Faith, Medicine and the Power of God

While Ingrid and I have had some measure of success in learning how to effectively heal the sick, we've found that the hardest person to minister healing to is often ourselves. Here's a recent story that illustrates this, and how an integrated approach that combines faith, medical knowledge and the Holy Spirit can effectively result in the person's condition being healed.

For several months I had been experiencing high-pitched pulsating tinnitus. Repeated attempts at praying for my condition resulted in no improvement. Then about a month ago my right ear started blocking up at night. I assumed it was wax buildup, but when I used a flashlight and combination of mirrors to look into my ear canal, I couldn't see much wax. So I assumed it was an impaction where the wax goes deep into the ear canal right up against the eardrum.

I've had this problem before a few times in my life and had to have my ears irrigated by my doctor. Unfortunately our doctor retired recently and we haven't been able to find another we've felt confident with. Our health care system here in Canada has deteriorated in recent years, and our province Manitoba has the poorest healthcare in the country. Just like with any other profession, good doctors (skilled in medicine and having a good heart) are usually hard to come by. This was true during Biblical times (see Mark 5:26) and Paul could be considered blessed that he had a good one accompanying him (Colossians 4:14). 

So I decided to try performing ear irrigation on myself. I should mention at this point by way of disclaimer that I am not trying to offer any kind of medical advice here, I'm simply relating a personal story.

I began by searching for how-to articles about this online, and just as good doctors can be hard to find, good information concerning medical procedures is also difficult to find. There's so much poor, and even bad, medical advice on the Internet. Fortunately I finally came across this article whose target audience is medical professionals, and having a science background myself (Physics) I felt the advice in the article was trustworthy. Then together with Ingrid we reviewed a number of online videos about earwax removal, and after weeding out a lot of junk we came across this video that has helpful information on preparing your ears for irrigation.

I bought some mineral oil and a 60 ml plastic syringe with a 16 gauge catheter attached from Amazon. Then after using the oil to soften the wax and with Ingrid's help, I tried to flush the impacted wax out of my ear. No wax seemed to be expelled, but for a few moments I could hear Ingrid's voice very loud and clear. After trying several more attempts, we decided to stop and pray for awhile. Remembering how Jesus put his fingers into the ears of the deaf man (Mark 7:33) Ingrid decided to try this as she prayed, but nothing seemed to happen, so we decided to try again tomorrow.

The next day turned out to be a busy one, so I decided to wait another day before trying again. But that evening Ingrid said, "Let me pray for you again." So she put her fingers into my ears and then suddenly burst out with these words: "Open up! Open up! Let the living waters flow!" I recognized that this was a word of knowledge she had received from the Holy Spirit. Many years ago at the very first Vineyard conference we attended, Ingrid received a gift (or anointing) for healing during ministry time. Her words caused faith to rise up in me, but no healing occurred at that time.

The next morning I put a good amount of mineral oil into my ear and left it there for 15 minutes to try to really soften up the wax. Then we went into the bathroom again and I tried flushing out the wax. After half a dozen attempts a tiny bit of wax was expelled, but unfortunately now my ear was completely blocked and I couldn't hear a thing!

Argh, I thought, I've probably just pushed the softened wax deeper right up against the eardrum.

That afternoon, discouraged and half-deaf, I began searching online for otolaryngologists in Winnipeg. After doing this for awhile, I decided to review some of the promises God had given us in the Psalms over the years. As I was reading a Psalm however, some words Jesus spoke to Jarius in Luke 8:50 suddenly came to mind: "Do not fear, only believe." The story of the healing of Jairus’s daughter in Luke 8:40-56 is a good example of what can happen when we start to pray for someone sick: instead of things improving, things suddenly get worse!

I realized from these words that the Holy Spirit was encouraging me to continue the treatment I was doing, so after supper I went to the bathroom, carefully put the catheter end of the syringe into my ear in the direction specified in the NIH article linked to above, and began applying moderate pressure to the syringe to squirt a steady flow of body-temperature water at moderate pressure. I looked into the mirror after this and saw a huge gob of brownish-black gunk hanging from the edge of my ear canal. "IIIINNNGRID come and see what happened, the wax came out!" I shouted up the stairwell. Ingrid rushed down and we stared at the gunk after removing it with a kleenex. "Hooray, thank you Lord!" we said excitedly.

Using mirrors and a flashlight, I then saw that there was still more brownish-black gunk in my ear canal, so we decided to irrigate a second time and an equally hideous lump of gunk came out of my ear. And suddenly I could hear everything LOUD AND CLEAR. We used mirrors to look one more time into my ear canal and no more wax was visible. Since then, my hearing has been perfect, and my tinnitus has much subsided.

The lesson here is that our goal in healing the sick, which is to bring glory to God by extending his mercy to others (and also to ourselves) doesn't depend on the manner in which it's done. It's quite OK, and Biblical, to use a combination of faith, medical knowledge, and expressions of the power of God.

Be blessed, and be healed :-)

--Mitch