There is no one in the Christian healing ministry who has not had some experience of apparent failure when praying for someone else. In this context what we might understand as "failure" is that the event we prayed for did not happen. But failure is never an absolute thing because God always responds in some way to our prayers.

However, reducing these apparent failures is something we can attain if we give attention to their possible causes. The reason is that some of these apparent failures have more to do more with us than with God. There are a few points to bear in mind here.

1. Faith
in Luke 17.5 the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith. His reply may seem to have been a little obtuse. He merely told them what things they could do if they had even a very small amount of faith, although they might well have thought they had that already.

What can we learn from this? Perhaps there are two things. In the first place we have to use whatever faith we do have at the time. In the second place, over time, we need to try and improve the quality of faith we have.

But doing that is not easy. When we look at the life of someone like, for example, Smith Wigglesworth (if that is a new name to you, you need to get hold of one of the inexpensive biographies available) one is confronted with what a powerful level of faith can do. Although several short account of his life are available none of the writers can tell you how he achieved that. But he certainly did not have it to begin with.

Speaking about Wigglesworth a lady once told me that she felt disgusted with herself. The reason? She did not have the great love of the Lord which he had. Was the "secret" of his success as a healer?

2. Time.
Loving God is not something we do in a rarefied atmosphere and in separation from our human relationships. 1. John 4.20 tells us that anyone who says he loves God but at the same time hates his brother cannot be telling the truth.

In the context of praying for healing we must at least love those who come to us for ministry. For instance we must love them enough to spend time and (sometimes considerable) effort in trying to get to the root of their problem. Failure to do this is an important cause of non-healing, and it was Jesus' example and teaching which showed us the identification between loving God and loving our brother.

3. Unfocused Prayer.
If we do not spend whatever time is necessary in discovering the causes of a person's problem we shall rarely observed positive outcomes to our prayer. In effect, such prayer as this is unfocused. The requirement for this is something which my wife and I lay considerable stress upon in our book "The Keys to Praying for Healing. " It's importance cannot be over stressed.

In our experience the Lord does not respond much to prayers of generalities which are essentially a cover for not loving the other sufficiently to do our part of the job properly.

As mentioned above, God is so good that no prayer is a waste of time, but the kind of prayer that says "Lord heal him/her in all the ways he/she needs healing" is not loving but an insult to God and the person being preyed with.

Do the job properly. Especially if it is an inner problem devote time to finding its cause and pray into that. If it is something physical such as cancer, damaged vertebrae, AIDS or even a head cold, pray specifically into that.

4. Letting God Be God.
However much we love the person we are praying with God loves them more. So if we have done our part of the job conscientiously and properly the rest is surely up to him. Sometimes the healing will not happen as we have prayed, and often we shall not know the reason. But we do need to know that it is not down to any lack of love and effort on our part

We need to do all that we can if God has called us into the healing ministry. But when we have done that, if the healing we prayed for does not seem to have come about, we simply have to leave it to God. On the other hand there will be those cases where God works in such an astounding way that we are left literally speechless at how and why he did it.

5. Gifting.

There is no reason why any Christian should not pray with another Christian for healing. If God calls us into the healing ministry, however, he will usually provide gifts of healings for that. If we feel they need strengthening then we might ask someone already in the ministry to pray over us.

Of course, God can empower us, or increase our empowerment, without any help from anyone else. But sometimes there are reasons why you might need to be prayed with by others. As an act of humility, for example.

If you ask "what others?" then asked God to show you. Or watch out for what opportunities arise, because God will often produce them when you have asked this kind of question. Just watch for them and take advantage of them.

Author:AK Whitehead.Web Site:http://www.christianword.co.uk
Material copyright but may be used if all this is included.
Active in Christian teaching, healing, writing ministries for over 25 years. Several books written and available on web site together with account of ministry etc.