Inside a shopping centre at lunchtime last week, I came upon a young guy at one of the promotional stands. After chatting with him about his work, I asked him if there was anything going on for him physically that he’d like made better. “My foot!” he exclaimed. He then explained that he’d injured his foot on holiday in a quad bike accident, where it had rolled onto his foot and broken his little toe. Ouch! He’d been in a cast for a few weeks but was now in a compression sock and slowly weight bearing, still with pain.
It was now my turn to explain that I am a follower of Jesus who loves to pray for people and see God take their pain away. Although he was from a different cultural (and possibly faith) heritage, he seemed fine with my offer to pray briefly for his foot -so that’s what I did! I didn’t lay hands on the foot, but felt I should point at it instead with the finger of authority and command it to be healed in Jesus’ Name!
After the first prayer, I checked with him if he had felt something happening in his foot while the prayer was going on. “I felt a kind of flickering” he reported. Like something was moving inside my foot”. “Test it out! ” I suggested. He checked it by flexing and treading on it and said it felt looser and more relaxed but the pain was still there. I prayed again, taking authority over the spirit of infirmity and affliction, commanding them and all pain to go, then asked him to check it again.
A big smile came over his face – “that is actually so much better! He exclaimed. The pain is pretty much all gone now ! Wow, I can actually stand on it and press down hard. I couldn’t do that before.!” One last prayer to complete the job and he was good to go! “Thank you so much!” he said. “I just wish I had met you earlier after I had the accident! I’m going to try and play football on the weekend! “Yes, don’t be afraid” I encouraged him. God doesn’t do things by half-measure. Your foot is healed! What does that make you think about Jesus?
“To be honest”, he responded, “I haven’t followed any religion in my life before now. This has made me really want to look into Jesus and find out more about him”. I handed him a copy of “Father’s Love Letter” and some contact details if he ever wanted any help with his explorations. Then I went on my way so he could get back to work!
Later, I passed by the stand again to say something else to this young man. Right at the start of praying for his foot healing, I found myself thanking God out loud for this “radiant young man, someone who shines and who will one day be shining for you, Lord God!” After the healing, I was in a shop and suddenly felt this prompt to look up the meaning of the young man’s name. In his cultural origin, the meaning of his name is “shining, bright light” !! I felt I had to tell him this and it encouraged him a lot! And I take it as a prophetic sign that, one day soon, he will indeed shine for the glory of King Jesus! Hallelujah!