Prayer Is Futile as God Does Not Intervene in Human Affairs…
I was reading some news online this morning when I came across something that stunned me. It was a piece of news that happened on August 27th this year, and yet I only stumbled across it on some insignificant little website, and it wasn’t even the main headline on there either! It’s something that I would have thought the entire country would be interested in hearing about, something that the major news networks would have been interested in covering. As it is, it seems barely anyone is even interested, considering even on youtube it’s only received 67,000 views in around a week and Ashton Kutcher can get a million views just by goofing off in front of a camera in the same amount of time.
If you’re wondering what I’m talking about, watch this!
For those of you that don’t know Delia, she is a sweet Pastor’s wife who has been paralyzed for 22 years from the waist down following a car accident. She had no feeling in her legs, nothing more than an occasional sensation. Last week however, everything changed as she went to Church with her husband, and visited with Pastor John Kilpatrick’s Church in Alabama. At the end of the meeting, there was a time for people to come to Jesus with their prayer requests and so the Knox’s went out to be prayed for. Evidently, live in front of someone with a video camera, Jesus showed up and she was miraculously healed and actually got out of her wheelchair and started to walk around.
I don’t know about you, but for someone with absolutely no feeling in their legs, to be able to stand and walk, even if she did need to hold on to someone (which, to be fair isn’t unreasonable given that the muscles haven’t worked for over 20 years) seems like a newsworthy piece to me. I would have thought that 300 million Americans might be far more interested in someones life being changed for the better, instead of the usual negative, depressing and discouraging news we hear over and over and over again.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that if someone is murdered we probably want to know about it, especially if it’s in our town but come on, how often is someone genuinely healed and able to walk out of a wheelchair they’ve been in for almost half my life?
It seems to me that God must be pretty disappointed that when he rides into a situation and actually does the impossible, we still as a society aren’t really that interested in telling others about it. Isn’t this a great story to shout about to our unbelieving friends? Isn’t this a great story to share with others about the power of a living God, versus the lack of power of all the other ones. Isn’t this the perfect story to gain some positive publicity for Jesus instead of the usual negative stories around preachers that live like kings, or have affairs and destroy their marriages?
What’s worse, is that statements like my title are all too common from people today who clearly, just don’t know anybody because Christians have such a poor marketing campaign. No one should be able to walk around thinking that prayer is futile, not just because Jesus answered that particular preachers prayer last week and healed a lady from paralysis, but because the Bible tells us that he’s in the business of answering prayer. The reason some people make wrong statements about God isn’t because they’re trying to be difficult, it’s because they don’t know any better and they don’t know any better because we, the Church aren’t doing our jobs well enough.
We need to take the genuine things that God is doing all over the world and we need to do a better job of sharing that news with people around us so that the ‘good news’ really is what they hear, rather than the average news. We need to stand up and be grown ups for Jesus instead of roaming around like babies, too concerned with ourselves that we don’t see what he’s doing out there in the big wide world.
Did you know that 450,000 people turned up in a single night to hear about Jesus in Karu, Nigeria last week also? I challenge you today to spread your wings, look around and find out what God is doing somewhere other than your house, and give him some praise because a) he’s worth it and b) keep praying because contrary to what some might say, prayer is NOT futile and God DOES intervene in human affairs, he just doesn’t do it in the way we might want him to and in the time frame we seek.
I watched this video and I’ve concluded that it has to be a fake. My reasoning for this is simple. No person on earth can confirm this as a genuine healing. Why is it that everytime a person is healed in the carsmania of today its always something that can’t be really seen? Its always something like this paralyzed woman. or “My back pain went away”! or “My carpal tunnel syndrome has been healed by Jesus”. Its never the case that someone has had their hand grown back after an amputation. Its never something that can be visibly seen by others, and witnessed on video to have actually occured. Its always the little girl on crutches that goes into the tent of the roaming pastors revival that gets healed. Not the amputee! This is just another charasmatic gimic that has been in use for the last 100 years. Thats why there will be no media coverage of such an event. The media knows its a hoax, and wont cover such things. Where as they will cover the murder of a little child because its real its physically provable that the little child is dead. Even if this was a true healing like the ones in the book of ACTS(which only happened to establishe the Church, then ceased afterwards), its far to fantastical to buy into!
To be fair, although I understand your reserve at things that are subjective, I.e. My back was hurting and now it isn’t, I do think there’s just a little more credibility when someone is well known in their own locality with a very outward, visible condition who can suddenly do something she hasn’t been able to do for over twenty years.
As for the theology on acts, I don’t see anywhere in the New Testament that God says miracle are limited to that time period and even the Early Church Fathers documented examples of the supernatural. Ultimately, its our choice to believe or not and I hope, as I’m sure you do that this particular healing, does actually get some media coverage and medical proof as I think that would be great
I am a empirical and skeptical Christian. I’ve seen healing footage before in the past and thought they were suspicious and doubted them. But this one in particular, based on Delia’s reaction, crowd reaction, and pastors’ demeanor, the event seemed as genuine as it gets. The only other explanation I can think of to explain how real the healing looked, is that, the church must’ve hired professional actors to act out the the healing scene for the cameras. If not, I have no choice but to believe that this is a miracle caught on tape, whether or not you believe God did it or that it was just coincidence that her legs healed at a Christian rally at that particular time.
And by the way, Delia’s story was covered by secular media.Youtube search her name and you’ll see the news station coverage of her.
I hear you Brian. What makes this so real, even from a neutral perspective, is that this lady was known throughout her community for 20 odd years in a wheelchair and poeple still remembered the accident that put her in there. She might not have been famous in the Hollywood sense, but she was famous enough for her home town to go crazy when she was healed and there is footage online today showing she still is!
Hi MIke,
I too do believe that God does heal today. But…does anyone know if Delia Knox is still in her wheelchair today? Or was the “miracle” only for those few moments during all the emotionalism of this particular revival? When Jesus healed people in the Bible, they walked pretty enthusiastically without being held up — and their muscle “atrophy” was also healed at the same time. So, does nayone know what Delia’s condition is today? Or is she just another casualty of revivalism?
I agree, it would be nice to have some follow up and I know what you mean about the muscle atrophy, I was thinking about it myself when I remembered about even Jesus helping the lame man up by holding out his hand. I know it’s not exactly the same, but at least the precedent is there in the Bible which gives me some comfort. I tried googling a few days ago for an update and could only find that she’d been on stage the following week at the same Church but it didn’t say much else.
Check out this link and see an updated video: http://www.lwccim.com/home.html
Thank you for your article on this topic in the Kingwood paper. I really, really appreciated it. May God bless and direct you as you continue to write, and may MANY newspapers give you great favor in publishing Scriptural truth.
Thanks for getting in touch! Appreciate the encouragement…
Hey guys I was reading your comments and i just thought i would add i have done some follow up and there are new videos of her still walking.. now without assistance
Brian, I understand your skepticism. I have personally known Delia Knox for approx five years and have pushed her around in her wheelchair. She is a wonderful Christian woman (and Pastor) with a beautiful singing voice. She has recorded amazing Christian songs at my recording studio over the last two years (before her healing). Her husband of 9 years is the pastor of Living Word Christian Church. I’m a Realtor and he purchased this Church building with my assistance in 1987. This morning I visited their church (Living Word Christian Church) in Mobile, Alabama and she stood up for the entire 2 1/2 hour service, walking up and down the steps and walking back and forth unassisted (and in stiletto high heels!). This truly is a miracle! Feel free to contact me if you have any questions. I would be happy to talk to anyone who doesn’t believe.
Hi Tony,
Thanks for the response! Awesome to hear from you
Mike
As the information on this miracle got published in a south indian newspaper, I got interested and since last 2 hour I have been looking at videos and comments on internet.
I have been longing to see ‘true’ miracles happen… which helps in believing the existence of almighty and I firmly believe that it is pretty easy to scientifically / medically prove that a miracle has happened, if it has happened !
I agree with you that if the media believed it was true, it would have been instantly reported and flashed across the world. Something which has happened in Aug / Oct 2010 getting publicity after 2 months, just before Christmas add to my suspicion…
If it was a miracle, it would have got proper credibility had it been testified by Pope / reputed university after looking at scientific, medical, forensic information..
Infact, God himself can prove his presence, instead of doing it through a preacher ! Growing of amputed limbs in front of camera would be great example…
I am not a pessimist, I still would like to get a proof of His presence before I die…..I am believer in God because I haven’t got an answer for my own question “why anything should exist ?”