Weight Training
When my daughters were small, they were subject to many sicknesses and ear aches. It seemed I had to constantly take off work to take them to the doctor. I was a Christian but I was just starting to learn about faith and ministering to the sick. After another episode of sickness in my house my second daughter seemed to have a severe ear ache. Along with this sickness, she had a high fever. I dreaded having to take another day off work to go to the doctor and buy more medicine, aside from my two-year-old's suffering.
I thought, I'm going to try this faith stuff. There is a way to say those exact words but mean it to challenge God's Word and to justify human means over simple faith. But I really meant it with a humble attitude, just trying to believe and obey God's commands. I laid my hand on her little forehead. She was burning with fever. She was screaming with pain. I was crying, too, seeing the suffering of this small, helpless child that I was responsible for. With no sense of confidence at all I said,
“In the name of J...”
That was as far as I got. She was ice-cold! I used my other hand to slowly pull my “praying” hand off her head. I stared at that hand with wide eyes and thought, Be careful where you point that thing! It's humorous now but at the time I thought that hand must be the most powerful secret weapon the world had ever known. That was the last time my children ever experienced another ear ache.
For several years I saw many remarkable healings. It was easy to bring healing to someone. Then one day I was ministering to a young man at a church service. As I touched him and ministered to him, nothing happened! It was the first time I had ever seen the arms of a person not visibly and instantly grow out. I was stupefied. Seriously. My mouth just hung open. I did not know what to say. I did not know what to think. Did God just die? Is the Bible not true anymore? I did not know how to process this.
I was saved as a young man in 1970. There was a people movement among the youth in the 70s (that I was unaware of). Much later I met many people that came to the Lord in the 1970s. This was a special move of God that had a certain amount of the supernatural manifesting. Many of these people saw a season of the power of God and, like me, they saw a reduction in it later. One man offered a explanation, which was an opinion shared by many. He said that God did these special things for baby Christians but then weaned them off of it a little later on. Almost makes some sense, doesn't it? It almost does, except for one problem. What are we going to do with the Bible? How can man decide what God's expiration date is? How can we negate what the Unchangeable One is and what He has said? There is another way to understand what is happening around us.
If thou faint in the day of adversity, thy strength is small. (Prov 24:10)
Resistance
A man at the gym puts powder on his hands. He grasps the bar with an agonizing look on his face. He takes a deep breath and pulls the bar to his chest with all his might. His face turns deep red as he jerks the bar over his head. He staggers slightly trying to find his balance. His leg muscles quiver for just a moment and he quickly throws the enormous apparatus to the floor with a satisfied look of accomplishment on his face. The trainer says, Yeah, that's the basic idea. Tomorrow we'll put a 5 pound weight on the bar.
What? Weight on the bar? But that will make it heavy!
That's the whole idea. We have to work against increasing resistance in order to build strength. The trainer will increase the weight to 20 pounds, then 40 pounds. Eventually a tremendous amount may be added to the bar to act as a resistance in order to build muscle strength and endurance.
It's fun when the power of God just seems to fall out of the sky and land on us. God lets that happen. But a wise God is training us to trust Him even when it does not look like it is the right thing. He allows some minor resistance to counteract us. It is not to discourage us. It serves to increase our confidence in God and His promises. God does not have to create new problems. There is already someone who works against the Word.
For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. (Eph 6:12)
Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)
Whom (the devil) resist stedfast in the faith, knowing that the same afflictions are accomplished in your brethren that are in the world. (I Pet 5:9)
Are you experiencing resistance to your attempts to serve God? That weight can crush you. You can let it destroy you. But if you understand that God and His promises continue to be trustworthy you can increase in practical faith almost unknowingly. You will soon be bench pressing 400 pounds without realizing it. Resistance will be laughed at, not worried about.
Yes, I did survive my initial doubts and questions about my early “failures”. It turned out that God can be trusted after all and His Word is true until heaven and earth pass away.
Mar 20, 2025