It’s Sunday evening and my roommates and I have decided to huddle together in the living room to pray. At this point our prayers are still peppered with things that you might say are not too urgent — we’re still asking for clarity about our next steps, romantic prospects, Covid-19 — all these prayed for with the same fervor and acquiesced to with much head-bobbing and “amens”. Yes, the new virus is ravaging families around the world, but it’s not too close yet. There are some 300 cases in Massachusetts and maybe a thousand in New York but the idea that it might affect one of our loved ones is still somewhat distant. We’re reading Psalm 91, and at the sound of “A thousand may fall at your side, ten thousand at your right hand, but it will not come near you”, I feel a familiar clench inside my stomach. I have a doubt that this means what we want it to mean. I doubt it means that Christians are not going to die from the virus, or that the families of some who’ve lost their lives didn’t pray fervently for their healing.

It’s no secret that Christians suffer. We suffer because we live in a fallen world and this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone. I believe this wholeheartedly and yet, I find that during this difficult difficult difficult time, I’m becoming increasingly disappointed with the fact that the message that many of my “spiritual crushes” are preaching is just this and nothing else. From all angles people are being exhorted to suffer well, to not be surprised when they get sick or lose loved ones, to rest in the knowledge that God is at work in this. This is good, encouraging even, but I’m not altogether satisfied with it because I also want to hear them talking about healing. Crazy miraculous healing, the kind that happen in Acts and Matthew and John and in the whole Bible.

I know that my flesh likes to feign Holiness at times to justify my earthly/fleshly inclinations — apathy disguised as a love for the “higher things”, unfounded disdain for people explained away as a “discernment issue”, fear mistaken for humility. So I’m rightly afraid that this might be another one of those instances where my flesh is reacting and I’m just not seeing clearly. Maybe I just want to believe in the God who heals and not the one who subjected his perfect son to a shameful death on the cross, good though he is.

In college, my friends and I prayed for a man who asked us for money at the corner of the road. We surrounded him and laid hands on him and I said to him at the end “The Spirit that rose Jesus Christ from the grave now lives in you.” I guess I expected his eyes to light up and maybe invisible shivers did travel down his spine, but he didn’t look moved by this. Four years have passed and I’m realizing that this thought is not just difficult for new believers to wrap their minds around, it’s difficult for everyone. It’s never easy to suffer well, but it might be harder for some of us to believe that God is still working miracles through his children today.

I’m reading Acts right now and Peter is healing people — he prayed and asked Tabitha to come back to life and she did, he’s asked a couple of people to get up and walk and they have. Peter was an Apostle, yes, he dipped his morsel of bread in the same wine Jesus did, he’s a witness of the life, death and resurrection of Jesus — but the power that worked in him is the same power that lives in all of us who believe. So at the risk of sounding like a “Charismaniac”, why are we not praying crazy prayers and believing God to work wonders through the church at this time?

I posed this question a week earlier when I was writing this. In the span of a week, I’ve realized that I am in fact surrounded by people who are praying crazy prayers. People who are praying a lot more than I am, and in asking myself why I’m not praying as hard as they are, I’m realizing that I’m scared. I’m scared that I don’t have the stamina to pray the kind of prayers that I imagine actually heals people — passionate and frantic and wordy prayers, throat parching, tear-filled, hungry prayers. I’ve believed a lie that I think many people are believing at a time when we’re supposed to be praying harder than ever, and it’s sad.

I’ve prayed many sloppy prayers in my lifetime, all of which God has endured. Terribly repetitive and boring ones. And I’ve seen Him answer my sloppy prayers in delightful and marvelous ways. So I guess my exhortation to you as you’re reading this — maybe still in the fog of this pandemic, or maybe in the next couple of days or years when it’s all declared over, is to pray. Pray in whatever language you can, pray zealous and unzealous prayers, pray, pray, pray and ask for the Holy Spirit to help you. Ask him to heal those who are sick and to allow you to mourn fully with those who are mourning. Ask him to help your unbelief.