Some of my friends on FB know that, back in May, I was at a friend’s house during a late night power outage, and slipped on an unusually shaped/sized step going into her kitchen to get a candle, and simultaneously broke a bone in my foot while tearing a tendon in my ankle. It was a VERY slow-healing fracture (the 5th metatarsal is a notoriously difficult bone for fracture healing) and it turns out that the torn tendon is an even bigger, more long-term issue than that.
Four months later, and I was just starting to be able to walk again, albeit with the help of crutches and physical therapy. Here, at the fifth month mark, I can now hobble around the house without crutches, but generally when I go out in public I still use the crutches for otherwise painful occasions, like shopping, where I’ll need to walk more than a few feet at a time. This past weekend I was not feeling all that ambitious, so I took my crutches with me as I visited…a new [charismatic] church.
My friend who went with me remarked on our way to the car, “Do you think they’ll call you up to the front to pray for you to be healed?” I replied, “No, I doubt they’d do that. I don’t think what from what I know of this church that that would be their style. But – I bet they’ll get me in their lobby after the service is over.” I was really actually not hoping this to be the case – but we were mostly teasing each other with the comments.
So I walked into the church, feeling like I had a bullseye on my back, saying, “Aim prayers here.” I was glad when we found an empty pew, and I could lay down my crutches and be “normal” again. It’s not that I don’t like prayer – I actually do like prayer. It’s just that there’s something about the way people accost people when they want to try out their healing ju-ju on them that is very uncomfortable to me in some ways – especially when the prayer is not asked for, and the person is a stranger.
Anyway, we sat through the service, and both my friend and I found the teaching time to be really down-to-earth, basic, but solid stuff. So solid in fact that we sat there for at least a good 5 minutes after the meeting was over, just processing together some of the heart issues that were brought up for both of us. Meanwhile, the room grew emptier. So we finally got up to leave.
Back in the lobby, my friend went to look for a pen to fill out the visitor card that would earn us a “free CD” as first time visitors, and I stood there a moment waiting, when an attractive and trendy guy came up to me and introduced himself. He talked to me for a little bit and seemed strangely friendly and interested in me, beyond what I would normally expect from an attractive and trendy guy on first meeting. I honestly wondered at his interest in me – was he trying to pick me up? Call it low self-esteem, but that seemed highly improbable. So what was with this dude? Men of this caliber, unfortunately, rarely even speak with me – let alone speak to me with such a level of personal interest.
And then came the question – the question that instantly brought me back to reality and immediately removed all questions from my mind. “So,” he asked, “on a scale from 1 to 10, how bad would you say your ankle hurts right now?” And right then and there, I knew. Not because I was intuitive, no, but because he was following the ‘script’ – the latest charismatic formula for how someone who has been trained in ‘healing’ in any of the big name ‘healing schools’ or conferences is trained to approach their victim – I mean – the person they want to try healing.
How the script is supposed to go is like this: you ask the person how bad their pain is on a quantitative scale, from 1 to 10. Then you ask to pray for them. You ask to touch them and lay your hand on the part that hurts, if possible. Then after you command that part of their body to be healed, you ask them if they felt anything. And you ask them if the pain has decreased – and you get another number on the scale from them. Then you ask to pray again to get the pain to go down the scale further. Then you check your ‘patient’ and ask again if the pain is any less. And you keep repeating the process, over and over and over, until the patient finally says they are in much less pain, or that they are healed. Then you ask them to do something that would have been painful earlier, like if they had shoulder pain, to lift their arm above their head or something. This is a pattern – a template even, for how the interaction between the healer and healee is to be carried out.
So my new friend of the moment asked me how my foot felt on a scale of 1 to 10, and I instantly knew that my earlier prognostication that I would be the recipient of healing prayer ministry in the lobby after the service, was instantly proven accurate. Yay.
I cut to the chase. I told him, “The pain is only around a 2 right now, because the crutches are bearing my weight for me. But if you want to pray for my foot, you’re more than welcome to do so.” Heck, it’s not the prayer itself that bugs me. Since he was here, I’d receive the prayer. So he prayed…and commanded…the ankle to heal. Then he got up and predictably, asked me if I felt anything happening. I told him, honestly – no, I didn’t. I saw him getting ready to go for round two…and I just didn’t want to go through that whole entire process of pray, ask, repeat – pray, ask, repeat. I wonder, if this formula was designed knowing that people eventually feel so much pressure to say, “Yeah, yeah, the pain has gone down” that they eventually just give in and say that? I know from my past run ins with this form of prayer that there comes a point when I feel so pressured to just say something has happened just because it feels like the person will never let you go otherwise. Anyway, I didn’t want to go through the whole process, so I cut to the chase again, thanked him for his one prayer, and told him the honest to God truth: I have experienced healing before. But it has never, ever happened to me while someone was actually in the process of prayer with me.
So my benefactor kindly nodded, smiled, and let me go. And I was glad. But as I look back on the encounter, I realized a few things. And mostly it was this:
There are people in churches and groups I have been in that have never been interested in knowing me, or being friends with me. But when they host an Avon party or an Amway party or some other sort of “get everyone who has a checkbook to come to your party” type party, they never fail to invite me. And for me, it always goes something like, “Wow, you are talking to me? You are inviting me to a party? Wow – thank you – I’ve been really hoping to get to know you all this time and i always got the impression you didn’t think I was cool enough to know.” And then, just as my hope is rising, I realize – oh, wait. It’s not a real party. It’s not a social invitation. It’s a business. They only invited me to THIS party because of the fact that they need customers.
And unfortunately, that’s sort of how I felt with Mr. Cute Healing Guy. (He was married it turned out – which is fine. He’s probably married to someone as cute as he is – but wow, it would have been so amazing for my friend and I to get invited to go to a meal with Mr. and Mrs. Trendy after church, and all get to know each other. That would have been totally banging. But that’s not what this was about.) You see, this is what I think it was about. No, he didn’t want money from me. But, I can’t help but think he saw me, not as a someone to know, but as someone to practice on. In these healing seminars, where these methods are taught, one other thing is taught: that the big guys, like John Wimber, who learned how to “do the stuff” and really heal people, prayed for something like 500 people first without a single miracle, before they got their first healing. So you have to just get out there and practice, practice, practice. And how do you practice unless you can find people to practice on? That’s what I think I was to this guy – an injured object for him to practice on. Not someone he wanted to know…. not someone he even really truly cared about, but just, a chance for him to try out his stuff.
Does that sound bleak and bitter? I suppose I could go to that church 10 more times, and see if he ever talks to me again – or if he ever talks to me about anything other than, “How is your foot? Would it be ok if I tried praying for your foot again?” But I will concede: perhaps I am wrong about this guy’s intentions. The thing is, even if I am reading the wrong thing here with him, I know one thing is certain: this blog post is worth publishing, because there are thousands of other people being taught to do exactly what this guy did, and this blog post would not be wrong about the intentions of the majority of them.
Thus, I now hit publish, and you are invited to comment.
October 14, 2013 at 6:11 pm
Great stuff, Heather – so very well articulated. I think you pulled off the difficult task of saying something boldly but without arrogance.
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October 14, 2013 at 7:57 pm
Thank you for taking the time to write this. This is very helpful to me. It reminds me of a friend who said recently that the church speaking of charismatic circles since that is where he comes from are creating spiritual technicians. If we were to just walk in the love of Christ we would see many more miracles because God’s power works through love. It was meant as a balancing point which is what I take from your post in a real story form. I bet if that guy saw it from your perspective he might just be cut to the quick. So many people myself included want to be used of God.
The funny thing is today at lunch time I was sitting outside of a coffee shop while waiting to get a haircut and a girl hobbled up on crutches. My first thought was am I supposed to prayer for her, almost felt pressured inside to jump out their and do it but she was real cute and I didn’t want to give the wrong impression being a married man. So I concluded that if the Holy Spirit would have truly been moving me to pray that thought wouldn’t of even been a consideration.
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October 14, 2013 at 8:24 pm
i remember I wanted to see a healing. and then Wisdom told me that I would not see a healing until I cared about the person and their pain. then I did see see a healing. it was a very mind over matter healing….vague terrible pain that no doctor had ever been able to fix. but she got well forever. so there is that.
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October 14, 2013 at 10:42 pm
Thanks for writing about your experience. I’ve been a target of prayer-healers as well, and like you, I typically accept their prayers, but try to disentangle myself from the person before it becomes an all-day ordeal.
And I’m sorry to hear about the isolation you experience in the church. Clearly, we all have a long way to go.
Even many of my friends/acquaintances who appear to be “trendy” and “popular” I often hear complaining of the difficulty they have building deep and meaningful friendships, and my friends on the “outside” wonder why seemingly everyone else (especially the “popular” folk) are so difficult to befriend, and I just want to throw my hands up at the whole system. I don’t know what’s wrong with everybody.
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October 14, 2013 at 11:56 pm
jesus always was “moved with compassion”and then prayed for healing.many healing dudes (and they mean well, for sure) care about results more than the actual person. well put story, H. it actually grieves me to see it written out. i have experienced (and probably also done) the very same in church relationships. so, so sad. i always felt awkward when we were supposed to act as “family”. i would have to hold someone’s hand who never had a conversation with me in the pew and act brotherly/sisterly. it was awkward and i am pretty extroverted. just awkward or fake to pretend. thx for writing this. it is actually very north american to go by appearances (status, beauty, masks).
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November 26, 2015 at 4:55 pm
Well put, Anny. In meditating about Jesus’ example in healing, I too noticed that compassion seemed to be a key ingredient. The more compassion, the more power he had. So, in the story of the widow at Nain, Jesus had compassion and raised her recently deceased son from the dead. In the case of Lazarus, his empathy with Martha and especially Maria was so deep that he wept. The power that his empathy and compassion set free was so great that he was able to raise a man from the dead who had been in the grave for four days and had started to decompose. Therefore, after many years of unsuccessful healing prayers, I’m seeking to grow in love and compassion and empathy for people first and foremost.
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October 15, 2013 at 7:14 pm
I had the same experience a few weeks ago at a church I visited, although my foot wasn’t hurt and I didn’t have any misgivings about Mr. Trendy’s intentions. He approached me with his coffee in hand and asked if I needed prayer.
So I caught him up in my life story to the point where he started to look around impatiently (around the 3 minute mark). He sort of cut me off, groped my chest without asking, pressed a bunch of times while praying, and then took off to mill about in his natural habitat of trendy post-worship verbal copulation. I walked out the door as he disengaged from the crowds to press on some young man’s forehead.
The best objects of your healing practice are the ones that take the least amount of your Sunday away. I guess I’m not a very good one.
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October 16, 2013 at 3:17 am
Yup. I’ve seen it. And I hate it. Jesus did not give us formulas, but an example to follow: I do the things I see my Father do and say the words I hear Him say. Now, if I could just get that one thing right…
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October 16, 2013 at 6:54 pm
I am grateful for your words, and I agree that “practice” shouldn’t be the motivation for any kind of personal contact, whether you are practicing haircuts, injections, massage, photography, healing, finding leads for a business, or something else.
That being said, however, there is this to consider: Peter said, “Silver and gold have I none…” and then prayed for healing, and the recipient, immediately healed, was QUITE happy that it happened. Some awkward people might be thinking, “I don’t have hours to spend with you today, but let me offer you what I do have.” If it is truly their hope that you will be immediately healed, what a great gift that would be! Walking into a service with cancer, leaving without. Walking in with a horrible headache, leaving without.
I mean, if it was a financial burden you were carrying, and someone came up to you and said, “Hey, my family is waiting for me, but I noticed your car needs repair. May I give you $500 to help with that?” would we begrudge him his lack of personal time to spend with us? Probably not. We’d probably be ecstatic, amazed at God’s nudging, and over-the-top grateful.
So part of the problem is that usually, NOTHING HAPPENS when people “practice” healing prayer. If it always worked, nobody would complain.
Although they might still be lonely, which was the other part of your message.
(Hugs!)
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October 16, 2013 at 7:10 pm
Kim,
This was a balanced thoughtful comment that I learned a lot from. Thank you for writing it.
I was blessed by it.
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October 16, 2013 at 11:30 pm
Kim – I agree. The thing is, when Peter offered to heal the guy, there are two things to bear in mind about the situation:
a) the beggar had approached Peter, not the other way around.
b) Peter wasn’t “trying something out” on the guy. When he said he had something to give to him, it was because he knew that he could heal him….in other words, it wasn’t one of Peter’s 500 early attempts before the stuff would start flowin’ 😉
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October 23, 2013 at 7:54 pm
I hear you. I don’t like being treated like someone’s project or only being used to accomplish another’s goal. If someone shows great interest in me b/c of their networking business or their healing ministry but then disappear when I don’t sign up, or am not healed, I feel used and I question if they truly cared like they initially appeared to. Granted, I can’t be close friends with everyone but being ignored afterwards would make me feel used like a spiritual slut.
But it doesn’t bother me if others want to pray for me or practice their gift on me as long as they remember I’m a person and treat me with respect regardless of what happens. Doctors practice. I see nothing wrong with Christians taking this approach of practicing their gifts on people, if those people are willing. We must learn how to use the gifts God give us. They don’t just always happen.
In Mark 8:22-25 Jesus healed a blind man and it took more than one interaction with Him for it to be completed. The disciples cast out demons and then they encountered one demon who possessed a boy. They were unable to cast it out of him. When they asked Jesus about it, He said that kind didn’t come out except by prayer and fasting. (Matt. 17:14-21). That tells me there is more to it than just having God’s power flow through you. Apparently, there are things to learn and there is, if you will, “an art to it.” There’s degrees and nuances and a variety of factors in supernatural activities, including training to be had and skills to honed.
Again, what I have trouble with is, if after they’re done, they ignore me and move on like I was just some warm body for them to practice on. I’m a person not a stiff, warm or otherwise!
At least he didn’t scream at you and tell you that you didn’t have enough faith to be healed or you let the devil in.
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October 23, 2013 at 7:59 pm
I hear you. I don’t like being treated like someone’s project or only being used to accomplish another’s goal. If someone shows great interest in me b/c of their networking business or their healing ministry but then disappear when I don’t sign up, or am not healed, I feel used and I question if they truly cared like they initially appeared to. Granted, I can’t be close friends with everyone but being ignored afterwards would make me feel used like a spiritual slut.
But it doesn’t bother me if others want to pray for me or practice their gift on me as long as they remember I’m a person and treat me with respect regardless of what happens. Doctors practice. I see nothing wrong with Christians taking this approach of practicing their gifts on people, if those people are willing. We must learn how to use the gifts God give us. They don’t just always happen.
In Mark 8:22-25 Jesus healed a blind man and it took more than one interaction with Him for it to be completed. The disciples cast out demons and then they encountered one demon who possessed a boy. They were unable to cast it out of him. When they asked Jesus about it, He said that kind didn’t come out except by prayer and fasting. (Matt. 17:14-21). That tells me there is more to it than just having God’s power flow through you. Apparently, there are things to learn and there is, if you will, “an art to it.” There’s degrees and nuances and a variety of factors in supernatural activities, including training to be had and skills to honed.
Again, what I have trouble with is, if after they’re done, they ignore me and move on like I was just some warm body for them to practice on. I’m a person not a stiff, warm or otherwise!
I’m glad he didn’t scream at you and tell you that you didn’t have enough faith to be healed or you let the devil in. I’ve had that happen.
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March 22, 2014 at 11:33 pm
Since you are a self-proclaimed charismatic, do you feel this encounter laughable or discouraging? There is just no formula on how to receive healing, grace, blessings… The “cute” guy totally missed the point.
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November 21, 2015 at 11:40 pm
Hi dragonfinger, I was revisiting my blog and realized somehow I had missed replying to you and I am extremely regretful about that. Please forgive me.
So in reply to your question, here’s the type of charismatic I am: I think God totally does all this stuff, like healing people, but I think He’s not departamentalized. Like, in other words, I think it’s pretty hard to flow in the gifts of the Spirit without the fruit of the Spirit and the heart of the Spirit and so forth (and this would be the cliff’s notes edition of what I think about all this.) So the biggest thing about spiritual gifts is to be walking in real relationship with God, which has very little to do with spiritual gifts – and in real relationship with people, which again has very little to do with spiritual gifts. Spiritual gifts are the icing on the top of the cake, the spillover, of being really humble people who walk with their God in intimate, surrendered, loving ways. And even then – there is no formula. That’s why you have to walk with God. When you consider praying for someone for healing, you either sense or hear from the Spirit that He’s all over this, or you don’t pretend to know that it’s gonna work.
So do i find this laughable or discouraging? I find it disheartening – and I’m much more disheartened by charismatics learning to act in subrelational ways to people than I’m concerned about whether or not we’ve all finally tapped into the mysterious healing powers available to us. Yes, I want to see the gifts of the Spirit and the power of God flow, but I’m much more concerned with us as the church demonstrating the full maturity of people who are fully alive, real, sincere, connected, whole people with ourselves and each other walking in real love. Love is the greatest “gift” – way more important than all the other flash in the pan stuff.
It definitely, in the end, isn’t real laughable for me if we’re not headed there.
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