Thursday, July 29, 2010

What to Do in Apparent Defeat

We found out that the woman with thyroid cancer that we had been praying for went into surgery as scheduled on Wednesday and that, indeed, the growth was (still) cancerous. The report so far is that the surgery went well and that she's recovering fine. That said, however, I must say that I was very disheartened at the news that there was no noticeable effect from our prayers.

I, in fact, got so discouraged that I got teary-eyed as I pleaded with God for understanding as to why the woman wasn't healed before her scheduled surgery, as we had commanded. Josh and I independently felt that the LORD had given us words of knowledge that the cancer had been defeated. (Josh saw a black clump in the middle of a beam of light that disappeared, and I had the image of the walls of Jericho falling at the voices of the Israelites.) It seemed that our prayers were powerful and effective, and the woman mentioned that she felt a pressure in the cancerous area. I must admit, however, that after our prayer session, I pretty much stopped praying, except for a minute or two briefly the morning before the surgery. I haven't had any clear revelations as to why our prayers didn't "work," but I have collected some thoughts and observations that I aim to make changes upon in my future prayers.

First, I am pretty sure that I asserted something that I shouldn't have. I said something like, "Lord, as we think about C_____ between now and Wednesday, let us say a prayer against enemy forces that wish to do her harm." By saying this, I think I unintentionally shifted the burden of healing from Jesus (who already accomplished it) to us. I essentially made a promise that all of us there would say a prayer commanding evil spirits to go in Jesus' name whenever we thought of the woman with cancer. If the enemy were in earshot, he would easily have a legal loophole to get out of obeying the commands we were giving in the prayers. If one of us didn't do what I said we would do, he wouldn't have to obey. So, I learned a lesson about spiritual warfare: don't give yourself hoops to jump through because you'll probably trip up, and if you do, the enemy will have a loophole by which to bypass the authority of Christ.

Second, I said something like, "Father, if we've done something wrong, let us know what it is so that we can fix it." This is definitely an unwise thing to say during a time of spiritual warfare. Our weapon is the Sword of Truth, so if we are obviously wavering in what we believe to be true (or in whether or not we are correctly living out the truth), then we have revealed that our Sword is weak--and all this in the presence of the enemy! I had been asking God the question above during my own time of seeking Him, which is why it came out during the time of prayer later. But that is no excuse. Another lesson I learned about spiritual warfare is this: Stand by what you've said and done during spiritual warfare, and if you are uncertain about something, don't reveal your cards--ask God about it later in private!

The last thing that I started realizing after talking with my husband is that perhaps I gave up fighting too soon. With every other case in which I've prayed for a fellow believer (or for myself), the healing has been a process. Two steps forward, one step back. Given that I stopped fighting for the woman once our prayer session was over, there was probably plenty of time for the cancer to regain strength. Given that I became disheartened once I found out the woman went into surgery, the enemy probably wiped his brow in relief because he knew I would stop fighting if I thought I had lost the battle. If I am going to fight a spiritual battle, I must realize that the fight is not over until the enemy is completely destroyed. If the tide of battle turns in our favor, that does not mean we can sit back and relax. We should fight all the harder. The last lesson I learned about spiritual warfare is that we need to fight hard until we see the results of our prayer come to pass in our presence. If the healing doesn't come within the first hour, pray for two. If it doesn't come in the first two hours, pray for six. Sometimes it isn't practical to lay hands on someone for six hours straight, but that doesn't mean that the battle has to end. The battle needs to continue until the desired outcome is achieved so that the enemy does not regain his ground. This is the most significant lesson that I have learned from this experience, and I will not make the same mistake again.

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