Faith To Move Mountains

Note: Shown to the right is Mt. Harvard, a 14,420 ft. peak in Colorado I climbed when I was 17. I was going through a boulder field on the way down and about a 1000 pounder came rolling by, just grazing me. When you are 17 you simply think; "Hmm, that was close."

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When Jackie and I resided in Kalamazoo we knew an older couple from the prayer meeting we attended. They had two sons, both rough characters and no-believers. One son, Mick, did the hitch hike out to California without any money thing, actually lived for several months in the large cemetery that is near downtown Kalamazoo, and was into tarot cards and other occultic things. One day my father-in-law talked to him, led him to receive Jesus as Savior and Lord and as baptizer in the Holy Spirit. As a new believer he got rid of all the occult stuff, pretty much straightened himself out, and had a great thirst to read the Bible, although sometimes while high on drugs. At that point in his life it seemed like a natural thing to do. After a couple of months the Holy Spirit got to him and he gladly gave up the drugs.

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I remember Mick especially for two occurrences. We had a family prayer meeting for years that met every Friday or Saturday night with Jackie's parents and a large bunch of her sisters and brothers, spouses and other family. We included Mick and his wife for a time, and during one prayer meeting about a half year in, Mick said that he felt the Holy Spirit was telling him to ask that we pray for his teeth. Mick had a mouthful of really crooked teeth, and after we put him on the "hot seat" and laid our hands on him and were praying, his mouth started to quiver and shake like jelly. After a couple of minutes it seemed to me that there had been about a 70 per cent improvement in the condition of his teeth. I know now, after reading about spiritual giants in the healing ministry such as John G. Lake, that if we perservered longer with prayer for Mick that it was very likely that the healing for his teeth would have been complete. However, 70 per cent was a huge improvement, and it was really exciting because that was the first micacle I had seen.

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Awhile after Jackie and I moved to Holland there was a prayer meeting at the house of a couple we knew and I invited Mick to come and share his testimony. At the end of the meeting we had a time for prayer. One of the men there, Lloyd, had started coming to the Holland prayer meetings as an unbeliever a year earlier. He had also been a pretty rough character as a young man, and marriage to a believing wife had changed him quite a bit. He initally went to the meetings to be with his wife, but God got to him early on, and the fruit of accepting Jesus continued to change him. At this meeting Lloyd asked for prayer for his arthritis. Every morning Lloyd would need to place his hands under a hot faucet for 20 minutes to get his fingers loose enough to work well. Mick advised Lloyd that sometines arthritis is the resulf of unforgiveness. That immediately struck a nerve with Lloyd, who felt that God was telling him that he would get healed from the arthritis after he sought out his father and another person with whom he had really bitter feelings for, to ask for their forgiveness. Lloyd did as God directed and the arthritis was completly gone.

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Now back to Mick's brother. Eventually he came over to talk with my father-in-law, asked Jesus into his heart, and was filled with the Holy Spirit. He left the house flying high, got into his car, and found that the battery was dead. Thinking that this shouldn't be a problem for the God of the universe, he laid his hands on the hood of the car and prayed someting like; 'Start in the name of Jesus'. He then got back into the car and it started. Mick's brother, unjaded at that point by theology or the world, could simply pray "without doubting" in commanding the battery to "move".

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It is interesting to notice the different aspects of faith present in the stories above. All three men saw something about Jesus that they desired enough that they were able to surrender the lordship of their lives to Him. They heard the living word about Him, and believed that He was Savior and Lord. And they heard the living word about the empowering of the Holy Spirit, and by faith willingly asked and received. The Holy Spirit was able, at the moment of salvation, and over time, to change the desires and thus the actions and lives of those men. Mick and Lloyd both sensed the Spirit's direction as to how to obtain healing, and by faith were obedient to the Spirit's leading.

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And of course there is the faith of the rest of us. Obedient at times, confused at times, sometimes strong in faith and sometimes weak. We grow in faith by trusting God when He seems both near and far, by taking time with Him in prayer, by searching the scriptures with a desire to know the truth, and by listening to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Through these things we know the will of God, and trusting that it is the will of God, we can say without doubt to the mountain Jesus mentions in Matthew 21: 21-22, "Be taken up and cast into the sea. And all things you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive."