It was November 2014 in Nigeria. I was instructing in a church located in a city in a South-West state when this beautiful young woman approached me after the session. She was all smiles; beaming with effulgence and radiating with refulgence as she held on to her equally beautiful six-year-old daughter. I thought she wanted to tell me she had won the US Visa Lottery and seeking a sponsor. I have met and helped a few in times past. But her story was uniquely different. She wanted me to hold her hands in a prayer of agreement. Readers, for the purpose of this treatise, I’ll call her Ann.
Ann told me that she had an X-Ray done about a year earlier which revealed a benign tumour in one of her body organs. She had prayed and fasted for the tumour to disappear. According to her, the pain that usually accompanied the tumour later completely vanished after a series of prayers. She believed that God had healed her. I have heard similar testimonies about how God performed such a miracle on very many people all around the world. I wasn’t hearing this for the first time.
I asked Ann if she had scheduled a follow-up examination to determine how much the tumour had shrunk. She was emphatic with her response: “God has healed me. I just want you to agree with me, Sir, that the healing will be complete”. But God does not heal half-way! I immediately prayed with her. With sufficient medical experience in the area of her ailment, I did a quick assessment by asking some few questions. Her description of the fast-changing integrity of the organ got me to believe that my sister might be heading into a serious trouble.
I have come across many believers in my ministry work who fervently pray but refuse to watch as Jesus instructed. I have met many who became snobbish if you require them to match wisdom while believing God. I have had some who would ask; “Sir, where is your faith?” just because I encouraged them to take practical steps in addition to prayers about sicknesses ravaging their bodies. Ann was one of such beings.
I have thus learnt to tread softly while satisfying my conscience that I have covered all bases regarding what I am supposed to say and do as a Christian responding to a personal matter such as this. Yes; I have a deep belief and conviction about the efficacy of prayer. I am also a trained behavioral scientist and a journalist. I know when human beings are in denials; and I know when they are in projections. With my minimal expertise, when a spade is a spade, it serves right to call it so.
I prayed with Ann, laid hands on her, spoke in tongues, and anointed her with oil. I was relieved in my spirit. What a precious sister! Before the eyes of family members and friends, she was fast slipping into ugly physical emaciation process because of the dreaded disease. At some point, I got blunt and kind of commanding in love that she had to see the doctor for a second opinion. Ann snapped! “Pastor, I have done all of that; I don’t need any doctor’s opinion, I just want you to agree with me releasing the Word of complete healing”. But the choleric me wouldn’t let go; “My sister, we have prayed to God on this matter; and I believe He has answered. Don’t you think that we need wisdom with our prayers too?” She insisted that was all she was willing to do. I then wondered why she came to me in the first place for counsel.
After the discussion, I told the pastor about the conversation I had with Ann. He told me that the same counsel had been offered her a couple of times. I later learnt that before she came to this present church, she grew up in one where it was taught that a visit to the doctor is an abhorrence, and the use of medication is an affront on, and sin against the Majesty and Goodness of God.
I believe that a man’s faith in anyone or anything is a personal issue. I do not sit in authority to dictate to anybody what or who to believe. I am unmistakable about what my belief is. If life without medicinal intervention works for you, keep on working it. But you better be sure you are not living a lie based on wacko indoctrination and blatant brainwashing. Truth, when it comes to bodily sicknesses and ailments, is not subjective! If technology helps pick up tumour in a body three times in three different opinions; it is nothing but tumour which may grow malignant.
God is dynamic in his approach to healing. Healing comes to some one way; and to others another. But to think that doctors and medications don’t have a place in our world is to be weird and warped in mindset. There’s got to be a reason why God gave men ability to invent medicine. There’s got to be a reason why God gave men wisdom to train and be trained as doctors and pharmacists. There’s a reason why God gave men and women the wisdom to almost faultlessly research disease entities and accurately come up with remedies.
These inventions and discoveries are scheduled to be applied here on earth and not to remain mere reservoirs for use only when we get to heaven. Discoveries in cures and medicinal inventions are not made to work in a vacuum! Check-ups and follow-ups on tests and results make Godly sense. If you are ill in your body, go check out why. When you are told why; follow the instructions that your trusted doctor has given you. If God gets angry with you for doing this, tell Him when you talk to Him and quote; “It’s not my fault, it was Fola Ojo who made me do it”. Before God of heaven, I will defend myself.
What about Sister Ann? I visited Nigeria last June and I ran into the church’s pastor who has now been transferred to another assembly in Lagos. I asked after my beautiful sister Ann. “It’s a long story, Pastor…I was transferred in August. She led the Praise and Worship session during my send-off service. She was fine when I left…” I was told that Ann continued to refuse seeking a second opinion while she sought prayers from many groups and visiting ministers of God. She was losing weight, but she felt no pain. Her family later forced her to go see a doctor in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital. She died in the hospital one day before Christmas.
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