The Epileptic

The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met Him. Just then a man from the crowd cried out, "Teacher, I beg you to look at my son, because he is my only child. Often a spirit seizes him; suddenly he shrieks, and it throws him into convulsions until he foams at the mouth, wounding him, it hardly ever leaves him. I begged your disciples to drive it out, but they couldn't."

Jesus replied, "You unbelieving and rebellious generation! How long will I be with you and put up with you? Bring your son here."

As the boy was still approaching, the demon knocked him down and threw him into severe convulsions. But Jesus rebuked the unclean spirit, cured the boy, and gave him back to his father. And they were all astonished at the greatness of God. Luke 9:37-43

The disciples who had only just prior to this returned boasting how he demons were subject to them. In other gospels they ask Jesus why they could not cast the demon out and he tells them,  that this type only comes out through prayer and fasting.

I love to read the stories the sermons of Smith Wigglesworth, the great man of God in the early 1900s. Smith was a great believer of always staying 'in the spirit,' and operating out of the Holy Spirit. He tells many stories of times when he had gone to pray for various people and taken along those he would consider an unbeliever,mbecause they could not believe God for the miracle required but rather were aprehanded by what they saw.

Luke paints a desperate picture of this child who we would say had epilepsy. As a nurse I had dealings with people with epilepsy and as a youth leader we had a young man fall down on a camp we ran, in convulsions. Unfortunately we have been conditioned to think of all epilepsy as a medical condition and endeavour to treat it medically, often without success, or requiring radical surgery.

If we allow the world to condition us about diseases then we back off from praying for healing. After divorce I struggled with depression but refused medication. The doctors wanted to medicate me to control my symptoms, but I had to grieve and sometimes you just have to grieve. I had never had it before and planned on getting better.

We can so easily want to treat everything medically but sometimes, just sometimes when we dare to pray, we see a miracle. I have seen many and wang more.