Overextended Faith
I have shocked people sometimes by NOT being willing to pray for certain things or command certain things to happen, but people could save themselves some embarrassment by declining to pray in some cases.
If wildfires break out in California and someone asks me to command them to stop and be put out in the name of Jesus, I’m going to turn that down unless the “gift of faith” is in operation, and I’d know it if that were the case. If a hurricane is headed for Florida and someone asks me to command it to turn out to sea, chances are that I’m going to turn that down, too.
The problem is that if you “go in over your head” on some of these things, two things will happen. One is that other people will lose confidence in you when what you speak doesn’t happen. The second is that YOU will lose confidence in what you say!
It’s better to be honest and just admit that you don’t feel that you are in a position to do whatever it is by your faith than to yield to pressure because someone puts you on the spot to pray. Believe me, people WILL do that. But how many wildfires in California and hurricanes in Florida have disappeared into thin air because one great man of power for the hour prayed? I don’t know of a single case, and I’ve been around a while. I know plenty of cases where a Christian leader prayed to no effect, though one can anticipate the rationalizations. “So what if it hit as Category 4 storm that just about wiped whole towns off the map? If I hadn’t prayed, it could have been a Category 5 storm that wrecked even more towns. So what if the California wildfire killed people and cost billions? If hadn’t prayed, it could have killed even more people and cost even more billions.” That kind of dancing around will only further undermine your confidence in your prayers and others’ confidence in them as well, and make you look silly in front of critics who don’t appreciate faith preaching.
How do you know if you should really speak to something like that? If you REALLY are in faith, you are willing to declare in front of everyone PUBLICLY that you are having what you say. You’re putting your ministerial reputation on the line and they can all hold you accountable if you’re wrong. I ONCE publicly contradicted the National Hurricane Center in Miami, which said that a storm was going to score a direct hit on the island where I was doing a healing crusade. I told everyone that the storm was NOT going to hit and that the meetings would go on as scheduled, despite the urging from the Hurricane Center for everyone to hunker down in their homes for the next day or two. The storm made an abrupt turn and did NOT hit that island at all and the meetings went on as scheduled. But I had to say what I said before there was any indication that the storm was turning. If I can’t have that kind of confidence, I’m not going to say or pray anything to give people the idea that I’m stopping some natural disaster.
Worse yet was the idea that a certain large church came up with to pray to stop earthquakes when many were being reported. Jesus said that there would be earthquakes in the last days (Matthew 24:7), so no amount of prayer is going to turn His words into lies!
I think many of us would like to make a private faith declaration in front of friends, and if something happens, we have witnesses who can vouch for what we said, but if nothing changes, at least we didn’t’ get egg on our faces publicly. Real faith doesn’t have to “hedge” like that. The temptation is to make some kind of statement out of “overextended faith” when we know in our hearts that we really aren’t in tell-everyone-about-it know-so faith, which is the only kind of REAL faith that there is.
I had a woman come up who wanted all new teeth put into her mouth on the spot. I declined that one, because that just wasn’t where I was in faith. If it were, I’d have believed to fix some of my own teeth! I’d rather decline to pray than to command it to happen and then have nothing happen. There’s no shame in admitting that you aren’t the world’s biggest Superman of Faith. Some of our biggest miracles happen when the “gift of faith” is in operation, and people sometimes assume that because you did something once (when that gift was operating), you can do the same thing again, anytime, anywhere. But that isn’t how it works. I’d rather just be up front with people than to overextend my faith. I’d rather walk in the faith that I’m comfortable walking in, at least knowing that if I DO say something, that IS what is going to happen!
And by the way, I knew a man who had someone come up in one of his crusades who wanted some new teeth where they were missing, and God put new teeth into him on the spot! So I’m not suggesting that we limit an omnipotent God. If you’re comfortable believing in such a case, go for it! But I don’t think that most of us would be in real faith at that point. We all have room to grow!
The flip side is that if we are always introspective, wondering if we have enough faith, we’ll probably never believe for anything. You can certainly get into a ditch on the other side of the road on this one.
At this point, I would probably be willing to pray for just about anything related to healing, but averting widespread natural disasters without the gift of faith in operation would still be over my head, and at least I recognize that. I would be in good company, as in the book of Acts, when Agabus predicted a famine, they made natural preparations for it rather than holding prayer meetings to command the famine to not happen.
Acts 11:28-30:
And there stood up one of them named Agabus, and signified by the Spirit that there should be great dearth throughout all the world: which came to pass in the days of Claudius Caesar.
Then the disciples, every man according to his ability, determined to send relief unto the brethren which dwelt in Judaea:
Which also they did, and sent it to the elders by the hands of Barnabas and Saul.
Even in the Old Testament, Joseph didn’t cancel or prevent the famine in Egypt; he simply made plans in advance to deal with it when it came.
Having said that, Jesus stilled a localized storm that threatened the lives of Him and His disciples. There are many testimonies of such things even today. My mentor had a tornado head straight for his house in Texas. He commanded it to go back up, and it did, causing no damage to his house. My wife has rebuked storms too and she has had better success with that than I have so far, stopping dangerous blizzard conditions around her and successfully commanding wind to stop abruptly when the wind was causing a ferry she needed to take to be delayed. However, neither case was a prolonged global event. Given that we don’t see any global disasters prevented in Scripture (though many are promised as judgment in Revelation!), I wouldn’t consider myself to have Bible precedent to stop one.
Let me give a real example of what I considered overextended faith. A woman at the church I was going to had started to understand the fact that she could have what she said. She declared with great excitement in front of a lot of people that she was believing God for one billion dollars. One certainly couldn’t accuse her of limiting God with small thinking. However, I happened to know that she was having difficulty paying her monthly rent, which was only several hundred dollars at the time. Unfortunately, the billion dollars did not materialize and I don’t know if that month’s rent money even materialized. If you aren’t believing for a few hundred dollars, you won’t convince me that you can believe for a billion dollars.
I am not saying that we shouldn’t dare to believe for big things! It is still true that with God, all things are possible if you can believe (Mark 9:23). But that doesn’t mean that you’re ready to run a ministry that needs a million dollars a day if you have yet to take in a million dollars in your entire life. Some things you have to grow into because otherwise you’d be in over your head.
Does your faith have to get "big" so that you can get better results? No, even mustard-seed-sized faith can move a mountain, so that isn't the issue. The issue is what you can believe for without your mind and your flesh shutting you down. As you grow in your faith walk, your mind and flesh will get in the way less and you will see more results.
It used to rattle me if a case of deafness or stage 4 cancer was in front of me, but I have no qualms about ministering to people who have those conditions today because I’ve seen so many such cases healed. Faith is not a physical muscle, but it can be like one in that it will become stronger the more you use it or weaker the less you use it. What used to seem like something that would overextend my faith is today something that isn’t an issue. As you grow in the Lord, that should be your experience too.