In June of 2014, God answered my continuing prayer for clearer understanding of and experience in the role of miracles in reproducing discipleship by enabling me to perform two miracles for which I can offer no natural explanation:
File Recovery
On June 16, 2014, my email program crashed, taking with it three hours of work which I had neglected to save to the hard disk.
You know the feeling.
As a trained computer professional I knew what this meant—my work was irretrievably lost. And sure enough, when I reopened the program that email draft was empty.
Six months ago that would have been the end of it. I would have simply accepted what had happened.
But I had just received a testimony about people raised from the dead. So while I had no feeling of expectation or confidence, I chose to obey what I have been learning. I asked God to guide me, laid my hands on my computer, and commanded the missing material to be restored.
Still certain I had lost all that work, I didn’t bother checking further, but simply left the computer for a few minutes. When I returned I repeated the process, still in simple, “foolish” obedience.
Then I reopened my computer and was astonished to see that the time stamp on the email had updated, and the email showed an attachment! I opened the email and found that all my lost work had been restored!!
Healing from Back Pain/Spasms
On June 18th we had dinner guests. Phil was slow to sit down. He explained that he had severe back pain and was wearing a TENS unit to suppress muscle spasms. Six months ago I would have simply offered to pray for God to heal him.
Instead I shared what I have been learning about healing (summarized below), and about the miraculous restoration of my lost computer work two days earlier. Then asked if Phil if we could pray for him, and he readily accepted.
Again I felt no expectation of healing, just a conviction that I need to obey the Scripture, lay my hands on, and command healing in Jesus’ name.
Three of us laid our hands on Phil. After I thanking God for His love I resisted the urge to recite every theology I know about healing, bind every demon, etc.
Instead, in accordance what what I’d recently learned watching Art Thomas’ excellent 90-minute video “Healing is Simple!,” I simply issued a brief command like “Be healed in Jesus’ name!” Then I concluded rather awkwardly, “I’ll stop there.”
Then I asked Phil if he felt any different. I expected his answer to be “No,” and that I would have a chance to practice perseverance.
And Phil began to say that he didn’t feel any different (he didn’t expect any noticeable change either), but as he began moving around he realized that he couldn’t find any pain. Finally, with tears of joy, he stood, removed his TENS unit and lumbar support, and said, “I guess I won’t be needing these any more!”
I shared with Phil what I had learned about fighting to keep your healing—against the doubt and the “copycat” pain the enemy brings against us. Phil grasped this and shared with me several days later that he was still pain free, despite momentary doubts, and after taking authority over brief moments of pain.
Several weeks later we were together at a training, and Phil was again rejoicing at being pain free.
More context on my research in this area.
A summary of what I have learned about how to pray with authority for healing.
