Organic Power Encounters #2

In my last post I told you how God had returned my friend Jess's wallet. This time I'll tell you about how He healed his knee!

I went to the gym Wednesday morning for a training session with Jess. We both started talking about our weekends, and Jess said that he had injured his knee. "Pulled a tendon" was how he put it. It was causing him a lot of pain, and even limiting his range of motion. He could not bring his foot up to his backside without wincing half way up. As a guy with a B.A. in Kinesiology and a pretty sharp mind, Jess was able to be very articulate in describing the pain and the limitations of his right knee caused by the injury. He said the pain was a 7 or an 8. I knew that this was another organic opportunity to pray for him. I was absolutely certain that God was going to heal him because I'd already seen God return his wallet, because I've seen a LOT of knees healed, and because I felt God encouraging me to pray for him and I felt the assurance of Him 'having my back.'

Before I could offer prayer, Jess also told me about a dream he had:

He was back at the church he attended as a kid (he stopped going as a teenager), walking through their fellowship hall where they served meals and banquets and held receptions. The whole area had been segregated into cubicles and these were being sold as condos. I asked him how he felt about that, and he said it made him vaguely sad.

I prayed that God would give me an interpretation since I thought the dream had some importance. I'm not a big dream interpreter, and I'm sure that there is more to the dream than what I got, but I gave him what I thought it meant:

That his old church wasn't what the dream was about. That it was about 'church' in general. That churches have found ways to separate people into little groups and keep them apart. That part of that is even a commercialization of faith: a whole subculture to go along with it including books, music, and all the rest of it. That churches have stopped knowing how to be about community and have stopped 'fellowshiping' because of it. I said the dream was an indictment of that failed way of doing church, but that this isn't God's plan at all. Men have made church fail, men have made fellowship hard, and it's men who are responsible for comoditizing religion and even faith.

Jess seemed to like that interpretation. After that I asked him if I could pray for his knee. He immediately agreed. I placed my hand on his knee cap, and prayed a very short prayer: "Lord please heal Jess' knee. Pain go away in Jesus name." I asked him to check it, and I have to say, I felt about 99% confident the knee would be much improved.

Jess tested out the knee. "Wow," he said. "That's really weird! The pain is almost completely gone. I can even put the knee through it's full range of motion." He was pretty surprised, and I was just sort of smiling at him, because I knew that God was just pouring out His love for Jess at that moment, that He was giving him a taste of what His version of love looks like.

"How is it now on a scale of 1-10?"

"It's a 1. Just a little bit of soreness left."

"Can I pray for that as well?"

"Sure."

"Lord, please take away all of the pain. Not even a little pain. No more pain in Jesus name."

He checked it again--and by check, keep in mind this guy's a physical trainer who knows how to poke, prod, and otherwise fully examine muscles, ligaments, etc--and it was still a little bit sore, but nothing even remotely close to where it had been earlier. Jess kept thanking me, and I kept telling him that it wasn't me at all. That I can't heal anyone, but that Jesus can and does and that he should thank Jesus instead.

I then got to talk to him again about who God is, and How much He loves people and cares for them. How He wants them to know He loves them and wants them to choose to be in relationship with Him. Jess listened to everything I said, and I could tell he was really processing through what had just happened and relating it to what I was telling him. I left him with a healed knee, and a head full of new ideas about Jesus: The King of Kings, Lord of Lords, and especially, Jesus the healer.

Organic Power Encounters

I've been guilty of ignoring this blog for far too long. Mostly that's because I've been reevaluating how I want to pursue a lifestyle of miracles and seeing God's goodness impact this world. The model of doing treasure hunts is fun and encouraging and something I still plan to pursue. However, it feels like God's been leading me towards a more 'organic' approach to praying for people. I'd define organic as praying for those people that I come into contact with in daily life, not going out with the specific purpose of finding 'treasures.' It's been a real paradigm shift for me to start looking at my daily routine as the jumping off point for seeking to see the Kingdom come to earth. Instead of going out to seek out treasures, I'm instead finding them right under my very nose in daily life!

God's been doing some really great stuff. As I've relaxed and just let Him direct me to pray for people as the situation calls for, I've seen a couple really neat things happen. Here are a few, both of which involve a physical trainer at the gym I work out at. His name is Jess, and I've been building a friendship with him for the last 6 months.

Back in June, Jess told me that he had lost his wallet which included his credit cards, bank card, CTA pass, etc. He was pretty upset about this as it meant he had to go through the process of canceling all of them. Even worse was the loss of his monthly CTA pass which you cannot replace without buying another one. As he told me about this, I knew i should pray for the return of his wallet, but felt a bit awkward asking him for permission.

It took most of an hour to get up the courage to ask. Finally I asked him and he agreed to let me pray. I prayed briefly that God would return his wallet to him and that he wouldn't lose anything important from it. He thanked me and I left the gym.

The next day, this is the e-mail I received from him:

Not that God works to give us what we want, when we want it and how we want it. HOWEVER, this morning @ 7:30 AM, he saw fit that my wallet was returned. Thank you for your prayers!

I was blown away and really excited that God had answered my prayer that quickly! When I check with him about how this had happened, he said that one of the other trainers just happened to be cleaning up the employee locker-room that morning and had found it underneath the netting of a soccer goal. Jess was thrilled to have the wallet back, and this opened up a conversation about who God is, and how He loves people enough to get involved even in the 'little things.' Seeing God return his wallet was great, but having the opportunity to talk about the Lord's goodness and love for him was even better!