A few weeks ago a friend who had been suffering for many weeks from the COVID virus began to experience extreme pain in the chest. His wife was driving him to the emergency room when he called and asked me if I could give him a blessing over the phone. It had become my practice that when asked to give a blessing for healing to someone I will pray and ask the Lord for permission because I would never assume to attempt to bless someone without knowing what the Lord wanted me to do. So I told my friend that I would get back to him in a minute.
I always try to take the time to pray until I get an answer. Sometimes, though, the urgency of a person’s suffering makes me feel like there is no time to pray and I make the assumption the Lord would want me to pronounce a healing. In most of those cases, though, healings rarely happen. When I do pray and receive permission I know I can go into a blessing with perfect confidence that person will be healed. I can place my hands on their head and command that the person be healed. I know that is a pretty bold thing to do, but that is what the Lord requires of us to demonstrate faith. First, have the faith that the Lord will answer your request, and second, the Lord will perform the healing as the Spirit said He would. Doubt and faith cannot exist in the same moment.
I was once praying and asking the Lord why we don’t experience miraculous healings as a common occurrence. Why is it uncommon and rare that people with cancer are given blessings and are miraculously healed? Why are there no bringing people back from the dead through priesthood blessings? They do happen but they are so rare today as to be almost non existent. It should be common place. The answer both surprised and shocked me. The Spirit spoke very distinctly to me saying, “If you want healings and miracles….well you had better get busy!” It then occurred to me that the Lord was telling me that I and others could bring about healings through faith and exercising priesthood through the power of Christ. But, since it wasn’t me that was healing people, Christ is the healer, I had to ask permission of the one through whom these miracles are performed. I have no ability to heal anyone, it is really up to faith and the grace of the Lord. Sometimes much prayer and fasting is required.1
Since then, when I have been asked to give a blessing I have asked the Lord if it was His will that a person be blessed unto healing, and I almost always get permission. It is when I don’t have explicit permission that healings do not occur, when I don’t get an answer, or I neglect to ask because of expediency, and I go ahead with the blessing anyway. There was one instance where I was given permission and a blessing given but the person still was not healed. It was latter related to me that the woman receiving the blessing refused to believe that she could be healed.
Getting back to my friend on the way to the emergency room. I told him that I would call right back, I needed to pray. I went to my room and knelt down and asked the Lord for His permission to apply priesthood power to heal. But I didn’t get the answer I was expecting. I was told, ‘No’. I was taken by surprise by that, but I knew better than to ask why. I was impressed, however, to ask if I could bless him that the pain would be tempered and suppressed and if he could be sustained at least until he reached the Hospital. I was told yes.
I commenced then to give him a blessing as though he were there, and then called him to tell him what had transpired. The pain did subside and he made it to the hospital. It turned out that he had blood clots that had moved through his heart and lodged in his lungs. He has since made a full recovery, although he now has to take expensive medicine the rest of his life. There were some other miracles that took place as a result of his bout with COVID, and he claims to know why the Lord told me not to heal him through a priesthood blessing.
The Lord is generous in his grace in providing healings and miracles, but it is imperative that we work with Him, and we know what His desires are. I believe Christ never healed anyone without conferring with the Father, except perhaps in case of the woman with a blood issue that touched the hem of his garment. After all, He had said that he did nothing without the Father. I have only experienced that one time being told not to give a blessing of healing. It was instructive to me that I was required to always ask permission.
I have found that sometimes people are given tests in the form of infirmities or disease, either for their own learning or for someone else to to be tried, for instance the parents of a sick child. It would be unwise to attempt to heal them in those cases as you would be at cross purposes to the Lord’s purposes. That is why it is important to ask permission first and be patient enough to wait to receive an answer.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if as a priesthood holder you are asked to give a blessing of healing to someone with cancer or some other debilitating disease or impairment, and know the outcome the Lord desires; have a perfect knowledge of what words you are supposed to say? I guarantee you would not be using tentative phrases and less then faith filled phrases like, “If it be the will of the Lord that you be healed…” You would know if it was the will of the Lord. How powerful would be the words of your blessing if you knew the Lord would heal that person? What power could be drawn down from heaven if you knew that the Lord wanted you to say the words, “I command you to be healed!” and know that person will be healed?
The Lord has stated that “…these signs shall follow them that believe–in my name shall cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents and if they drink any deadly thing it shall not hurt them; the shall lay hands on the sick and they shall recover; (Mormon 9:24) What is it that is required to perform these miracles? It requires great faith, even exceeding great faith. Moroni describes what is required in verse 21: “Behold I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth.“
The time is now for all believers to step up and accept the calling. Be one of the chosen ones who have chosen to believe and to perform (called and chosen)2.
“And it shall come to pass that there shall be a great work in the land, even among the Gentiles (Talking about us, now) for their folly and their abominations shall be made manifest in the eyes of all people (The whole world will see the Gentile nations for what they are—think of what has happened in Washington since the election).”
“For I am God, and mine arm is not shortened; and I will show miracles, signs, and wonders, unto all those who believe on my name. And whoso shall ask it in my name in faith, they shall cast out devils; they shall heal the sick; they shall cause the blind to receive their sight, and the deaf to hear and dumb to speak, and the lame to walk.”(The Lord is opening that window now) (D&C 35:7-10)
————————————————————————-
Notes: 1 “…if the church would cease from these bickerings & murmerings & be of one mind the Lord would visit them with health & every needed good, for said he this is the voice of the Spirit. furthermore if the Saints are sick or have sickness in their families, and Elders do not prevail every family should get power by fasting & prayer & anointing with oil & continue to so do their sick shall be healed this also is the voice of the Spirit.” The Words of Joseph Smith, p.37, Andrew F. Ehat and Lyndon W. Cook, ed.
2 “…for he is Lord of lords, and King of Kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.” (Revelation 17:14)