this week a friend came in the kitchen at the restaurant to talk. he was excited. todd b, the local jimmy swaggart wannabee, was holding a huge rally. it is rumored even benny hinn might show up. i made the mistake of sharing my thoughts about the whole benny hinn deal. he was honestly shocked that i could have a problem with someone like hinn. what about all the healings? what about the miraculous "signs and wonders"?

someone on the radio said this recently: "they can fix eyesight but never replace a missing eye. they regularly lengthen legs but never grow an amputated one back. lots of people are slain in the spirit but no one is raised from the dead. and after the magic show is over thousands are left wondering why their healing didn't last. Many are left wondering about god."

i'll tell you why those kind of miracles are so prevalent - most of them are fake. surely god can heal, but probably not with the frequency that hinn holds him hostage for; demanding god act like a trained monkey. real healing probably isn't reserved for tv salesmen in thousand dollar suits. it seems ironic that jesus used ordinary people and simple subjects, but apparently god needs multi-million dollar ministries to carry on his work. the fact that hinn publically declared he was a charlatan in christianity today (Christianity Today, Oct. 28, 1991) doesn't seem to matter to the millions crying out for a supernatural experience. treating such shows as authentic simply denegrates the times that god really does decide to do something miraculous. such healing services usually look a lot more like steve martin in "leap of faith" than jesus or paul.

i should have kept my mouth shut. i was tired from cooking for 14 hours and should have realized that nothing i could say, no documentation i could quote, could convince someone who has been taken in by the grand-standing. who am i to talk? i can't even heal pre-mature balding...

i am reminded of a story:
"Tony Compolo tells a story about being in a church in Oregon where he was asked to pray for a man who had cancer.
Campolo prayed boldly for the man's healing. That next week he got a telephone call from the man's wife. She said, "You prayed for my husband. He had cancer." Compolo thought when he heard her use the past tense verb that his cancer had been eradicated! But before he could think much about it she said,
"He died." Compolo felt terrible.
But she continued, "Don't feel bad. When he came into that church that Sunday he was filled with anger. He knew he was going to be dead in a short period of time, and he hated God.
He was 58 years old, and he wanted to see his children and grandchildren grow up. He was angry that this all-powerful God didn't take away his sickness and heal him. He would lie in bed and curse God. The more his anger grew towards God, the more miserable he was to everybody around him.
It was an awful thing to be in his presence.
But the lady told Compolo, "After you prayed for him, a peace had come over him and a joy had come into him. Tony, the last three days have been the best days of our lives. We've sung. We've laughed. We've read Scripture. We prayed. Oh, they've been wonderful days. And I called to thank you for laying your hands on him and praying for healing."
And then she said something incredibly profound. She said,
"He wasn't cured, but he was healed."

maybe god knows better than we do what we really need.