Exotic Care
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2. Locally, I see a young man from time to time who is the father of three little children. About 10 years ago he and his wife came to me and asked me if I would sign a paper helping them to move into the adoption arena. They had exhausted every possibility to conceive. They were giving up and turning toward adoption. We talked for a while about their disappointment and I agreed to sign the paper, but I said, “Before you go, let’s pray about having a baby the natural way.” They agreed and I spoke a rather specific prayer of supplication. We signed the document and they parted. It was not long after that time together that they excitedly called telling me about her pregnancy. Today there are three naturally-born healthy children in that home. I’m sure it was my prayer that made the difference.
I have more stories but I want to just tell you one more. It is about myself.
3. This also happened many years ago. I was a physically active young man playing a variety of sports, including a weekly racquetball duel with my younger brother. And I could not beat him two out of three. Since I was the family athlete, that frustrated me terribly. I started to work at it so intensely that I hurt my back. At first I sort of ignored the pain and allowed a week to go by for it to heal. Then I would get back on the racquetball court, lose two out of three, and wreck my back again. After a while my back was bothering me intensely all the time and it would not heal. I could not get back on the racquetball court. Weeks went by and I found that I was living with a nearly disabling back injury.
For some reason my wife, Linda, suggested we contact her friend Judy, who was a notorious prayer person. I did not have her in high regard but by this time I was so desperate I agreed to go to Judy’s house for prayer on my back. Lo and behold! After two or three weeks of Wednesday night sessions, lying on her living room floor with a handful of her friends putting their hands on my back while Judy prayed intensely, my back no longer hurt. And today, in 2014, I count about 40 years of having no back trouble at all.
I share these stories as a preface for talking about and encouraging personal prayer directed toward life-changing, healing reversals of unwanted negative circumstances, illness and injury. Our world today is dazzling with technology and we are in daily awe over the discoveries and capacities of modern medicine. These incredible disciplines are gifts of God, helping us to thrive in our modern crowded world. But they have seduced us into thinking of ourselves as physical beings, without relevant spirituality. “Science will develop it,” we trust. “Medical experts can solve it,” we believe. Our peace of mind grows increasingly local as we trust our fellow human beings to solve our problems.
The past few decades have erased a lot of the mystery of life. Our helplessness, which originally motivated us to cry out to God for help has diminished. Prayer has almost seemed primitive to us modern, educated folk. The human species has more and more been regarded as animal-like, not a physical-spiritual creature.
Prayer, for many, has become a religious activity more than a way to help and heal each other, and oneself, as it channels God’s therapeutic healing love. Truly, prayer is a basic Christian activity, but it is mostly mysterious.
At the same time, it is important to realize that our own role is significant. God flows through us too! Here are some interesting findings that demonstrate that.
Professional people have done research on prayer. One of the surprising projects was prayer for seeds. They carefully placed seeds on trays with water on them. Some were soaking in salt water, others in fresh. Then they would pray for these seeds to germinate and sprout. However, there were some soaking seeds that were not prayed for. After a certain span of time and active praying, they measured the results. The prayed-for seeds clearly germinated and sprouted more rapidly then those seeds that were not prayed for. A remarkable additional result was that the seeds in salt water, which was like making them sick, germinated even faster than those in clean fresh water.
How they prayed is also fascinating. They found that when they prayed for the seeds in a general way, that is for their well-being and their healthiness rather than for sprouting, the seeds sprouted even more quickly and more strongly than when they prayed that the seeds would germinate and sprout. In other words, when they were specific, there were positive results, but the results were even more positive when they took what we might call a “thy will be done” approach.
One more example: in a medical center in San Francisco a few years ago, a prayer experiment was set up. The patients were all seriously ill patients n a large medical center for cardiac care. The patient group was divided in half. Half of them were going to be given medical care and prayed for, and the other half would be left to the usual treatment system only. The people doing the praying were in small groups all over the United States. After a designated period of time, the research experts went back and checked all the patients. This is what they found: there were significant positive effects — less medicine required, healing, and improvement — among those who had been prayed for, compared to the others. No patients, and none of the nurses, doctors and other aides, knew the research was going on, or who was or was not being prayed for.
These research projects have now been duplicated in other places and the results continue to be positive.
Prayer for others is a clear, powerful way of showing compassion. It is loving-kindness on a high spiritual level that anyone can do. It can happen anywhere, any time. As we put a person in our mind’s eye; as we think of them and mentally look at them; as we speak loving words of prayer for their well-being, God/Jesus’ healing presence flows forth from us into them. Healing happens, sometimes in strikingly visible ways.
This is almost too much to believe. We are on the front lines, not just crying for help. The love of Jesus is in us, and we can send it, give it, channel it to others for their well-being.
Prayer takes care and kindness to a different level. It is more like work can often be. It requires a decision to do something relatively heavy, difficult and to concentrate. It’s a focus on thoughtfully articulating our hopes and needs. The personal payoff is not pleasure and good feelings in the joyful sense, but it may turn to joy and thanksgiving. At first, though, it is just work.
So prayer is compassion on a different plane than everyday care and kindness can be. There we harvest a lot of pleasure. With prayer, the reward is the gratification of doing good, of loving kindness on a major level. Gratification feeds our hearts and souls more lastingly than pleasure.
But more than that — “prayer changes things.”
