I greatly value divine healing.  Jesus died to heal every single sickness, disease, pain, infirmity, and problem in our bodies, so it is important that we can live and experience that work He already purchased for us 2000 years ago.  There are a variety of hindrances that can slow down the process of receiving divine healing, and ways we can work with them to accelerate our healing, which I discuss in a blog series titled Divine Healing That Works, which I eventually plan to turn into a book.  Nevertheless, I believe it is important to not only know how to pray for healing, but how see results in the moment, and you can do this by testing your healing.

I should clarify before going further that healing in scripture, or at least in the New Testament, tends to refer to a gradual process of ongoing healing.  Because of this, some people refer to instantaneous healings as miracles, but in either case it involves the body getting fixed, so is related to the subject of healing.  In reality, most healing is gradual, but gradual may simply be over the span of five minutes, not five weeks or five years.  As a result, testing our healing can be a vital part of the process of actually receiving the healing.

Many years ago I was a member of a Charismatic Church in State College, Pennsylvania, and one Sunday I came up to the front of the sanctuary for an altar call for healing, as I wore glasses and wanted my eyes healed.  A good friend prayed for me multiple times, and he had me look at the clock at the back of the room to test it out.  The first number of times there was no change, but as we continued to pray, persisting in prayer, my eyes began to gradually get better.  While they didn’t get completely healed that day, they did continue to improve for a period of time, to the point that legally I don’t need glasses to drive anymore, when I did prior.

A key part of that healing process, however, was testing out the healing.  After all, if you are expecting something to be fixed, how do you actually know it is fixed if you don’t try it out?  Certainly in the case of obvious issues like a visible injury testing wouldn’t be required, but most healing cannot be identified simply by appearance, which is where testing comes in.  Part of why this helps so much in apprehending divine healing is that testing it out actually engages faith.  Until an injury is tested, it is essentially a theoretical healing, that much like the conundrum of Schroedinger’s cat, may or may not exist.  Once you test it out, you can identify clearly whether you are or are not healed, and quite often people find they are indeed healed upon challenging the injury.

Testing accomplishes a few different things, actually.  First, it helps diagnose the situation.  Is the injury getting better, worse, or the same?  If worse, then it’s probably a demon and I need to cast it out.  If better, then God is healing them at that moment and I need to continue to pray and partner to complete the healing.  If nothing changes, then we need to pray to make it change.

Second, as mentioned before, testing the issue releases faith.  Multiple places in the New Testament we observe that it was when someone responded to the prayer of faith that their maladies were healed.  When we test it out, we are responding in faith, and the faith manifests the healing.

Third, testing the injury distracts the person receiving prayer.  This may sound strange, but it is incredibly helpful.  When someone is very focused on their problem, especially if it causes them pain, it is hard to get them to stop paying attention to their pain long enough to actually let it be healed and no longer painful.  When I distract them, that is oftentimes the moment when the healing manifests, and testing the injury is a fantastic way to get their focus off their pain.  It sounds strange to say that testing an injury takes their mind off of it, but it’s more that it shifts what they are focusing on.  Before challenging it, they are paying attention to the problem, whereas when testing it, they are now mentally looking for a solution.  While it will still surprise (and often shock) people when they discover they are in fact healed, the moment of testing makes them shift their thinking.  Sometimes, such as with a headache, I will have the person rate their pain from 0-10, I’ll pray, then have them turn their head side to side, and then I will ask them to rate their pain again.  The turning-the-head part honestly is just to distract them long enough for the healing to manifest, and it gives them an action to do in the meantime.  There is nothing special about turning your head side to side to get rid of a headache.  I just do it to make them shift their thinking, and when they re-evaluate, oftentimes it is either partway or entirely better.

Testing your healing sounds silly to the natural mind, but it incorporates practical, biblically sound spiritual principles that can be used time and time again to help encourage divine healing to manifest.  If you have difficulty getting results when praying for the sick, or if you want to take your healing ministry to the next level and aren’t already doing this, get people to test their healing where possible, and I honestly expect you will find that a larger percentage of people will walk away healed by the power and blood of Jesus Christ.