My church is of a holiness denomination, very small-town and conservative. This is my background and also my orientation toward Scripture, and since I have no theological training I would say that my my understanding of biblical matters amounts to simple understanding and Faith. There is considerable suspicion toward all things charismatic and pentecostal here, but my brethren do indeed believe that God can heal and will testify to that. Speaking in tongues, while not technically forbidden, is not evidenced or practiced here by my brethren or myself.

I and other brothers have seen that when I pray over sick people that they get well in most cases, and usually in a timing and manner that indicates the miraculous work of Jesus Christ. I have nothing to do with the healing other than love and empathy expressed through intercessory prayer. I did not ask for this Gift — and that is what I believe this is, a Gift of the Holy Spirt for the edification of His body — but rather had it gradually become apparent that God wanted me to pray for people. I have no understanding why me, and I will testify that I am absolutely unworthy in my own eyes. I have come to accept this as a job or a duty, and I leave the why of it to God.

My dilemma, and believe me I have prayed constantly about it, is that I do not want anyone to associate me as an individual with the healing they receive from God. I simply pray and can effect no cure by myself, but I have observed it to be human nature to express gratitude to the healer first and to the Healer second, and that is simply incorrect. To that end I have counseled with our pastor and others within the church and we are in agreement that there will be no services in which there is public healing before the congregation and that my name will not be used as that of a healer. Those who understand the matter are free to say an ill person “why don’t you ask (my name) to come over and pray with you” since it is common for us to gather in prayer for illness.

I leave it with God in this manner: if He directs someone here for prayer then I will, but they must come to me personally or be referred by the pastor. I recently made an exception to that after some prayerful struggle when someone whose family member had been miraculously cured came with a minor ailment. My strong impression was that they wanted to “see it work” for themselves, and so I reluctantly refused because their motive was not pure. Going to God and making a sincere request for forgiveness and healing is not a matter of curiosity.

I have no medical training and make no effort at a diagnosis of disease, though I ask about symptoms so that I can pray for specific healing. To date most of those who have come to me have suffered from severe and intractable pain. Migraines, back injuries, and infections among others. One case of an infant recently diagnosed with a genetic disorder. Mostly what I have seen are people who hurt so badly that they cry out to God for relief. The healing has in all cases but two been permanent and there has been no relapse. In one case there was no healing of a minor back injury, and in another there was an apparent healing of an infection but with a recurrence 12 hours later. That person sought medical treatment, as I would have done were I them.

I always go the home of the ill person, and always invite others from family or church to pray with me for the afflicted. Usually I read from the Psalms and pray for about an hour while laying my hands on the patient (preferably the afflicted part of the body). I am very aware that Jesus is in the room praying with us. There is a distinct physical response to prayer since the recipient passes into a deep sleep within minutes of starting. Sometimes there are alarming responses from the body, such as muscles jumping and spasming in the back, or gurgling and breathing issues in the case of a lung disorder. This has alarmed me to the point of ceasing prayer for fear of harm or pain to my brother. The most striking evidence of divine healing is that the recipient of prayer seems to be in a deep sleep for several hours, and after waking they often weep and profess a closeness to God. I encourage them to take a time in prayer of gratitude and praise and to read from the Scriptures.

I offer this as an honest testimony to the power of Jesus Christ, and there is no boast in this of myself but only of Him. It is my sincere wish that this cause your Faith to grow regardless of the charlatan “healers” existent who diminish it. Physicians heal the body in most cases, but Christ can heal the body and forgive sins. Sometimes that is what is needed.

We promise each other and ourselves “abundant life”. And yet we know plenty of good evangelicals who don’t ever get it. And then we go through all kinds of gymnastics to explain the problem away.

My definition of a miracle is something that is outside the laws of physics, human physiology and far beyond mathmatical probability.

God certainly did do real miracles in human history.

God certainly can do miracles now . . . if He chooses.

Does God do miracles now? I honestly don’t know. After being a Christian for 35 years, I’ve never seen a real one. It doesn’t matter to me if I never see one before I die. It doesn’t change my relationship with God.

I’ve heard thousands of testimonials about miracles from Christians.

When I was an Evangelical, I frequently gave testimonials about miracles. When I gave testimonials about miracles, I was lying.

I lied about miracles because it made me look spiritual in the eyes of my Christian friends and helped me to achieve rank in The Navigators, as church elder and Bible Study leader.

I am highly suspicious that others who were and are now giving testimonials are lying too. I know at least some are. I work in medicine and I’ve taken care of the sick people whom they stand up and share about in Church. They deeply embellish the story to make it look like a miracle when I was there and I knew that it was well within the paradigm of human physiology.

Lying, even lying for Jesus is sin and needs repentance. Lying will also set up others for failure, doubt and disbelief when they realize they were being lied to (read Philip Yancey’s “Disappointment with God”).

The Church’s, on again-off again, love affair with Gnostic (or Platonic) Dualism is most responsible for the unhealthy focus on miracles and that is a sad commentary. Why? When you believe that this physical world, the laws of physics, the laws of human physiology and psychology are inferior (or even evil) when compared to the “spiritual” or supernatural, then you believe that only when something happens outside those laws . . .it is good (or at least better). So it is better to be “moved by the spirit” during a chruch service, than to feel really emotional. Emotions bad . . . spirit good. (eyes roll here)

When you realize that God is the author of the laws of this wonderful universe, the laws of physics, the laws of human physiology . . . then you can see grandma get better from cancer and really, really praise God. You can praise Him for how he has made the human body, the gifts of smart scientists and medical practitioners, the “miracles” (not real miracles per my above definition) of chemistry etc. You don’t have to make up a story how grandma was healed completely by God (outside the laws of nature or medicine) and you don’t have to embellish the story by saying how amazed the doctors were etc. such as “The doctors had never seen anything like that and said it must be a miracle.”

Lastly, stretching legs, dowsing, bending spoons, falling over backwards, speaking gibberish, feeling a strange feelings, running into Barb at the bakery, seeing the shape of a cross in a cloud or flames of a bonfire are NOT miracles. It is insulting to say that the creator the universe is reduced to doing card tricks, (somewhat like a George Burns) as proof that He is there.

Real miracles are when God raised a decaying corpse from the dead, an uneducated Palestinian Jew speaking a strange Macedonian dialect of Greek . . . instantaneously, walking on water . . . and you know the rest.

Ever notice that if the subject is healed, it’s credited to the faith healer, but if the subject isn’t healed, the subject is to blame? Nice racket. Win-win for the faith healer, lose-lose for the shmuck who needs the healing.

So how does one simultaneously trust one’s own experiences, and distrust one’s own experiences? — Terri

doublethink, comrade. doublethink.

But the mystical tradition is under suspicion with a lot of evangelicals, who want to emphasize the sufficiency of scripture over anyone’s experience. — IMonk

AKA “Christ as Party Line/Christ as Sound Bite”. Just memorize and recite and BE-LEEVE and never ever ever doubt. How does that differ from the branch of Islam that spawned al-Qaeda? Or the Khmer Rouge?

And by denying Christian mysticism, they just drive out any among them who have a mystical nature. Into Hindu mysticism, Buddhist mysticism, and occult mysticism.

IMonk, in my experience “God-Proving Christian Experiences” are too often used for one-upmanship and putdowns. Like speaking in tongues, it all too often splits Christians into haves and have-nots.

Plus, it can indicate a weak faith to begin with. One so weak it needs constant PROOF! from miracles and/or visions and/or whatever. Teeth turning into gold, gold dust and angel feathers falling from Heaven, wild Visions, even getting ridden by some Loa… (We Catholics have our own spin on this: Marian Visions, the favorite Catholic way to flake out. Makes me with St Mary would actually appear to some of these wannabe visionaries and slap some sense into them.)

One non-believer friend put it this way: “A lot of Christians are looking for this Absolute Proof they can rub in everybody else’s face — “SEE! I’M RIGHT! SEE! SEE! SEE!” (This also ties into the whole End Time Prophecy trip; what better Absolute Proof That I Was Right than God ending the world exactly on my chosen choreography? “Don’t be Left Behind!” “Have fun in Hell! HAW! HAW!”)

Which is why God won’t give them their Absolute Proof. Miracles do not come so cheap.

Honestly, I feel afraid to verbally challenge people’s experiences. I’m afraid of their inevitable defensiveness. Usually I simply scoff in silence and grow bitter. I need to find a better way to deal with this.

Another part of me does believe that God gives people real experiences. I’ve read biographies of enough Christian missionaries to know that God miraculously and dramatically answers prayers. Sometimes babies are legitimately raised from the dead. I just find it next to impossible to not scoff at people’s claims. They’ve grown so old.

As a Reformed Protestant, when it comes to feeling “cut off” from God, I might seek comfort in some of the more “lamenting” psalms (of which there are quite a few!). A good example would be Psalm 88, which, in the ESV translation, ends with “You (God) have caused my beloved and my friend to shun me; my companions have become darkness.” These are the parts of the Bible that seem to scare or unsettle many evangelicals, but they comfort me, because they show me that even men after God’s own heart, such as David, experienced very dark feelings.

Finally though, the ultimate example to whom I look, and in whom I find solace, when I feel “cut off” from God is Jesus Himself, God the Son, on whom the Father poured out His just wrath for sinners (Isaiah 53). No one– not I nor anyone else– has ever experienced such agony (physically, but even more, spiritually, mentally, and emotionally), as Jesus experienced on the cross when He endured the Father’s wrath for sinners.

Because of Jesus, I don’t *have* to feel cut off from God, because due to Jesus’s sacrifice, I never actually *am* cut off from God. When I *feel* cut off from God though, I can look to Jesus and know that He must have felt similarly to me (and even infinitely more so).

Do evangelicals have people whose experience that they can trust who are similar to John of the Cross (with the Dark night of the Soul) or Mother Theresa of Calcutta, who spent a large portion of her life feeling cut off from God, yet continued to serve the poorest with all her strength, mind and body?