In his book How to Have a Healing Ministry without Making Your Church Sick, Pentecostal theologian Peter Wagner discusses the ministry of healing prayer and the reasons a congregation should have one. I think nobody would disagree that the care of sick people is a common area among Christian denominations that deserves attention despite tradition.
Despite Wagner offers readers an interesting point of view on healing prayer, he may stir some controversy when he claims that “some times God heals directly, and sometimes he uses means for the healing but he seldom heals directly unless we ask him to” (p. 217). After reading this passage, I realized Wagner’s approach may lead believers to understand prayer as a way of “waking God up.” Without human intervention, God would become passive in relation to the hostile power of sickness. I do not deny the fact that prayer is a powerful and useful means, but prayer’s main purpose is not about “waking God up,” or changing the future according to our terms.
We pray to be in communion with God and to be aware of God’s will for our lives. Praying is a means of knowing God’s heart and of developing a heart after his own heart. The more we pray, the more we are concerned about the things of God’s concern–proclaiming the Good News to all people and establishing the Kingdom of God on earth. Therefore, praying is more than “waking God up,” if that’s possible at all. Praying is about having communion with our Creator and developing an intimate relationship with him. Does this mean we should not pray for healing, for instance? Of course not… we should not . We should pray more than for physical healing; we should pray for spiritual wellness as well.
As a response to Wagner’s approach to healing prayer, I consider prayer is best defined as “calling upon God.” Through praying, we approach God and recognize his lordship. And because of that acknowledgment, we then express to God our desire. Now, because God is the Creator and he knows human beings well, as the Psalmist expresses, God also knows all our needs, more than we may know it. Thus, healing prayers are not done simply to “wake God up,” but as a way of lament where we recognize our limitations, sufferings, and our dependency on God. He then may freely respond or not to our prayer.
In 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18, the Scripture states, “Rejoice always, pray continually, and give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” The Apostle Paul here tells us it is God’s will that we may pray continually and not only on special occasions such as in the case when we need healing. Now, it is the Holy Spirit who encourages us to pray to God and helps us acknowledge our need of him. Hence, praying calls us to obey. Thus, we should always pray according to God’s will and not our will. Similarly, prayer may be an opportunity to get closer to God and know him better. The problem arises, however, when we understand prayer in an instrumentalist sense–the belief that through third-party prayer it is the only way that we may receive an answer from God. In our example, there is no limit to the creative ways God may heal. He may heal someone during worship in a Sunday service, during a morning while reading the Scriptures, or during a child’s prayer for a family’s wellness.
As seen, the role of prayer is important in pastoral care because praying strengthens our identity as Christians by reminding us that God is our Father and that we are his children. Also, prayer reminds us we are not living by ourselves, but by God’s power. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we may realize in prayer that we are not independent of God, but we all need his grace, mercy, protection, and care.
As believers, we have the privilege of addressing God in confidence and assurance that we may communicate with him through the power of the Holy Spirit. If we need something, we should pray, of course. But we should never use prayer as a “weapon” to get all we want with a selfish attitude. In the end, prayer is a gift that God has given to us.