Physical Healing Prayer

In the Wellsprings of Freedom ministry I serve with, we often pray physical healing prayer over our guests. While following this Biblical practice, we often find that God does answer with a measure of physical healing.

"Are any of you sick? You should call for the elders of the church to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well. And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven."

James 5: 14-15

Prayer is powerful. I have seen it many times in sessions where our guests do find physical healing. I've seen a woman be healed from chronic pain, another from face paralysis, one from a wrist injury, and others. However, many times I've also seen guests not be healed. That is hard for anyone to understand. One thing I do see every time though, is that the Holy Spirit always shows up when we pray for physical healing and gives our guest exactly what they need at that moment.

God is not only Jehovah-Rapha, "The Lord Who Heals". He also also Jehovah-Nacham, "The Lord Is My Comforter". Sometimes that is all our guests needs in that moment. The Lord's love envelops around them like a big hug and gives them the comfort they need. A lot of times, I focus on God's ability to comfort more than His ability to heal.

Even though I am in the ministry, and I see God working and healing people all the time, the enemy tries to overcome me with lies. One way he does this is by telling me that healing is not for me, and to just believe the diagnosis. Yes. I believe that God is my comforter, but for some reason He is choosing not to heal me. I agree [made a contract] with the diagnosis and go on with my life.

Ten months ago I was developed with frozen shoulder. My shoulder was stiff and had very limited range of motion. In fact, it was extremely painful to move it in certain ways and it was difficult to find a sleeping positions. After going to the doctor and trying a few things, my doctor finally told me that it will just go away on its own in about a year. I wasn't super excited about this diagnosis. However, it gave me hope that I would recover.

Meanwhile, my team wanted to pray for me. They were convinced that God was going to heal my shoulder. Throughout the year they prayed a couple times, and nothing really changed. Then a couple weeks ago they again insisted on praying a physical healing prayer over my shoulder. My faith in this prayer, was small, mustard seed faith. I did feel love and cared for. This comforted me in my frustration of my shoulder. However, that was not all God was up to that day. Like previously, I was thankful for the prayers my team prayed, but didn't expect anything to change physically to my shoulder.

When I got home that night, about a half hour later, I noticed a loosening in my shoulder. I wriggled my shoulder around a little bit. Then I decided to test the range of motion. Tears flooded my eyes as I was able to lift my arm all the way up to the sky and do circle motions with my shoulder. I had about 90% mobility back in my shoulder after that prayer. This encouraged my faith in physical healing prayer.

The next day I was so excited that I began to tell everyone about this experience. To my surprise I didn't get the reaction I was hoping for. A few people shared my excitement. However, most people just glossed over my physical healing story. They either ignored it completely and began talking about something else, or politely acknowledged it and moved on. It was quite confusing for me. Perhaps they didn't know I was injured. After all, you can't tell by looking at me that there was anything wrong. However, I think it is more than that.

If I, in the ministry myself had tiny faith that I could be healed, perhaps the people who surrounded me also have tiny faith in physical healing prayer. These are people of prayer, so no doubt they had prayed for physical healing for people before. Maybe their disappointment in the answers to their prayers made them doubt or brought back bad memories of unanswered prayers. Whatever the case, this whole experience has taught me a few things.

While I don't completely understand why God heals some and doesn't heal others, the truth is He has the power and authority to heal, and He does heal. God calls us to pray physical healing prayers and to anoint with oil. The outcome belongs to the Lord. For me, it took some time to be healed. I don't know why God chose this time to heal my shoulder, but I trust in His timing. I will not doubt Him on this. I will use this as a testimony even if others choose to gloss over it. I need to give thanks, praise and honor to the God who heals. He has all the power!