“Do you want to be healed?”

"Our prayers may be awkward. Our attempts may be feeble. But since the power of prayer is in the One Who hears it and not in the one who says it, our prayers do make a difference." - Max Lucado

Some years ago my friend and colleague went for sports and he had a heart attack. He was rushed to the hospital, and it became really serious and complicated. He was at the hospital for a long time. He had all those pipes connecting him to machines that would help him. Over time, he could no longer speak, but he could write. So there was a notepad his family kept by his bedside with a pen.

I was driving down the road on Pittsburgh one day and something really important happened. Go down to the hospital and see your friend, the Holy Spirit put in my heart. This was strange for me, of course not because I was to go to the hospital to see him, but because of why I was now to go. The Holy Spirit had asked me to go. So I turned my steering wheel and headed down to the hospital.

When I got in there, I saw friends, family and colleagues of my friend by his bedside. He was very ill now, and everyone was so sad. I wasn’t sure of what I was to do. In my heart I said, “OK I’m here now. Maybe I’ll just pray and leave.” But the voice came again in my spirit. Ask him if he’d like to be healed.

This did not make sense because it was quite too obvious to be asked, and I did not want to annoy my already ill friend by asking him if he wanted to be healed. Of course he wanted to be healed!

I decided to just pray instead. I asked everyone if we could pray. They were very willing. We held hands and began to pray. You know, sometimes when you are in the gathering of different people with different faiths and beliefs, you are not so comfortable praying the way you really would want to. So I was in that situation, finding it a bit difficult to pray as I wanted to. I went on to pray in other tongues, in the language of the Spirit, because I knew that no one else would understand it (so it was safe!).

After we prayed, I said my goodbyes and was ready to leave. I was very sure I had done what I was asked to come here to do. But as I tried to leave, the voice came again in my spirit. Ask him if he’d like to be healed. Apparently, I had not done what the Holy Spirit needed me to do, why He had asked me to come here in the first place — to ask if my friend wanted to be healed. My friend was a medical doctor as well, and I personally didn’t think he would make sense out of “healing” the way I knew the Holy Spirit meant. So I struggled within me on if this was a right question to ask. But I knew I had to obey. Therefore I went ahead to ask. “My friend,” I began, struggling inside my mind on the rationale of the question I was about to ask him. “I know this might sound a bit funny and unnecessary you know, but, the Holy Spirit is telling me to ask you if you’d like to be healed.” He nodded like a little child, telling me with all the strength he could muster that he really wanted to be healed. I said a little prayer and agreed with him, then I drove back home. That night, I was informed that my friend who was terribly ill had been taken away from the intensive care unit and his condition was a lot better and stable now. About three months later when he came back fully to the office, he walked up to me and said, “I would have died if you didn’t come that day.” “You would have died if I didn’t obey the Holy Spirit that day,” I told him.

- Dr Niran Haastrup 16th September 2019