When Having Faith Isn't Enough...

Last week I talked about how I was perplexed by people I met who had not experienced the miraculous and how they were different from me. You see, it wasn't until the beginning of March 2006 that I had ever heard any testimonies of God doing miracles in the United States. A year earlier I had been praying that I would see miracles when I traveled to South Africa. I didn't see anyone get healed nor any food multiplied which is interesting since we never prayed for either to happen.

The thing that I didn't realize is that I was saying the answer to my question last week when I contemplated the topic. Here at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry we expect God to show up when we pray for people. It is more than just a culture where miracles happen because not everyone in the culture sees people get healed. I was shocked a few weeks ago when I was talking with a friend who had been praying for his bosses finger which was bent very unnaturally but was not seeing any breakthrough. Turns out that he had never prayed for someone and seen them get healed! Wow. I guess I took it for granted just because I have seen so many people get healed. I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say this, but it is just pretty easy.

Before you call the blasphemy police let me explain that it is easy because God heals the person, all I am doing is praying for them. Well, that is all they think I am doing. I am also believing that God will answer my prayers. Not someone else's prayers, but MY prayers. It is important to believe that God can work through you.

The problem I faced at least one of the nights when I was preaching in Brazil last July was that I was doubting that anyone I prayed for would get healed. Only a week before then I was having nights where I would pray for 6-10 people and each one of them would get healed! What was the difference? Bill Johnson and Randy Clark had done such a good job of teaching us to expect miracles that right from the first night of meetings we were seeing literally hundreds of people get healed. However on the nights when I preached I was coming under the attack of the enemy and agreed with his lie that nobody gets healed when I pray for them. So while the other people on our team were seeing blind eyes and deaf ears opened, I don't remember if any people got healed that I prayed for (maybe just a few, but that is in 2 hours of praying for people). My point is that my doubt that God would use me got in the way of the fact that I still believed that God could heal anybody!

I am feeling the conviction of God come on myself right now. I was just thinking in my mind that we must stop doubting that God would act in response to your prayers. Then I thought that we must also not have doubt that God would use us for a MIRACLE because we are not yet to that point in our faith. It might be easier for someone to pray for people with headaches than it is for someone who is medically brain dead.

I felt like God was just tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Yo David, you shouldn't doubt that I would use you for a crazy miracle either."

Then I thought: "But I am praying every day for breakthrough in big time miracles."

To which I heard: "That doesn't mean that you should not believe I could use you until after the first miracle happens!"

Lord, forgive me! I had no idea that in the midst of going after seeing the paralyzed walk (and other impossible things) I was clouding my belief that nothing is impossible for God with my doubt that I have reached the point where God is ready to use me. For whatever reason I have been pushing back the day of breakthrough until something happens between just God and I. I don't even know if that makes sense. Last Friday I didn't feel like I was doubting that God could use me, but there is probably a sense of doubt when praying for something that you have never seen healed.

So anyway, the point of this is to not only have faith in God, but to also not doubt that God would respond to your prayers. He loves you just as much as the person who needs to get healed. By the same token, do not doubt that some things are too big for God to respond to for where you are currently at. That is just a lie! If nothing is impossible for God, then nothing is impossible. I don't recall any Bible verse comparing faith and anointing, but I am pretty sure that God will respond to your faith (and lack of doubt) even when you aren't some super anointing healing person. So remember that God wants to use you and show up every time you pray and also that faith trumps lack of anointing every time.