The first person I prayed for healing was one of my favorite aunts who was suffering from cancer. I was so positive that the Lord would answer my prayers, but yet she died a few weeks later.
Her death jolted my faith.
At the time, I had been saved for about four months and had been listening to Kenneth Hagin and other Word of Faith teachers. So, I assumed my faith was good enough to move mountains and heal cancer, but it wasn’t!
I ended up driving by myself from Iowa to northern Illinois to attend my aunt’s funeral. On the two-hour trip, the Lord encouraged me to keep on growing, studying, and trusting Him. AND to keep on praying for the sick whenever I had the chance.
This took place almost thirty-one years ago. I still remember the agony I felt in the car, the tears I shed, the failure facing me, and the decision I had to make — whether to keep on praying for healing of the sick or to join the Christian naysayers on the sidelines.
I decided to trust God:
And these signs will accompany those who believe: in My name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up serpents with their hands; and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover. (Mark 16:15-16)
Over the years, I have seen a few miracles and many deaths, but I know this one thing to be true. At some point, heaven will pour out a greater anointing upon believers and death will be forced to let go of its grip on the people we pray for.
My prayer for today:
Lord, help us believers to honor Your word and promises as much as You do. (Based on Psalm 138:2)
Join with me on Tuesdays to fast and pray for new revelations on healing and deliverance for Americans NOW.
Larry Who 
God love you, Larry… and so do I.
Thank you for posting this. The struggle of your faith in this story is not one I personally face. Not sure why I find myself so able to handle it, but I do. Yet it is a dilemma that my bro’s and sis’s face and struggle with fairly often.
Why did God either NOT answer my prayer for healing OR why did he answer NO? Is there something wrong with my faith or with my God???
I have never personally seen a person miraculously healed from something as serious as cancer. I know a few people who were, but I was not a witness to their healings. On the other hand, I have prayed and asked for healing for – well certainly my own mother who died with cancer back in 07. I have prayed the same for others too. I did not get the desires of my heart on those occasions.
I recall a friend from High School whose father had cancer when he was s child. The church gathered around him and prayed for him and his parents. But he grew worse. As THE END loomed ever nearer, some Pentecostal believers came knocking (it was a small town, they had heard), and his parents submitted to their request to pray for the boy. Sure enough, he recovered – and it was very near the end! His family converted Pentecostal after that. And the thing is, I was friends with the larger family of this boy who grew up to be the dad of my buddy in HS. I am a firm believer that those prayers healed him!
So why did mine not?
Good question. I can only speculate. But I speculate biblically, not just willy nilly. Doesn’t mean I have firm answers, but I have biblical insight into the mystery all the same.
Why did Jairus’s daughter die? Jesus was late to revive her before she expired, no? But of course Jesus claims she was just asleep. Which is it? Was it a miraculous resuscitation? Or did he just wake her up when no one else could? Jesus seems to be playing with the definitions of sleep and death and purposefully blurring the otherwise well established lines.
How about Lazarus? He was late to that one too. Even stopped to weep over the dead guy before raising him back to life! Why cry? Why not just wave his miracle wand and zap the dead man awake??? And for that matter, I believe the sermon (it makes the circuit once in a while) that supposes that when Jesus went to the mouth of that tomb and commanded Lazarus to get up, it was a good thing he singled out Lazarus or the whole grave yard would have got up! (And so and interesting side not there… why not raise the others too???)
Somehow, death is working out its part in God’s story. And there is a LOT of mystery surrounding death! …well, DUH! It was not meant to be part of the original creation, is only a subsequent player on the world stage, and (if we believe God’s word) is taking up only a temporary part on that stage. Death will eventually be done away with – making it much more akin to sleep, btw.
Changing gears here… I am also quite aware that I am God’s servant, and he is not some Genie in a bottle granting wishes to my commands. I cannot simply wheel out my faith and start writing faith checks that God will cash. I think Israel had something LIKE that in mind when they ran up to Shiloh to grab the Ark of the Covenant and take it into battle with the Philistines only to be defeated and lose the Ark to the enemy where it spent a few nights with Dagon! I am on God’s leash, not the other way round! And he can be quite unpredictable when he wants to… That IN PART is how he shows his own prerogative.
Lastly, and I fear this will be the most controversial thing I say in this comment, Mark 16:9-20 is not a solid piece of Scripture. It is a hotly contested passage. I myself consider it Bible, but I do not consider it Mark. I only count it Bible in that it is in the Cannon. Most of the meaningful bits of that passage can also be found in Matthew, which lends it credibility, but the verses you site are the most troubling parts of it. It is a popular idea to claim that the Bible is inerrant, but in my view that statement needs to be qualified. I makes a simple claim way too simply in my view, and those verses are some of the main part that complicate it.
NONE of what I have offered here gives clear answer to the question you raise. I am well aware of that. But my offerings here do, at least in my own mind, reposition the way I look at the question and reshape the kind of answer I would expect to find. Still only speculation, but now I am pretty sure that the lack of answer to my prayer for healing (or conversely the idea that maybe God answered with NO) is not really an indicator that anything is wrong with my faith, but possibly a matter of pulling me deeper into it since I must now trust God with his silence/”NO” – that he knows better or has bigger plans than I can see.
I hope my words here either help or prove meaningful. I offer them really because this question (or similar questions) come up in my social circle every year or two it seems. And the struggle(s) it presents is real. I think the information I have is pertinent, even if not complete.
God bless you, bro.
X
I believe as you do, there will be that great anointing for healing, signs and wonders, to draw all men unto Him. Blessings
Agent X,
I love your comments and so should everyone who loves God. We all have struggled with healing because we have seen it used and abused and huckstered about. Yet, it is an important part of the Kingdom of God and Christ’s teachings.
I specifically chose the scriptures from Mark 16 because they are so controversial in some Christian circles, but yet the verses are in my Bible. On that trip home, I made up my mind to believe God’s word, unless He showed me different. Now, I understand there are a few of the signs in Mark 16:15-16 that I don’t completely understand as yet, but the ones I do understand, I choose to believe.
No matter how we look at healing and deliverance scriptures, it will come down to what the King does and not as much about what we do. He’s the Healer, not us. Our dependence must be upon Him and not our puny efforts, which always will be too little compared to His power.
So, could God have healed my aunt? Yes, but He chose not to do so.
I like a statement by Graham Cooke: “God allows in His wisdom what He could easily prevent by His power.”
Hopefully, everyone becomes provoked in the weeks ahead like you.
Larry
Yvette,
God rewards faithfulness. So if we keep doing the things He has called us to do, one day we will receive a greater anointing to do the works of Jesus and the greater works. God bless you.
“Lord, help us believers to honor Your word and promises as much as You do.” Wow! What a powerful prayer, Larry. I thought about this kind of faith this morning. I remember in first grade in a public elementary school, I talked about Jesus before class started. A little girl asked me, “Who’s Jesus?” I turned to her and nearly yelled, “You don’t know who JESUS is?!” I found it incredible to meet someone who did NOT believe in Jesus. This conversation sparked a school revival and I led one child after another to Jesus in the bathroom during recess. I believed in Jesus and honored His promise of salvation as much as He did. So I guess I am saying that this type of faith applies to evangelism as well as healing.
Lift the Cross of Jesus,
I love the story about you leading your schoolmates to Christ. It should inspire every one of us to remain child-like in our faith. God bless you.
Wow, Mr. Larry! What a powerful and wonderful post! I really appreciated all the responses too. Praying with you! God bless!
Debbie,
Thanks. I enjoyed the responses, too. God bless you.
This may encourage you. Heidi Baker in Toronto Sep 28th 2016
Ephraiyim,
Thanks for the video. God bless you.
Your style is really unique compared to other folks I have read stuff from.
Many thanks for posting when you’ve got the opportunity,
Guess I will just bookmark this web site.