Such As I Have Give I Thee

I shared this story with the owner of a medical clinic who cautioned that Christians needed to be reasonable about that which they pray and ask miracles, in effect counseling not asking God to do things that seem impossible from the extreme-materialist's view - which is the common consciousness of our faithless generation.


My grand son Mac was born with a congenital disorder. After four girls, finally a boy, and from the first he was gravely ill. Almost immediately he stopped breathing. Then a few day later he stopped breathing again. At three weeks he was in the hospital and then released. He began having seizures and would stop breathing. Until five weeks of age when he stopped breathing and turned blue he could revive with stimuli. Husband and wife rotated constant vigil by his side all that time.

But at five week a seizure and no stimuli would revive as my daughter and her husband raced four miles to the emergency room. Days at the hospital and multiple tests and now after a seizure his heart stopped, once, twice and the third time.

I'm sitting in my living room having kept an engagement I could not cancel (the show must go on) and suddenly I saw and knew and said to my wife, who was a Baptist of not particularly enlightened spiritual understanding, “I've got to get to the hospital immediately. Please drive me, Mac is dying.” No phone call, the doctors were in with my daughter telling her and her husband there was nothing else they could do, that it was cruel to shock the infant back from the dead and that they needed to let him go, that he had terribly brain damaged and could not survive and each time they shock him it was just needless suffering. As they wept bitterly the doctor say, “Sometimes, infants just die.”


They signed the “do not resuscitate order” and I arrived just after the doctors left. When I walked in they flooded me with the afternoon's horrors and what the doctors had said. I said, “I will heal this child . . .” WHAT? Yes that's what I said – not God will heal, but “I” will heal him – why because Peter didn't say to the beggar by the gate. “Sir, if you can have faith, that is, unless your illness is some certain genetic disorders, I know that Jesus Christ will heal you.” NO. He said, “Such as I HAVE give I thee. In the name of Jesus Christ stand up and walk.” No one today talks about the beggar Jesus healed through Peter at the Gate of the Temple. Everyone talks about the man Peter healed. Jesus didn't say, “Greater things shall ye do – through me," but rather "after the Holy Spirit has come upon you, greater things shall YE do IN MY NAME.” We as Christians take humility to the stupid and debilitating conclusion when we do not grasp this.


I said, “I will heal this child on the condition that (1) you don't tell anyone, (2) you don't deny what you have seen, and (3) that when Mac is out of the hospital you will let me tell you how I did it.” My daughter was adopted and had shallow beliefs, her husband was a stubborn agnostic toward the atheist side, and both were living dissolute and chaotic lives, violence in the house and constant turmoil. They stood looking at me like I was insane. I said, “I'm not touching this infant without your permission and agreement.” Like being shocked awake they both said, “Of course do what you can do.” I saw my son-in-law glance with the look of condescension – in his grief he was being the big man and humoring his crazy father-in-law. I loved them both deeply and knew that what I was doing was primary to their future understanding. It was profound lesson time and the lesson began. I picked the infant up held him for a moment, never said a word. I handed him to his mother and said, “He will never have another seizure, and on top of that, I just saw him; he will be a very healthy even athletic young man. I know you don't have the faith to do it, but what you need to do is get up and walk out of this hospital right now.” My son-in-law of course quickly objected when my daughter showed signs of faith. “So here is the warning. The doctors will not understand what they are seeing, what the change has been; they will be challenged and they will do something to make it appear that they know what they are doing. That something has the potential to kill this child. Please be on guard and don't let them kill him with therapy.”

The next morning, no seizures, he is breathing fine. He is home from the hospital, still no seizures and breathing fine, but the doctors had put him on a powerful drug. His parents secretly thought the drug therapy was working – that in fact him surviving the night and day without the drug was luck and the drug was working – no miracle has occurred. Six weeks later he turned blue, barely breathing; at the emergency room they discovered drug toxicity that was killing him. They did the quick detox of the blood and saved his life. In examination at in the hospital the new doctors could not understand why he was on the drug, since he was perfectly healthy. And they explained to them that they had almost killed their son with the drug (just as I had warned them.)

Fast forward, from that night that “I” said so, never another seizure, Mac grew normally, with much higher than average mental acuity, is a talented musician, firefighter (top of his glass) and homeland security (top of his glass). He is in his twenties and when I told him the story of his first few months of life, he looked at me like I was kook. Why? Because his parents knew better than to break their word, they had sworn to tell no one.

A few months after the “miracle” they approached me and wanted to know “what” “how”? I said, “My faith in Jesus Christ is real. I literally breathed LIFE into Mac. It was and always is Jesus standing in my shoes when I manage to do any good thing because on my own I would be a terribly evil man. Religious people know all about their religion, which for the most part they use to condemn sinners like you and me, but Jesus gives us power to move mountains. You will never be able to forget this fact from now own. Every time you look at this child, you will know that Jesus visited him, restored him and all you have to do learn to come to this faith is pray, 'Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, Have mercy on me a sinner.'”




Shame on you William XXXX for arrogating to your limited human understanding the miracles for which God is able. Yes, there is great wisdom in what you say, "IN GOD'S WILL" as long as that "in God's will" isn't the usual mantra of disbelief it most times is, an actual taking of the Name of the Lord in Vain, using it to cover our unbelief. Rather we say, "Lord I believe, help my unbelief."