Faith persists...

How many times have you been asked to pray for some one's healing? How many times by the same person for the same thing?

If you attend church regularly or are a member of a church body, you've most likely been asked to pray for the same person multiple times, and many times for the same healing.

I've spent time pondering this and in discussion with the Lord on this area this past week. I know that I'm a bit close to the subject, so I want to fully disclose up-front that I may be skewing what I've heard from the Lord. I don't think this is the case, but I'm human, so I'm aware of the possibility.

Here's the situation that made me start thinking this week. I have fibromyalgia, acid reflux, degenerative arthritis, chronic sinusitis, as well as multiple food and drug allergies. I'm not whining, I'm just stating. None of these things are life-threatening (well except the allergies ha) and if I take my medicine, I can mange. And some days I feel lots better than other days. But I want to be healed of these things, I desperately do. So every time I'm with a body of believers and I feel that gentle tug of the Holy Spirit telling me to ask for prayers for healing, I do. I believe the Bible to be the written Word of God. So when I read James 4:2 "You do not have because you do not ask God." or Hebrews 4:16 "Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need." I have to believe that God truly meant I need to ask Him for what I have need of, that I need to boldly come before His throne asking for Him to meet my needs. And I know that He also says that in James 5:16 "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective". So if this is true, I need as many righteous people praying. There are many other Scripture that support sharing our prayer needs with one another, lifting one another up in prayer and bearing with one another.

So, why is it that when someone in the Body of Christ asks for prayer (albeit a repeated one), we may roll our eyes, or even ask "Are you STILL having trouble with that?" or "Wow! what ISN'T wrong with you?" I know that these things happen within the Body because I've had each of these done to me within the past 2 weeks. I'm not pointing fingers or placing blame, just something that God pointed out to make me aware. I've been guilty of doing the same thing myself. Being asked to pray for the same person, for the same thing for the umpteenth time and thinking to myself "ugh, why do they just keep asking?" I think we all do that because it's human nature. Plus, when we're healthy, it's easy to not understand the person's issue. Or when we're dealing with pain of our own, it's easy for the thought to pop into our heads "you're not so special, this is a fallen world and we all have pains that we have to live through. I'm pushing through mine silently, so why don't you quit complaining?" We may not say that out loud, but even though I'm not a betting person, I'd wager that thought has entered into many people's mind...even if but for a moment.

I don't know why I hurt and don't feel good. I don't know why my family has a long line of various illnesses and disease. I have prayed regarding generational things and, thus far, the Lord hasn't shown me anything in that area. I do know, though, that I come from a strong lineage of people who didn't just claim to be Christians, but walked it out in their everyday life, in the mundane moments. And I know that many of them heard the same words I've heard and saw the same eye-rolls I've seen when they asked God for their healings. Some of them received their healings on Earth, others in that glorious moment they entered into God's Presence.

I guess the biggest reason this weighed so heavily upon my heart is because of what I heard the Lord say. I heard Him say that this is part of the reason we are not seeing the healings that He spoke of. Remember, He said that we'd do "even greater works than these" and He was raising up bodies from the dead! Did you ever notice, though, that healings took place when the people went to Jesus, or had people go on their behalf, believing Jesus could heal them? If we want to compare ourselves to others and deem them as big babies, we may be keeping them from receiving a healing, and ourselves from the tremendous reward of blessing of our faith. If we don't pray because we're just tired of praying for that person's healing of the same thing, well, that doesn't say much for our perseverance, does it?

I don't want the reason that we aren't seeing healing take place to be that we are insensitive to people that ask for our prayers. Yes, my feelings were hurt this week. I'll get over it. God will give me the strength to forgive the person, whether they even realized their actions or words were hurtful. I will get over it. But I know that I've been blessed by those generations who have gone before me, loving the Lord in good times and in bad. I know that God answered their prayers and strengthened them. I know that He blessed their persistence to keep coming before His Throne. I've served my Lord for more than 2/3 of my life and He's proven Himself over and over to me. So I know that He will be faithful...it's written all over my past with Him.

But what about the new believer? Or the non-believer? It takes a certain element of humility to ask God for a healing for ourselves. So often we allow ourselves to be disqualified because we know of someone much worse off than we are. But I think it takes a different level of humility to ask other people to pray for a healing. Not only are we acknowledging our dependency on the Lord, but we're also acknowledging our co-dependency upon His body - the one that He engineered. He specifically puts other believers into our lives so that we have a brother or sister to encourage us along the way.

This week, I pray, that the Lord helps us by making us aware of our reactions to people when being asked to pray for healing. That we would not be found comparing ourselves to them...rather than silently pushing through our own pain, why don't we also ask, in turn, for prayers for our own healing? That we may be found lifting one another before the Throne of God, asking for healings because we don't want to be guilty of "having not because we ask not". That even though we may not see immediate healing, we keep pressing in, we keep pushing into His Presence.

In this world, there will be pain and strife. God's already promised us that. And some of us may never receive a healing on this Earth. And we have to come to terms with that...work that out with the Lord...that He's God, He's Sovereign, He chooses who gets healed and who doesn't. But that's His job, not ours. I'm reminded of what He's told me many times before "I didn't tell you to go around healing people, I simply asked you to pray that I heal them, healing is My job."

So as for me and my house, we will continue to contend for healings!