One of the consequences of me moaning
on about how much discomfort I'm in is a huge rise in the number of
people offering to pray for me. The good Lord has probably become
aware of an increase in the volume of prayers badgering him to do
something about my condition, exhorting him to bring about some kind
of healing in the hope that I'll stop whining and start writing
something funny again. The sheer number of people offering to
intercede on my behalf is both humbling and bewildering. Warming
because of the number and variety of people who have made this kind
offer, from close friends who have known me for decades to people who
know me only from reading this blog. Bewildering because... well,
we'll come to that.
God and I have a history. You will have
gathered that if you have read some of my previous posts. The matter
of healing has been a recurrent theme in our dealings with each
other, sometimes leading to a degree of embarrassment, possibly on
both our parts. I'll give you a for instance or two.
I was once participating in a Methodist
meeting at a huge hall in Cornwall. The place was packed with
hundreds of people who had come to hear Rob Frost speak and Polly and
others perform some comedy sketches. I was at the front of the hall
and had addressed the crowd as a kind of warm up act and was followed
by a time of worship, where hymns and praise songs were sung. It was
all very jolly and with my bit over I was feeling quite relaxed,
allowing my mind to drift off to wherever my mind wanders off to on
such occasions. I was bought up short when a lady in the balcony,
shouting out between songs, declared that she had a message from the
Lord. The man leading the event, a minister called Steve, glanced
anxiously around but the lady remained standing, arms raised in a
charismatic manner, and declaimed loudly for all to hear, that the
message was for the young man in the wheelchair. Six hundred pairs of
eyes turned to fix on me, all safe in the knowledge that it was
nothing to do with them, and intrigued to hear what the Almighty had
in store for the only person in the hall in a wheelchair, me.
Satisfied she had everyone's attention the lady continued, speaking
in that peculiar 'God-speak' such people use when they purport to be
receiving dictation from the Lord. I'm giving you the gist here, but
it went along the lines of
The Lord God sayeth, blessed are his
people who drinketh from the fresh spring of righteousness. The
valley shall be raised and the mountain smote low by the mighty hand
of Jehovah and the holy woodpecker of faith.
She continued in
this pseudo-King James bible language for a while, before getting to
the nitty-gritty.
The Lord your God
sayeth that the blind shall see and the lame shall walk. He
beseecheth ye that they who have faith and believeth in the Son of
Man shall dance and leap for joy. Step forth and rise up in the name
of his holy name, so commandeth the God of Abraham.
Uh-ho thinks I.
Would now be a good tine to mention that even in the best of times
I'm not your dancing and leaping for joy type? With every eye fixed
on me, I adopted what I hoped was a look of spiritual contemplation
and prayerful consideration. Everyone watched me in breathless
anticipation. Were they about to witness a miracle of biblical
stature? As I reddened with embarrassment I swear I was tempted to
try to rise from my wheelchair and then fall forward, flat on my
face, and say loudly, “so, the message wasn't for me then. Damn.”
I will forever be
grateful to Steve for moving the meeting on before my embarrassment
became terminal.
On another occasion
I was visiting a well known evangelical church in London called
Kensington Temple. Just before the service began a group of people
approached me and before I knew it had encircled me and were 'laying
hands' on me. Several of them started to pray in tongues and became
increasingly ecstatic. One of the group placed his hand on my head
and exhorted me to “Stand up in the name of Jesus.” When I failed
to do so he became quite agitated. “Rise up in the name of
Jee-sus!” he demanded. I shrugged apologetically, sorry to
disappoint him. Suddenly the atmosphere changed. “If you truly
believe you will be healed.” Nothing happened. The group backed
away from me. Someone looked at me disapprovingly and said, “you
have to want to be healed.” The group wandered away from me
muttering sadly at my lack of faith. Suffice to say I didn't much
enjoy the sermon that followed on the theme of miracles.
So, does this mean I
don't want people to pray for me? Not at all. I genuinely appreciate
the sentiment. I simply reserve the right not to be healed on demand.
It's not my fault, nor yours, if God withholds his healing spirit
from me. But that makes God sound rather petty doesn't it. Perhaps
it's a bit more complicated than that. I'll regale you with my
theological theory another time. In the meantime, thank you for your
concern and your support. Just go easy with the laying on of hands
stuff.
