When I wrote Monday’s post, Swimming Upstream: Do We Christians Need Bifocals, I omitted one important point.
This was not done to avoid transparency or to hide something. But instead, it is my belief that a blog like mine needs to highlight one, maybe two, important points within a range of 300 to 450 words. Then, readers can read the post in less than ninety seconds and move on to other blogs.
What did I omit, huh?
Well, how was the Holy Spirit able to back me into a corner?
I have always been an active person who has enjoyed outdoor sports like jogging, basketball, baseball, football and whatever. My enthusiasm for sports was passed on to my two children who grew up with baseball gloves on one hand while dribbling basketballs with the other. Sports were an integral part of our family make-up.
But over the last five or six years, my health has deteriorated rapidly. Most of the problems are due to knee surgeries from football related injuries occurring forty-plus years ago. The knee problems were further worsened by construction jobs and walking on concrete surfaces as an auto salesman.
Up until recently, just getting in and out of my pickup truck was a tortuous experience. And guess what? I deliver Papa Johns Pizzas which means I’m in and out of the truck many times per evening.
Now, I have been praying for years, crying out to God for healing. Twice, the Lord has healed my knees for a short period of time. But both times, I had to return to construction or auto sales jobs, and the healings evaporated.
Another time, a women prayed and all of my arthritis disappeared in a wave which felt like warm oil washing over me. That infirmity has not returned.
But the lack of cartilage in my knees continued to cause knee, leg, back and hip problems until one night I was carrying a pizza bag to my truck. Pain struck me in the middle of a street so that I could not move. It was excruciating.
Somehow, I inched my way to the truck and threw myself inside the cab. As I did, I spoke out of my spirit and said, “I command the spirit of infirmity to let go of me.”
The pain instantly lessened. Duh! A light went on! I was fighting a demon who wanted to put me in a wheelchair!
The next morning I asked the Lord how to fight this spirit of infirmity. That’s when the Holy Spirit showed me that I had ignored my neighbors and I needed to prayer walk our community.
And with my obedience, I would also be fighting the spirit of infirmity in my own life.
There will be those who will say I should have gone to a doctor, and possibly had knee replacements. But five years ago, Carol and I were in tough financial straits, and I felt like the Lord wanted me to give up my health insurance. So, I did. (Carol kept her insurance.)
As Paul Harvey used to say, “Now, you know the rest of the story.”
Larry Who 
Two other points need to be mentioned:
I also suffer with hands that fall asleep and almost total numbing of my finger tips. Most would call these symptoms of carpal tunnel syndrome.
And also I have recently discovered I have food allergies to milk and wheat products.
The hand problems are lessening as I walk and pray against the spirit of infirmity. But the allergies are a different story in that I have to read labels and watch what I eat so that my face and skin do not have yucky reactions.
But the good news to all of this is that I have an enemy who is out in the open and can be defeated. I’m excited about what the Lord is doing in my life.
Of course you should have gone to the doctor Larry. You’ve obviously been reading too much of that word of faith stuff!
Frank