Have you ever prayed to be healed?

By Mark Swinney

Here is how I prayed one time when I injured my knee. I was skiing—something I absolutely love to do—and on the last run of the day I did a trick called a "helicopter." To do that trick, a person jumps off a bump in the snow and, while in the air, spins completely around and lands facing the same direction in which he or she started. I'd done hundreds of helicopters in my life. This time, however, I landed the wrong way on some hard snow and my knee was hurt. That night I couldn't move around well at all.

In the morning there wasn't any difficulty walking—none at all! I skied the rest of that week and did more helicopters, too.

I was on a one-week ski vacation, and this happened on the first day! I knew that if I had a doctor examine me, he'd probably take an X-ray of my knee, and I'd probably be shown damaged knee parts. Instead I decided to pray for healing. Where to start was the first question. When healing spiritually, where you start makes all the difference.

It might seem reasonable to start with what appears to be a damaged body and then ask God to repair it. Yet there's something better that you can do. In the Bible, Paul encourages us, "We are confident, I say, and willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:8). That's how I decided to start praying. Although my knee was still hurting, I became quiet and felt God's presence. I listened, knowing that God was active and guiding me. I had a Bible with me and found something in the New Testament that helped so much. It was "The foundation of God standeth sure..." (II Tim. 2:19).

That gave me a basis on which to continue my prayer. By being "present with the Lord," by starting with God, I could see that "the foundation of God standeth sure." God certainly wasn't injured! My basis for prayer was clear: God's perfection. I reasoned from there (spiritual reasoning can be prayer, too). God, divine Spirit, is my source. The real me is spiritual. The real me is God's reflection. Reflection means likeness or representation. The real me is God's image, Spirit's reflection, not a mixture of healthy matter, damaged matter, and a human personality.

Prayer now was easier. I was interested, not in injured body parts, but in God's flawlessness and in my real identity as God's perfect offspring. Actually, I was more than just interested; I was grateful. If God's foundation was sure, then I was safe because I always reflected that foundation.

Although it appeared that I lived in an imperfect, temporal body, that was not the real story. God, Spirit, is All-in-all, eternally perfect. Only God and what God creates truly exist. Prayer showed me that I could honestly say that the injury never happened, because God didn't create a person who could be injured or who could truly know himself as injured. The belief that it had happened was the whole problem.

Fear and belief in damage disappeared when I realized that God's perfect foundation was reflected by me forever. Nothing could change that. Not ski slopes, "helicopters," or fear. In the morning there wasn't any difficulty walking—none at all! It was a complete, spiritual healing. I skied the rest of that week and did more helicopters, too.

(Mark Swinney is Consulting Editor.)

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