When Doubt Creeps in...

On August 10, 2007, I attended a Friday night prayer at a friend's house. Men from my church would gather once a month in a member's house, worship and pray for several hours into the early Saturday morning for the members, friends, families, acquaintances, and any other matter that needed to be lifted up to God in prayer for a deliverance. I was just growing in my faith as a result of an incident in my life on February 25th, 2007 (see my post of October 24th - Amazing Grace). That night the prayer leader had put forth two pressing issues that needed God's intervention:

1. a Pastor from Virginia who had spent decades in the ministry was in a hospital, on a ventilator struggling for his life,
2. a 13 year old boy in New York was similarly on a ventilator suffering from meningitis that had affected his brain.

Both these issues had a very personal effect on me, and I took these two matters into prayer like they were my own. I had met this pastor some time ago and he left a favorable impression on me like a father figure. The thought of someone else making the decision on when to pull the plug on a servant of God's life, one who had worked for decades in the ministry was not acceptable to me. I pleaded with God that HE alone and not another should determine when his children leave this life on earth. The young boy's circumstance tore at my heart, as I was a father of a 10 year old girl and 4 year old boy. I couldn't bear the thought of the pain their families were undergoing to make whatever decisions they would have to eventually make.

As the group worshipped and fervent prayers were being offered, I experienced the mighty power of God, the Holy Spirit. I clearly saw a verse in my mind that All deliverance from death belonged to God and felt a strong compulsion to proclaim in the name of Jesus Christ that God was delivering both the pastor and the little boy from the ventilator and that they would not die. Another verse that the Holy Spirit gave me was - If you believe, you shall see the glory of God - and I proclaimed this too. I BELIEVED without a doubt in the name of Jesus they were healed.

The following Monday, I called a good friend in Virginia to share my experience of the first revelation/prophecy I've had while praying. He personally knew the pastor in Richmond, Virginia, who was being kept alive on a life support. I was amazed at my friend's response. It made my hair stand on my neck and gave me goosebumps. This was what he said - On Friday, the same Friday we were praying, the doctors had given up on the pastor's prognosis for a recovery and had asked his family to make a decision so as allow him to be taken off the ventilator and let him die peacefully. The family after agonizing over it made the decision to take him off the ventilator, but sometime during that Friday night or early next morning, when the medical staff went to disconnect the the ventilator, they saw signs of improvement in him. The same morning he was off the ventilator and speaking with his family members.

My friend and his family went to visit the pastor in the hospital on that Saturday morning as the pastor had asked to speak with him. The pastor ministered to him from the hospital bed. I praised God for what I was hearing and it increased my faith tremendously.

About a week or two later I heard the news that the pastor in Virginia had passed away as his health deteriorated few days after his coming off the ventilator. I felt completely deflated and shattered. A complete let down. Even though he was not a family member, I was saddened by the news. I felt like God had sold me a lemon as the revelation God gave me and I proclaimed in front of the prayer group seemed WRONG! The questions that weighed heavily on my mind where...Why did God have to embarrass me by compelling me to speak of a complete healing, only to have him come off the ventilator, live for a couple of weeks, speak with family and friends and then die? Why did God have to make a simple life, that was mine, complicated? Was it really a revelation? Was anything true? My faith headed south.

Doubt crept into me...BIG TIME! I felt miserable. I started falling back into my old habits of smoking and drinking alcohol. I shared this with my good friend from VA, and he shared his similar experience - a very close friend of his, a young lady, had passed away after a drawn out battle with breast cancer. He told me how fervently he had prayed for her recovery and how certain he felt that God was going to deliver her. After her death, he had struggled with his faith.

I was going through such a tug of war between my new found faith and doubt. I felt guilty about everything, but through it all I could not deny my experience of February 25th, 2007 when I first experienced the power of the Holy Spirit. (Little by little I started doubting even that.) It came to a point that I couldn't take it anymore. I took a couple of days off from work and sat down to pray. I cried out to God and prayed as I was hurt and embarrassed. I asked God to speak to me. I told Him that my faith was crumbling and I needed Him to intervene. I needed Him to tell me why things were the way they were. After praying, I opened the Bible and my eyes locked on the following scripture (I have heard Charles Stanley preach that the Holy Spirit brackets out the Word that God wants us to see and that's what HE did here for me):

Mathew 13:6 - "...and when the sun was up, they were scorched; and because they had no root, they withered away."

Through this verse God was speaking to me, he was speaking directly to my situation. He was telling me that my root (faith) was not deep enough and that was why I was getting scorched. All I could do after reading the verse was cry out, pray and thank the Lord for pointing out what was wrong with me and my faith. I prayed to him to strengthen my faith and he continued to do that as I next read my regular scripture reading...Acts 12, which talks about Peter's imprisonment and how the angel of the Lord delivered him from the prison as the church prayed fervently and without ceasing for his safety and deliverance. I asked myself did I pray without ceasing for him, that's what the church did for Peter?

In Acts, chapter 12, we read that as the church prayed, the angel of the Lord appeared to Peter in the prison. He woke Peter up and instantly Peter's hand cuffs and leg restraints fell off, the prison door opened by itself, the 16 soldiers assigned to keep guard did not know of a thing that was happening and the angel walked Peter out of the prison and walked him to the outskirts of the town. As I was reading this scripture my mind started wandering to how Peter had died. He became blind and was crucified upside down. I wondered why a God who had delivered Peter out of a heavily guarded prison, let him die such a death. Wasn't the Lord who delivered Peter from prison not able to deliver him from an end suffering from blindness and death by crucifixion? This was clarified to me in John 21:19 - This spake he (Jesus), signifying by what death he (Peter) should glorify God. (Read earlier portions of this chapter in the Bible.)

These revelations from God put my heart at peace. I prayed for forgiveness for doubting God's intentions and prayed for God to strengthen my faith. I thanked him for speaking directly to my concerns, my doubts and for strengthening me by allowing my faith to grow stronger...Glory to God!

PS: Not everything is for us to understand. What we need to understand God reveals to us. The conclusion of it will always be to his glory. God brought the pastor back from death's grip for his intentions to be fulfilled...answered my prayer for God to take his child on God's terms for his glory. The young boy I heard recovered completely and lives a normal life. He came by our church once and testified of God's great deliverance on his life.

Hillsongs - Stronger