Seen Faith

Does anyone share with me, these mind and heart tugging feelings? This account of faith healing really gets to me. Do I understand it? No! Have I ever experienced it? I don’t know! Can I explain it? Definitely Not! But do I believe it? Yes I do! Listen to the healing which most of us know quite well. I record it from Acts 14: 8 – 10 NKJV.

And in Lystra a certain man without strength in his feet was sitting, a cripple from his mother’s womb, who had never walked. This man heard Paul speaking. Paul, observing him intently and seeing that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand up straight on your feet! And he leaped and walked.

Paul is in Lystra in Derbe and is doing what is customary for him and that is, preaching and speaking about Jesus and the Kingdom of God. On this occasion, a man, crippled from birth, is among those in that gathering who are sitting listening to Paul speak.  For all his life, he does not know the experience of walking. He is sitting there listening attentively to Paul.  Paul looks at the man and sees something. What exactly does Paul see?  He sees that this man, has faith to be healed.

Pause for a moment. This was no special healing service. This is a usual everyday occurrence for Paul, that of speaking to gatherings.  The man was no exception, since he had come to listen to Paul speak. The man never spoke and asked Paul to heal him. In fact, I wonder whether or not he even came for healing. I wonder, since he knew nothing else but no-walking from birth, whether or not he was just used to his way of life. He was not a child, or a boy, but a man. His whole life was one of no walking.  Did he go there expecting to be made to walk?  Yet Paul saw something in this man.  Was it on his face? Was it in his eyes? Was it his posture? What was it?

As I struggle with this, my mind goes back to an incident which took place a long time ago at one of our weekly Handbell Ringing rehearsals. At that time, we would have the young ones ringing with the more experienced ringers. After a while, we would give the young ones a break to run around and play, then call them back. It was during this period that the mature ringers would practise more challenging pieces. At one such rehearsal, when the younger ringers were given a rest and are allowed to go outside for a bit, while the older ringers played more advanced pieces, this little boy refused to leave the  room. He stood there with his gloved hands, just listening and looking at all the ringers.  He then kept looking at me. I saw on his face; No! More than his face, I saw in this young lad, the eagerness of mind, body, soul and spirit, to be an active part of what was happening.  All I asked him was, “Would you like to …” And before I could finish the question, he had literally jumped into place, ready to play.  Mind you, all the time he was looking on and listening, he never spoke a word to me, asking if he could play with the older ringers. He had just stood there with that eagerness.  Just for your information, it was a piece of music that was way out of his league, but it didn’t matter to him.   

Was this man like that?  Whatever Paul saw, it was enough to get him to stop his talk and call out loudly to a man, crippled from birth and say, Stand up on your feet. This got to me, for this crippled from birth, man, this one who never walked before, in his entire life, jumped up and began to walk. Did I miss something here? Paul tells this man, seasoned and stunted in his birth defect, to stand up on his feet. Does he have feet on which to stand? Paul only tells him to stand, and the man not only stands, but he goes further. He walks!  Did Paul tell him to walk?

Yes, I know that I am getting a bit unbearable now, but that is how I am at school with our Lord. This is how many of you are at school with our Lord. When things get me, I talk, I tell Him all that is in my mind. I talk out every thought, regardless of how silly it may seem.  Is this the same with you also? Faith gives us the freedom to be as candid with our Heavenly Father as we can possibly be.

Did this man suddenly forget his limitations? Like the little boy at rehearsal, he certainly was not looking at his limitations.  I find this very scary.  I ask, where is this kind of faith?  Who sees this faith in me, or on me?  Can others see this kind of faith in you? We are looking at and listening to, faith that is seen.  It is the faith that waits to be drawn out.  It is the faith that is eager and ready to be made manifest. Do we hear? Are we hearing?

God gives us hearing by which faith is seen,

Faith, eager to do His works, grand or mean,

God’s Word fans all feeble faith to a flame,

All will see, and give glory to His Name.

Amen!