story time

recent events:

Tuesday night, after an amazing all-staff intercession at IHOP-atlanta (what is usually a brief healing prayer turned into a 30 min prophetic song about a healing revival, complete with words of knowledge regarding conditions in the room), Hazen and I went with Laure and two of her friends, Carlton and Destiny, to pray for a friend of theirs who was in the hospital for multiple medical conditions. We went to her room, and prayed for her healing, with no immediate results. On the way out of the hospital, we saw a man in a wheel chair headed for the escaltors. Promptly, Carlton began chasing him down, which in turn caused the rest of us to follow suit. We caught up to him and Carlton asked him what had happened and if it would be okay for us to pray for him to be healed. This man explained to us that seven years ago a wall had fallen on him, which had bent both of his ankles backwards, broken his tibia and fibia in both legs and caused lots of damage in his left ankle. Since then, he has had constant excruciating pain in his left ankle from when he wakes up in the morning till he sleeps. He told us that walking a simple hallway, would leave him feeling as if he had tryed to run a marathon. He was currently using a wheel chair because he had walked down to the cafeteria, and his ankle was now in so much pain that he didn't want to walk any more and had gotten a wheel chair to take his food back.

So we prayed for him. Carlton led it off, and then after prayer asked him if he could stand up and test out his ankle to see if it was still in pain. At first, the man seemed confused by the request. He told us that he would walk if it would make us happy, and that he definitely could, it would just hurt. We briefly explained that we believed that all the pain in his ankle might now be gone due to our prayer. He agreed to stand up and see how it felt. He stood up, turned to face us, and looked at us with wide eyes. "Are you serious?" was his first statement. Tears started welling up. What's going on? we asked. How does it feel? "I don't feel anything. It feels the same as my right ankle. There's no pain" Tears started running down his face, which he wiped up on his t-shirt.


Amazing. I love, I love, I love the healing power of the cross.

I would be doing you an injustice though if I didn't tell you the rest of this story. Following this amazing healing, we presented the Gospel to this man, telling him that the same power of God that healed his foot was present and available to heal his heart and give him a new life. After laying out this good news, this man refused to accept Jesus. He told us that he was thankful for the gift he had gotten of his healing, but that he wasn't going to ask for anything else. So the wonderful miracle was followed by a nightmare. We stood next to this man listening to his reasonings for not worrying about eternity, and I kept wanting to grab his shoulders, shake him hard, and tell him that he was wrong, and he was going to go to hell and would be forever in torment. I pray his life soon changes. He needs Jesus.

So we must pray. More. We must pray more.

We need power and clarity on the Gospel for the turning of hearts. James 5:16