Day Eleven
Today I met up with Ali, his wife, and a few others. We decided to go back to Little India and follow up with people we prayed for last week.
The first store I go with them into we are revisiting the Muslim woman and her family who we prayed for last week. She was the one who had a hurt back. Well, today we find out that she actually took off her brace last week because her back felt so much better. Today we prayed for her neck and also found out the source of her accident.
It turned out that her husband in a rage had thrown her down onto the ground. So we began to pray for her to have full restorative healing. Soon, God touched her again and even her neck pain went away. She was feeling much better. But, Ali’s wife thought we ought to pray for her emotionally as well, since she had shared how she had received the injury. We began to pray that God would soothe over this hurt that had been done against her by her husband.
As I prayed for her I got this image of a heart with all these weeds that were encircling it, squeezing it, and trying to destroy it. I began to pronounce freedom from these weeds, that God would free her heart to feel again, that He Himself would heal her heart. After we finished, we gave our salaams and left, but I really sensed that she had experienced God’s presence in a more powerful way. It was great!
Next, we crossed the street and found a blind man who was being led by his son. We asked the man if we could pray for his eyes to be healed. He said no. He stated that God was punishing him for something that he had done wrong in his life. Ali and I both told him that that wasn’t true, that God loved him and wanted to heal him. But the man said no, that for some reason he was made this way and he walked off. I think this was probably the biggest surprise of the day for me. I don’t think I’ve ever met someone who believed so firmly that God was punishing them and that there was no way that God would want to heal them. Most people I’ve met so far are willing to do anything to get healed.
As we were preparing to leave a white man dressed in a kurta payjama (Muslim garb for men in South Asia) as well as a prayer cap came up to us. He said that though he was dressed like a Muslim, he was actually a Christian. He was handing out tracts explaining the Gospel. He asked for prayer so we all prayed for him. I however, wasn’t so sure I wanted to be associated with him since I didn’t know what he was doing. So after the others left I began to ask him some questions. Basically, I told him just to be himself. He doesn’t have to dress in Muslim garb in order for people to listen to him. But, he wasn’t swayed. He was certain that he would have more of an audience if he dressed this way. So, I let him be, but realized just how different our approaches were.
My friends are I were going around asking if we could pray for people and we were seeing people healed. We weren’t trying to push our religious persuasion on anyone, nor were we trying to be someone that we weren’t. But I really felt like for the most part, people were receptive to this. However, as I thought about the Christian evangelist in Muslim garb, I wondered if in today’s world people will listen to him. I definitely don’t want to knock his boldness, but I wonder if really what we all are hungering for (Muslims and Christians) is an encounter with God not one person’s theological perspective over another. Although, even as I’m typing, I do think sometimes someone’s theological perspective may keep them from an encounter with God such as the blind man we had met earlier.
And possibly, it is when we encounter God that all our theologies find their place as important, but not superlative.
All for now.
Posted by najashi 
