What is God’s Will? Beyond Part III

Brad Cullen

Brad Cullen

Okay …enough of any great man …Einstein included – and we are going to take that thought (enough of any great man) further, lots further.

It is a marvelous thing to be able to use a famous scientist such as Albert Einstein to poke holes in the fundamental concepts of science in general as we did in the preceding segment …and now we are going to poke holes in some of the fundamental concepts of religion specifically related to healing power and spiritual healing …and if you will let it happen, we’ll poke holes in one of the most serious of all fundamental concepts; the one that is holding you back from entering the realm of being able to focus healing power toward others and/or receive spiritual healing for yourself.

Until we breakthrough into critiquing all fundamental concepts and understanding that healing power and spiritual healing are choices we make as if off a menu, we remain trapped by the physical circumstances in which we find ourselves.

I can tell literally hundreds of true stories about people being healed, dramatically and seemingly supernaturally, from just about every disease imaginable and that is just from my personal experience and involvement, but please note: My personal experience and involvement has nothing to do with anything (period)!

This particular story is one of my favorites because it demonstrates how one female college student broke through one of the most serious of all fundamental, religious concepts …her own belief system and especially because she did so in spite of my involvement, not because of it.

Halls of Learning

For several years I spoke each semester at a Christian college to a different third-year humanities class …the topic invariably was about how to pray for increased faith …the kind of faith that makes things happen, you know, gets results. Quite often during these times there would be healings. On one particular occasion, a couple of days in advance, I had faxed over a single, typed sheet for discussion, asking my friend, the professor, to make copies for each student.

Fifty students sitting in “the round” with the professor and I sitting widely apart. He gave his usual introduction and I began by simply asking, “Why are we here?”

She was a strikingly pretty red head. Shaking her copy of the paper I had sent, she said: “Why should I listen to anything you have to say about praying? I mean related to how you go about praying any differently than I pray?”

Her question was loaded with hostility, I thought. I knew I needed to take the time to answer her carefully. It seemed as though she had taken offense at something I had written on that little paper. I took a few moments to “check in,” but the answer that came to me certainly didn’t seem as “safe” as what would have been ideal, but I went with it.

“The difference” I finally responded, “is that when I pray I know that what I am speaking is what will take place, when you pray you don’t.” Her hostility level went up several notches. Three students received healing that morning; a woman in her forties, a man in his early twenties and another male student of perhaps thirty or so, who had a wife and two small children. With each episode the redhead’s hostility became increasingly evident.

Her next to last outburst was, “You don’t even believe in doctors!” “That’s not true,” I said, “but let’s ask these three who just received healing, ‘in this instance, with this particular ailment that has left you, what good did your doctors do for you?’ ”

Each of them told an interesting story because all three had been told by their doctors that there was nothing that could be done medically which would bring about an immediate change in their condition. The change in all three was striking and most evident and all the more dramatic because of their stories in the backdrop of the redhead’s resistance.

Her final comment as she walked out, slamming the classroom door behind her, “I think you are disgusting!”

Rage is Fear

As was our custom, the professor and I went out for a late breakfast together after the class. “I guess you know that the girl who stormed out of the class is one of the daughters of the president” (of the college).

“Yikes, that isn’t going to create any problems for you, is it?” I asked him, he assured me that it wouldn’t and that the president was well aware of the drama my visits sometimes caused and was quite supportive.

About the middle of the following week I received a phone call from the professor: “Guess who just left my office?” He went on to relate the story the president’s daughter had just told him. After her abrupt and early departure on the morning of the class, she had gone home and locked herself in her bedroom.

She had gotten down on her knees at her bedside and began to pound her fists on it. “Why can that disgusting man (that would be me) get answers to his prayers and I can’t?”

My friend said she told him that she had kept this up for two hours and finally realized she was healed. She had been diagnosed with mononucleosis a day or two before and had intended to tell him right after class that she had to leave school for the remainder of the term on doctor’s orders.

The day before she came in to see my friend, the same day that he called me, the doctor had cleared her to return to school. She asked the professor to apologize to me for her for being so disruptive. He assured her that something like that always happened during my visits and that she had actually stimulated discussion and I hadn’t been offended.

The reason I love to tell this story is simply because it proves the point that anyone can breakthrough into healing power and spiritual healing if they will get past their OWN fundamental concepts …and they need no man to help them make the breakthrough. The only thing I did for this young woman is to make her angry enough to go directly to the SOURCE and demand to know why she couldn’t do what I was obviously able to.

Make a Breakthrough

Now then, to make good on the promise to take something even further: The fundamental concept that gets in almost everyone’s way of having a breakthrough in the spirit realm is placing a man or woman, any man or woman in the position of spiritual leader or teacher in their lives …whether a man or woman of science or of religion. Hopefully the following will startle you into the breakthrough of all breakthroughs.

It has to do with what you believe about something …yes, a fundamental concept. Regardless which way you believe, about this particular concept it doesn’t make any difference; healing power and spiritual healing are yours to take, if you will but reach out to take them and keep reaching out UNTIL it happens.

My own breakthrough came about by putting into practice something Jesus said to do. The very thing the college student did. What she believes about Jesus, what I believe about Jesus is immaterial, totally immaterial and that’s the point. Just minutes before a patient of a woman doctor friend of mine was healed, she (the patient) told me that she didn’t believe in Jesus “…so what,” I responded, and within minutes she was completely cured.

Are you paying attention?  Mohandas Gandhi proclaimed quite loudly and firmly that he didn’t believe in the deity of Jesus, but he did what Jesus said to do and he turned the world of his day upside down because of it. Einstein, by the way, revered Gandhi as one of the great men of all history and, again, so what?

I continually remind Christians of something else Jesus said; “What is the point of calling me, ‘Lord,’ unless you also do what I tell you to do?” Jesus told a story about two men to emphasize the point  – one man built his house on a firm foundation of doing what Jesus said and survived the wind and waves – the other called him, ‘Lord,’ and didn’t survive the storms of life because he failed to do what he said. I didn’t say that, Jesus said it.

One way of interpreting it is that Gandhi survived in the spiritual meaning of the story because he based his life on doing what Jesus said, not on what he believed about Jesus.

Do you want healing power and spiritual healing? It’s yours and not at all affected by what you say you believe. I just had to say that …and I hope you get angry enough with me to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT! …breakthrough just as the college president’s daughter broke through.

Some people seem almost desperate to know what I believe about Jesus. I leave you with a hint from a passage out of the New Testament book of Hebrews: “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” There, does that do anything for you? After all, I certainly believe it. So what?

The Truth Shines Through

The Truth Shines Through

If I have been too obscure about how, that is, what was the process through which the college girl received healing from mononucleosis and thus how I also had my own breakthrough into healing power many years previously …let me relate two incidents portrayed in the New Testament upon which my particular healing “bent” is based.

A woman had a non-stop menstrual period which lasted for twelve years. The narrative said that she had spent all of her money on doctors and they hadn’t found a cure. She heard about Jesus …that he performed healing and that he happened to be a fairly short distance from her home at the moment. She determined in her mind that she would go to him and be healed.

She walked to where he was, totally surrounded by a milling crowd. There were so many people around him that she couldn’t get close to him. She thought, “If I can just touch some part of his clothing, I will be healed.” She pushed her way through so that she came close enough to do just that. BANG! Instantly she was healed. The narrative has Jesus saying that he felt miracle-working power go out of him. He asked his disciples, “Who touched me?”

“With all these people crowded around, who knows,” they responded. The woman was now sitting nearby and heard their exchange. Nervously she forced her way next to him again and told him that it was she who had touched him.

“It’s okay, just relax,” he told her, “Your faith healed you.” This passage amazed me. Jesus didn’t say to her, I felt the power go out of me and that is what healed you. He merely said, “Your faith is what healed you.” What was her faith? In a flash I saw it …her faith was not in who or what Jesus was. According to the narrative, the only thing she knew about Jesus was that people were being healed. Then, what was her faith? Well, she could have stayed home and believed that Jesus could have healed her right there, but instead she walked the distance to go where he was; and further she pushed and shoved until she was in close enough proximity to barely touch the “edge of his garment” and didn’t quit until she did it – that was her faith.

The daughter of the college president went home and griped to the SOURCE – how come I can’t get answers to my prayers the way that disgusting man gets answers to his prayers? She griped for two hours not really all that long to effect a healing, say what?

Call for Help

The other incident recorded in the New Testament which had a huge impact on me, was a guy by the name of Bartimaeus, a guy who was born blind. He was begging at his usual spot along a road on which Jesus happened to be walking, again, with a huge crowd gathered around him. As Jesus and his entourage approached, Bart started yelling at the top of his lungs, “Jesus, Jesus, son of David, have mercy on me.” He kept repeating these same words, over and over. Those who were standing nearby kept on trying to shut him up. To no avail …the story says that he just yelled all the more.

Jesus was a ways down the road when he heard Bart hollering. The narrative says that he sent for him. So some guys brought Bart to Jesus and he asked him what he wanted. “I want to be able to see!”

Jesus simply said, “Okay, you got it.” Bart whooped and hollered, “I can see, I can see!” Jesus, again, just told him, “Hey man, your faith is what healed you.”

I heard a Bible teacher once go into a long dissertation about what Bart believed as signified by his referring to Jesus as the “son of David.”

My response is, again, so what? And, again, what was Bart’s “faith” that had given him his eyesight? Why didn’t Jesus say something about his own involvement, rather than, “It was your faith that did it?” …and, further, what was Bart’s “faith?”

Back to the college president’s daughter – since the college is a Christian college, can we assume that the president’s twenty-two year old daughter had her theology about Jesus in line? What difference does it make? She was ticked off because some speaker who visited her humanities class apparently wrote some audacious statement that didn’t agree with whatever her fundamental concept was related to praying effectively. It took her only two hours of angry pounding and griping directly to the SOURCE to have occur what was supposed to take several months of rest to effect.

One more point about fundamental concepts. Whatever you think it takes to have the same healing power that Jesus had …re-think it. Jesus said anyone who believes enough will do the very same things he did and more.

Go and do likewise.

In Freedom,

Brad

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