Have you ever needed a miracle? Or wondered why some people get healed when you pray for them and other people don’t? We are so blessed to serve the God of Miracles, but we often struggle to believe a miracle is possible for us personally.
It’s so easy to get offended when healing doesn’t come, and begin to believe those kinds of things don’t happen anymore.
Not because scripture tells us to expect the miracles to end, but because we’ve come to believe our experiences…or lack of experiences more than we believe the Bible. Maybe we just need a reminder of the miracle working God we serve to build our faith.
Types of Miracles
Provision
Jesus performed many miracles of provision including turning water to wine, feeding the 5,000, feeding the 4,000, and money from a fish’s mouth. And there are also multiple Old Testament examples of mana, water from a rock, flour and oil for bread that continued to multiply, and the ram caught in the thicket for Abraham to sacrifice.
We see these miracles today often through financial provision but for physical needs as well. Things like checks in the mail, food or supplies that stretch longer than they should, unexpected sales, finding money, people feeling led to give to us, and more.
Protection
Daniel protected in the lion’s den, his friends making it safely through the fiery furnace, the Red Sea parting for the Israelites to escape the Egyptian army, Joseph warned in a dream about Herod coming after Jesus, the storm calmed by Jesus when the disciples were afraid, the Bible is full of stories of supernatural protection.
Sometimes we miss our own stories of supernatural protection because we have no idea how bad things could have been.
Healing
Physical, emotional, and spiritual healing are some of the most well known miracles. This can include the blind seeing, the deaf ear opened, the cancer disappearing, the depression lifting, the demonic cast out, and so much more. Scripture is full of examples of Jesus healing all kinds of diseases and He commanded us to do the same.
Heal the sick, raise the dead, restore the outsider, cast out demons. Freely you received, freely give.” Matthew 10:8
Signs and Wonders
Signs and wonders can include a whole host of supernatural manifestations that don’t necessarily bring provision, protection, or healing but speak to the power and glory of God.
Jesus walking on water, the veil tearing in the temple at the moment of the crucifixion, the star leading the wise men to Jesus, and the fig tree withering when Jesus cursed it are just a few examples from scripture.
In recent years gemstones, gold dust, feathers, or oil manifesting supernaturally have become common signs and wonders which of course require a proper focus on the Giver of the sign or wonder instead of an obsession with the sign itself.
The Naturally Supernatural
We often fail to recognize the miracles we see as such. All healing is God’s healing whether medical or miracle. Healing doesn’t have to be a spontaneous to be a miracle. Many of the healing miracles I have seen are supernatural acceleration of healing instead of instantaneous.
One of the most baffling things about the instantaneous healings is that it is so easy to forget they happened.
When supernatural healing happens its not like getting a surgery and still having the scar or the memory of what the pain felt like. The healing is so total its as if the injury or illness never happened and its hard to remember what it was like to feel that pain.
I think many healing miracles are denied as such because the person feels so much better they doubt that it ever really hurt to begin with.
The Power of Testimony
There is a lot of power in testimonies – they build our faith, they challenge our doubts, and they remind us that things we never even dreamed of are possible. Sharing and reading testimonies is an invitation to God to come and do it again.
Global Medical Research Institute is a Christian organization looking at reported miracles using evidence-based research. They have lots of great testimonies and articles documenting miraculous healing.
The Increase app is another great resource for testimonies of healing. You can search their database by keyword and read hundreds of testimonies of all sorts of miracles.
A Love Encounter
Whatever the type or method of miracle, the goal is always the same: for people to have a love encounter with God. Not everyone I pray for gets healed, but my heart is that everyone I pray for would feel loved and honored and that they would get a bigger glimpse of God’s heart towards them.
One of the common fears I hear about praying for healing is that the person won’t get healed. You have no control over that. And if you fall into the belief that when someone doesn’t get healed that it’s you’re fault, you’ll also fall into the mistake of taking the credit when they do get healed.
We pray, God heals. Our job is stay connected to the heart of Jesus and humbly bring his love to the person we are praying for.
Part of bringing that love well is not being weird about healing. If you make a big show, hyper spiritualize, don’t honor the person you’re praying for, blame their illness or injury on their sin or lack of faith, or make it about yourself, you are totally missing the point of praying for healing.
And if you’ve encountered some of these weirdos that hurt you with their attempts to pray for healing, let me apologize to you on their behalf. That’s not what healing is about. You should always feel loved and honored when someone prays for healing.
How to Pray for Healing
Start by connecting with Jesus’ heart, spend time in his presence. Knowing how to pray for healing flows from that intimate relationship with him.
When you pray for someone you want to pray from a place of being filled with compassion for them. Because love encounters are the ultimate goal it’s also important to make sure the person you are asking to pray for actually feels honored by your offer of prayer.
Don’t just approach every person you see with an obvious illness or injury. The quickest way to kill a love encounter is to make the person feel like a problem to fix or an attempted notch in your healing belt.
Don’t partner with the problem they are facing and come under the hopelessness of how bad it is. Partner with the solution and focus on how good our God of Miracles is. There’s no magic formula for how to pray for healing but these are some simple steps to get you started:
- Ask them to rate the pain or injury on a scale of 1-10
- Ask permission to lay hands on the place that hurts. If it hurts too much to lay hands on or is an inappropriate place to lay hands ask if you can touch their knee or shoulder as appropriate.
- Pray with authority commanding the pain to leave and inviting God to come heal. Keep your prayers short, simple, and not weird. It also can help to keep your eyes open as you pray so you can see how the person is responding. Are the uncomfortable? Does something seem to be happening in their body with healing?
- Ask them if they feel any different, have them rate the pain on a scale of 1-10 again.
- If all the pain is gone, praise the Lord and thank Him for healing!
- If the pain is still there or has only gone down some, pray again thanking the Lord for what ever degree of healing has come already and inviting him to continue to heal
- Ask them again if they feel any different, have them rate the pain on a scale of 1-10
- If all the pain is gone, praise the Lord and thank Him for healing!
- If the pain is still there or hasn’t gone away completely encourage them to continue to watch for signs of healing. Sometimes the miracle doesn’t happen right away but they wake up the next morning healed. Sometimes the healing doesn’t seem super miraculous but is sped up much faster than usual.
- Whether healing happens or not, show them love and bless them.
When Healing Doesn’t Happen
The hardest part about miracles and praying for healing is when the healing doesn’t happen. It’s very tempting to get offended at God and begin to filter scripture through the lens of our experience instead of filtering our experiences through the lens of scripture.
I love Chris Gore’s short answer of what he does when someone he has prayed for doesn’t get healed and dies (you can listen to his long answer here):
“The first thing I do is I try to raise them from the dead. The second thing I do when they aren’t raised from the dead is I bury them. The third thing I do is grieve with the family. The fourth thing I do is I don’t get offended at the Lord for what hasn’t happened. And the fifth thing I do is I get up and I go again.”
While you may not be at the point of courage to pray for others yet, we all have loved ones we’ve seen not heal or personal wounds physical or emotional that we still are waiting to get healing from. As Chris says, there is a time to grieve that pain and loss, but the key is taking that pain to God instead of getting offended at him and shutting him out.
This song below is a powerful reminder that we serve the God of Miracles. Be sure to listen all the way through, especially to the story behind the song beginning at the 5:40 mark.
Resources to Learn More
Walking in Supernatural Healing Power by Chris Gore
Finger of God 2 film by Wanderlust Productions
The God of Miracles 30 Day Bible Reading through Mark
Sometimes we need to be reminded that we follow the God of Miracles. One of my favorite places for such reminders is the book of Mark. All of the gospels tell of Jesus’ miracles, but Mark practically drips with them. With over nineteen miracles recorded in Mark there’s a reason it got the nickname the “Book of Miracles”. The month of September (or any 30 day period) I invite you to journey with me through the book of Mark and the constant reminders of our God of Miracles. Personally I recommend reading it in the Passion Translation because its full page layout makes for a fresh engagement with scripture. But whatever translation you use, pick one you don’t usually use to help keep the text fresh instead of overly familiar.
As you read pay special attention to the love Jesus shows as he heals people.
Subscribe to the Shelemah Tribe below to get a printable schedule of the daily readings.