Dying Embers

"Why pray?" she said with a painful groan and her eyes full of tears.  I had heard her say something like this before; but that had been a long time ago.  I could tell by the tone in her voice as she spoke those words in pain, she was really hurting; not physically but in her spirit.

These were the first two words out of her mouth.  We had gone through almost this same thing a couple of times before, so we thought this time would be different; but it wasn't.  It was not to be.  We had the same empty feeling of loss, the same heavy feeling of uselessness, like everything we believed was again a waste of time.

Once again, it was as if someone had stolen from Peg, one of her greatest strengths, her positive, optimistic, faithful and trusting confidence in the Lord.

Is healing a "promise" or is it just a "hope" we have in Jesus?  Now stay with me here ...

I'm thinking of Paul in A.D.67, facing death under Nero in a Roman prison as he writes in his 2nd letter to Timothy ... "but Trophimus have I left at Miletum sick."  Paul had to leave this co-worker still sick and was concerned about him.  I would assume that Paul had already laid his hands on him and prayed for him … but he left him sick.  Paul, the one who taught the church about the nine gifts of the Holy Spirit, including healing, but he … "left him sick."  (2nd Timothy 4:20)

Why did Paul tell Timothy to … "use a little wine for thy stomach's sake and thine often infirmities."  Where is healing in this counsel from Paul?  Had Paul given up after years of prayer for Timothy's infirmities that up to then had not been healed by the Lord?  (1st Timothy 5:23)

In his first letter, Paul told Timothy ... "Neglect not the gift that is in thee, which was given thee by prophecy, with the laying on of the hands of the presbytery."  (1st Timothy 4:14)

Paul later reminds his young friend ... "Wherefore I put thee in remembrance that thou stir up the gift of God, which is in thee by the putting on of my hands."   (2nd Timothy 1:6)

I cannot help but wonder if the gift Paul is referring to ... had something to do with "faith for healing."  Was Paul saying that Timothy was neglecting both the gift and his own healing?  Did Paul feel like both these men, Trophimus and Timothy needed to believe for themselves?  Just a thought.

This gift … perhaps healing … was still in Timothy, and yet it seems as if there was some decline, a cooling off and a hesitation to exercise it.  Might he have been too negligent or forgetful of the gift, so his mentor Paul reminds him to "stir" it up. 

The phrase "stir up" is a metaphor taken from the coals of a fire, covered with ashes as if almost extinct, and the need to have the dying embers brought up into a flame again by stirring up the ashes. 

It seems to me, that the gifts of the Spirit, especially "healing" can be and has been allowed to burn down from the burning flame of the early church to just dying embers today, covered up by the ashes of past miracles, and these embers are now at the point that if we don't ... "stir up and rekindle the flame" … they will die out totally.

If you have noticed ... healing ... or the lack of it, is a subject I write about often.

I am not judging Paul or Timothy for sickness or what they said or did about it.  Prayer went up to God for any and all problems confronting them.  God heals ... we don't.  I wish we could.  I've even spoken to sickness a few times.  And when it left ... it was all God's work ... not mine.  At other times, nothing happened.

So, why have I taken you on this journey of what looks like Paul's failed efforts ... if I may call them that?  Because we all have had the same results haven't we?  So I ask myself ...

Are my embers covered in cold ashes?  Is that why it seems as though most of the time when I pray for the sick or the dying ... nothing happens?       

"Why pray" ... is what she asked with tears in her eyes.  Why?  Because we are told too.  So what should we do?  What am I going to do?  I'm going to "stir up" those embers ... of any gifts I still have ... if they are still burning, and allow the flame to burn as it should.

Let each of our flames burn bright and not be just smoldering embers hidden under dead ashes from the past.  No matter what is in your past ... failures in prayer, or successful answers from God ... the past is just that.  The past.  It is behind us. 

It's time to wash away the tears, find a stick and stir up those dying embers.