My wife informed me that she’s feeling ill.
I tell her several times throughout the day how sorry I am that she doesn’t feel well. I turn my attention back to my laptop, aware of this growing sensation of inadequacy in my care for my wife.
I realize I didn’t offer to pray for her. And I realized this happens far too often with the people I care about most.
If it were someone else, I’d probably offer to pray, but the hardest healing prayers and prophetic words are often tied to family. Whether it’s having the faith to see her healed, or assuming she doesn’t think I’m special enough to pray an effective healing prayer.
Not only do we not always offer to pray for our family and friends, but we often don’t ask for prayer from family and friends. Let’s take a quick look at the reasons why…
First, we think too little of ourselves.
This is where Bethel Church’s “Culture of Honor” plays such an important role. We naturally treat what is familiar as unspectacular. We treat family and close friends as incapable of hearing the dynamic prophecy or of healing the “big” disease.
And we do this because we don’t have faith that WE can do those things. We feel self-conscious of our presumed inability to heal or prophesy. Our pride kicks in to protect our fragile egos and it assumes that those regular people in our lives whom we see every day couldn’t possibly have a leg up on us and be able to perform miracles. So we dishonor their giftings and miss out on life-changing opportunities.
Second, we think too highly of outsiders.
You can see this everywhere. New hires at work or guest speakers at church. We assume that those with whom we are unfamiliar are more spiritual, more gifted, more professional, more EVERYTHING… because they come from a different place that is better and more ideal than where we come from.
Third, we trust outsiders aren’t cheating.
In many instances, I consider it a matter of the recipient’s faith. Words of knowledge often precede healings because the word of knowledge delivers convincing proof to the recipient that A) God is real, B) God knows everything, C) God cares enough to notice, and D) If God can do that, He very likely can heal as well.
Words of Knowledge increase faith. They bolster expectation.
And it’s much easier to receive a word of knowledge from an outsider who has no contextual understanding of your life. He/she can’t read enough out of your body language to know the intimate details. But a family member? Or a friend? How are they to separate what they know from what they hear? Perhaps they’ve merely overheard your situation as a matter of local gossip?
But God surrounded us with people for a reason.
Maybe you’re missing something within reach.
Your mother, father, sisters, brothers, neighbors, friends, coworkers, and church members are there for a reason. What if God has already provided the agent of healing for your life among those closest to you? What if you’re missing out because you’ve assumed they can’t help you?
If our heavenly Father loves us so much that he clothes us and provides for us and sacrifices His own Son for us, it stands to reason that He’s provided more gifted and able agents of transformation in your path than perhaps you’ve given Him credit for.