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The Right Prayer Partner (Read 5726 times)
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The Right Prayer Partner
Jan 27th, 2017 at 12:32am
 
The controversial title is chosen not because I'm trying to provoke arguments, but because I believe that edgy approaches are more conducive to newbie clarification of what they believe on this subject.   I will post several experiences, including some of my own and some of close friends, to help you sort out what the major issues are for you on this topic. 

(1) Sometimes people aren't healed because the right faith-filled person did not prayer for the answer to the need in question. Anglican mystic, Agnes Sanford, has written several books on prayer and spirituality. In her classic, "The Healing Light," she tells the story of her dying baby grandson. Doctors had doomed the baby to imminent death. She was caring for the boy and organized prayer vigils to pray for healing--to no effect. She prayed constantly for healing without success. Then one day, a young first-year Bible school student dropped by, saying, "I heard you have a dying baby here and I've come to pray for his healing." Agnes said she felt indignant at his presumption. Didn't he realize that she was an expert on prayer and that the room was prayer-saturated? The arrogance of this inexperienced young man! But she couldn't bring herself to deny his request; so she grudgingly complied. She watched as he picked up the baby with joy radiating from his face as he lovingly prayed for the boy's recovery. She saw the baby gloriously healed before her very eyes, and was properly humbled by the realization that this young man was the right person at that time to serve as God's instrument of healing.

Agnes, was too ego-invested and too agitated to be God's instrument of healing in this case, and the Bible school student's calm divinely instilled confidence was exactly what God needed to channel full healing. Such anecdotes could be multiplied. Agnes's humbling experience raises that question of the criteria God uses to determine "the right intercessor."


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TheDonald
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Re: The Right Prayer Partner
Reply #1 - Jan 27th, 2017 at 3:10am
 

(2) Dave is in our small prayer group, He suffered from a massive blood clot that extended from his ankle to his groin. Doctors expressed the hope that this clot would eventually calcify, removing the risk to his heart. But Dave was advised to limit his movements due to the danger of a piece of clot breaking off and going to his heart or brain. Despite the fact the he was in great pain, he generally ignored this medical advice. Dave and his wife Patty's prayers did nothing to change his condition.

Then one day they ate at Mavericks, a restaurant I can see from my residence. An unknown young couple approached their table, asking, "I hope you don't mind my asking, but do you have a serious physical condition that needs prayer?" Dave was initially taken aback at this intrusion, especially with other customers overhearing the question. Though a tad embarrassed, he told them about the massive clot. They nodded relief, and felt that the "word of knowledge" they had clairvoyantly received was confirmed. Then the couple asked if Dave wanted prayer for his condition. He consented, but was again taken aback, when they prayed loudly for his healing. It turns out the couple were young missionaries about to leave for some African country.

Subsequent X-rays confirmed that Dave was completely healed. Dave realizes he would never have been healed unless God brought the right prayer partners. Nor would he have been healed if his pride prompted him to decline their request to pray for him. So this healing provides a great parallel to Agnes's dilemma at the presumptuous Bible school student's request. Had her pride prompted her to decline the eager young man's offer of prayer, her grandson would in my view never have been healed.

The Bible teaches that there are right and wrong ways to pray, i. e. prayer principles that facilitate a favorable divine intervention and attitudes that inhibit the power of prayer. So here is the giant pink elephant in the church, the question that would be insensitive and inappropriate to ask a seriously ill person: Are some people dead who would be alive if they had either prayed in faith or received prayer from "the right" prayer partners?

Other faith lessons from such testimonies? (1) As in Agnes's case, true humility is a great asset to effective faith. (2) Real faith takes risks, risks I would typically lack the confidence to take. I would have been more polite and prayed quietly--and my prayer would have had no effect. I would have been hedging my bets to prevent myself from looking really bad! I later learned that gifted faith healers do not pray softly in situations like that, because they want the healings to serve as a witness to God's power. (3) The younger generation is jumping out of the windows of mainline churches, because these churches are "holding to the outward form of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid them (2 Timothy 3:5)!" Thus, Paul says of his rivals: "I will find out not the talk of these arrogant people, but their power. For the kingdom of God depends not on talk, but on power. (1 Corinthians 4:19-20)."



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DocM
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Re: The Right Prayer Partner
Reply #2 - Apr 1st, 2017 at 9:25am
 
Hi Don,

So this is a really interesting topic to me.  Ernest Holmes wrote of the Science of the mind and healing. Some of his ideas and writings seem very practical and make sense to me.  I've been fascinated with trying to piece together what the conditions are to manifest a healing in another person. 

Some, like Holmes believe in the notion that just as thought can create reality when coupled to belief, that the image of the afflicted person, healed, smiling coupled with the deep conviction that this has already occurred, and gratitude for the healing are all needed and all come together to help heal someone.  However, there is a complex interplay between the belief of the healer and the afflicted.  Counterproductive or cross beliefs held by the individual, when also felt with deep conviction must come into play. 

There are also physical laws which operate in this world, and there must be algorithm whereby these laws may, on occasion be surpassed (divine healing) and other instances where the prayer is insufficient to overcome a set physical disease. 

As to the notion of divine grace, I humbly admit that I don't know what criteria would come into play.  Would it be a sense of selfless love, bereft of ego related intention?  I'm just not sure we will ever figure that out.

I like your idea that "real faith takes risks" and I wonder whether the reason that may work has something to do with the direct person to person interaction with the healing and the transfer of conviction in the healing and love from one person to the other?  If the healer can, by grace interact with the deep subconscious of the afflicted by taking a chance with love and grace, perhaps the afflicted person can share some of the grace, love, conviction and gratitude immediately.  But this may take the boldness, love and conviction that is not so casual as a whispered prayer sometimes.

Great thread.

Matthew
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Re: The Right Prayer Partner
Reply #3 - Apr 1st, 2017 at 9:59am
 
  Note that Yeshua didn't heal everyone with an illness he came into contact with.

  Sometimes people are learning valuable things, or balancing karma, by going through an illness.  Or sometimes their condition is providing value or lessons to others around them. 

  For my part time job, I work with a young man with CP.  Intellectually, he is very limited and he is semi-medically fragile. I've often got the sense that his Soul is rather mature.  Moreover, I got the sense that he volunteered to come into such a body for the benefit of some of his family members. By taking care of him, focusing on another in need, they were learning valuable lessons and growing more, on a spiritual level. At the end, Consciousness cares far more about spiritual growth than anything else.

  If I or anyone tried to heal him and make him "normal", that would be taking away the spiritual service and value that he agreed to pre this life.  That would be counter productive in a spiritual sense.

   Sometimes you have to look deeper than the physical. 

  I had a dream about this issue while hiking the CT over this last summer.  One night, I strongly wondered why I was here.  I asked God and Expanded Guidance right before going to bed, if it was spiritually helpful and part of their will, could I be shown more specifically why I came here. 

   I remembered a dream where I was viewing my grandfather, whom was aged, fragile, and close to death in the dream, and whom is also in real life.  He wanted to feel better, to not be ill and decrepit.  His situation tugged on my heart, and so I went deep within myself, opened up to the Creative Force/Consciousness (a combo of Source and PUL), let it flow through me into him. 

  The transformation was remarkable--he looked like he was some few decades younger and in glowing health.  But, later on, he decided or realized that he was just tired of this world and wanted to leave anyways, though he was appreciative of what was facilitated for him.  In other words, he wanted to die and go into the nonphysical. It wasn't just about his body. 

   I didn't know how to reverse it, or if it could be.  That's all I remember.  The dream had multiple messages for me.  One was that before partaking in trying to facilitate healing, best be sure that is what is actually most spiritually helpful for that individual.  Another message was that my grandfather is going to die soon, which is something I've sensed here and there.  Another was about self's potential, and part of what my later path will involve. 

   If we truly pray, and then listen after, "Not my will be done, but the will of the purely Creative Forces will be done (Source and those fully intune with same).  Please show the will of the latter so I am conscious of same."  we will gain the necessary discernment and wisdom to know what is best or not for a situation. 

  It was the constant practice of him, who came into the flesh, from the very core of Source.  But he was humble and aware enough to know, that while he was connected to a dense, human animal body, that he needed help and guidance to choose the right paths.  He had "body ego" to some extent like other humans.  He needed help and methods to get beyond himself.  Hence the specific prayers and meditation. 
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Re: The Right Prayer Partner
Reply #4 - May 3rd, 2017 at 8:45pm
 
Yes, a great thread Don and I hope it doesn't get lost in cyberspace. It deserves lots of attention.

Just to add another dimension to the discussion- sometimes a person is healed with no consciously directed prayer whatsoever. It just happens. Or a person's life is saved by divine intervention whereas others are not. For example your story years ago about the man in line to buy a ticket for a flight. He got a feeling he should not board the plane and left the line. As it turned out the plane crashed.

I've heard stories about 9/11. Some people had foreboding about that day and elected to stay home. And what really gets me, is when they thank God for saving them. That leaves the obvious question...did God save them while allowing the thousands of others to go unknowingly to their deaths?.  A real mystery, no?

R
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Re: The Right Prayer Partner
Reply #5 - Jun 4th, 2017 at 1:12am
 
Sometimes I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer!  I just noticed this duplicate of my thread in "Religions and Their Beliefs" section.  Because I try (and often fail) to avoid repeating myself, I'd just ask you guys to follow my other incarnation of this thread in the other section.
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