Hi all,
Last week I was pretty blunt with the stream in Christianity that thinks faith is detached from the Father’s will. Faith does not call something which is, as though it was not. Through faith we understand…. We must understand, meaning we gain knowledge of the circumstance, and we understand that through faith. But again, faith is our response to a revelation. Faith is our response to God’s grace and direction.
Noah had a revelation about the flood and directions to build a boat. That is grace. Faith was understanding what the grace meant to him, his family, his world. Through faith (our response to a revelation) we understand.
When Chris needed physical, occupational, and speech therapies
Our oldest son, Chris, was born by emergency C-section with the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck in what the doctor described as a slip knot. With each contraction oxygen was cut off, leaving him with brain damage. The injury to the brain during labor or delivery is called ‘cerebral palsy’, or ‘CP’. CP is an injury, not a disease, and not a demon. It’s like an injury to any other part of the body, except with the brain such an injury affects everything.
In Chris’ case and combined with a stroke at age 17, it left him without the use of his left hand, weakness in his abdomen, and in a wheelchair. He can support his weight briefly, but can’t walk. He is also mentally around age 4 or 5, and the most outgoing, Jesus loving, tender hearted child in a man’s body you’d ever hope to meet (he was born in 1979). His simple faith keep us humble and focused on the core of our walk with the Lord and Father.
When he was about 5 years old, in 1984
Doctors recommended physical, occupational, and speech therapies. We were conflicted, being confused Word of Faith (WOF) believers and first time parents. We didn’t know if therapies were ‘against our faith’. In the early 1980s when the WOF took hold, some people even questioned if it was against their faith to have car, health, life, and home insurance. Was insurance against faith was a big question back then. We needed a word from the Lord so we could have faith, which would allow us to understand what was happening to us. Through faith we understand. We needed a word from the Lord.
These hard questions about what to do in the natural – therapies – forced us to consider the possibility Chris would be like this the rest of his life. It forced us to consider that maybe he would need special care the rest of his life. We had always thought faith would one day make him whole and quite honestly, ignored thoughts about him needing therapies, special education, appliances like walkers and wheelchairs and such. It wasn’t that we were in denial, but more like we were focused on what we had been taught about claiming and speaking ‘faith’. Being asked to consider practical, natural helps for him, hit us like a slap in the face.
We had never thought about Chris continuing his life with CP and all the handicaps it meant for him, and what it meant for our lives. The original doctor told Barb upon diagnosis: “Put him in a home and forget you ever had him. There is no indication your next children would be like him. Put him in a home, forget you had him, and go about your lives.” Barb called me at work crying in anguish at the cruelty of the doctor’s words, and at the diagnosis of Cerebral Palsy. These were hard decisions God was asking us to face.
No laying on of hands, no decreeing, no declaring, no fasting, no shouting the name of Jesus, changed anything – we had no revelation from heaven so we had no faith to know what to do – we were going through the motions of what we had been taught. But there was no Life in any of it. There was no presence of the Holy Spirit when we spoke, commanded, decreed.
Grace comes first, then faith, and that is not of ourselves. Our salvation is based on us having received the revelation that Jesus is Lord, then we confess with our mouth and our lives – that response to the revelation is faith. We were 22 years old, first time parents, and were told to put our firstborn in a home and forget about him. We refused of course. But by age 5 the realities of our child being handicapped and needing therapies demanded decisions. I sought the Lord with much prayer and would not let go until He showed me His grace for this situation. Then I could have faith to understand.
The Lord spoke to me when I asked about putting Chris in those various therapies: “Therapies work with me, not against me.” (Why Lord?) Because they make the muscles move as they would normally, therefore working with the way the body was designed, and the healing processes already created within the body. The therapies work with healing, not against it.” We put Chris in all 3 therapies and they did do some good for him. But we also kept close to our hearts questions about our future as a family. Keeping him at home meant Barb’s ‘job’ would be that full time stay at home mom, putting all the pressure on me to keep a roof over our heads. Tough decisions for a couple of young marrieds.
Faith doesn’t use godly principles laid out in the Word independent of the Father and His will to facilitate what we think should happen. No. We walk with Him to discover His will, which will always follow His ways outlined in scripture. Then with Him, we think through and determine how His revealed will revealed to us, will be applied in life. That is what Noah, Abraham, Sarah, Moses, Joshua and other great men and women of faith did and do.
When Jesus was faced with feeding 5,000 men, He understood the problem through faith. He stated in John 5:19 He only did what He saw the Father do. So He made the 5,000 sit in groups of 50s and 100s, organized, responding to the crowd problem by organizing them. THEN He did the miracle.
When Jesus was faced with a wedding He was at running out of wine, He understood the problem through faith. He asked what resources were available and when told, responded with instructions to fill the 6 stone pots with water. THEN He did the miracle.
It is through faith we understand. That means we have to get the grace first. Bad diagnosis? Be quiet, seek God, don’t let go until you have peace about going in this direction or that. Whether that be a miracle you have revealed to you will happen, or using medicine to combat the diagnosis, get His Word on it first, THEN speak the Word.
More on this next week….until then, blessings!
John Fenn
