader who did make the announcement about the ankle and encouraged me to ask him to pray for me too, and so I did. As the worship leader prayed for me, he told me God wanted him to tell me, “God loves YOU! Not just the world in general, but you as an individual. It doesn’t matter what you experienced in your relationship with [a person who caused me great insecurity and doubt of God’s love] – God LOVES you!” At that, I just broke down in tears, overwhelmed by God’s goodness and reveling the fact that I -- little, insignificant me – am beloved by the Master and Creator of the Universe.

I share this story with you because the point is not “Jess got healed!” but rather “God LOOOOOOVES you, and he loves YOU!” I simply got to experience that love through the avenue of healing, and I pray that you too will be able to experience the incredible joy of that love from a Father who always gives his children bread, not stones.