Can I Ask God to Heal My Boo-Boos?

But what you might find is you might find that you keep on routinely bringing certain kinds of requests to God, and he keeps on not answering them. So like the football game kind of thing, like if you're on that losing team.

You're like, oh, you're 0 and 11, man.

You're 0 and 11. I prayed every week.

So at some point it may dawn on you that….

The other team was praying harder.

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Welcome to Bible Bash, where we aim to equip the saints for the works of ministry by answering the questions you're not allowed to ask. We're your hosts, Harrison Kerrig and Pastor Tim Mullett, and today we'll answer the age-old question, Can I ask God to heal all my boo-boos?

And I managed to make it all the way through that intro without laughing. Tim, to pull the curtain back a little bit, when we came up with that question, Tim and I were wondering if I was going to just bust out laughing whenever I mentioned the question.

Because believe it or not, I have had that happen a few different times as we've been recording episodes over the years, and I managed to just keep control of myself right until the end there. And then I gave a quick little laugh, a quick little chuckle right at the end there.

But I want to laugh at it because it's a funny way to word the question, you know, Can I ask God to heal all my boo-boos? So, Tim, with this question, it seems like so you ran a poll on this, didn't you?

What was because I have a certain response to this question, but then I want to know, what were the options people could pick from with this question, with this poll that you ran? And then what was sort of the consensus that people came to?

Can I ask God to heal all my boo-boos? What was the consensus they had?

So, originally I did a poll on prayer requests for Colts, so we can talk about this too, but prayer requests for Colts. And basically I was asking, is it okay to ask for prayer on social media to get better for common illnesses, which objectively have very little chance of killing us?

So I was asking about Colts, like is it okay to pray for Colts on social media? Or is there anything weird about that? And so then the responses are yes, why not? And then no, probably not. And then maybe what's the motive?

And then my typical I'm too afraid to answer kind of option. But then 68 basically said yes, it's fine to pray for Colts. Ask for prayer for Colts on social media.

Okay.

So I was kind of surprised that it was that high that people thought. So I thought, all right, well, I'm going to try to change it just to think about the most trivial thing I could possibly hear.

Like the thing that probably no one even prays for.

I was trying to come up with something that I could gain some kind of consensus on, like this is obviously over the top. Like that's what I was trying to do. So then I worded it. Is it weird to pray for God to heal the three tiny scratches on your child's knee, which they got when they scraped it on the ground?

Do people actually pray that? Do people actually pray in this?

I think the problem. So I asked that and it was even worse. It was even worse. So option number one was yes, it's immature. That was only 10%. And then no, nothing is too trivial. That was 76 .6%.

All right.

So 76 .6 said that it's not weird. Like it's not weird. Nothing's too trivial. Like it's not weird to ask God to heal the three tiny scratches on your child's knee. And then most people, like when they responded, I got like 31 comments on this.

So I got a lot of comments. And, I mean, that poll praying for boo-boos, it got 385 votes on it over against my other one. But most people, like they basically latched onto this nothing's too trivial idea and talking about the importance of teaching their kids to pray kind of thing.

And, you know, a lot of them like this. I do think that people do this kind of thing.

What do you mean?

What thing?

Like pray that way?

Pray for the three scrapes?

So routinely, like I think this is kind of like a feminine impulse, right? Like I think it's more like a feminine kind of impulse. Like the, you know, like those tiny scrapes, those three tiny scrapes, they may not be significant to you, but they're significant to the child.

And so we should like then there's this idea that you should take anything, you know, no matter how trivial or insignificant to God.

Right.

So take your request, period.

Right.

So take your request, period, to God, no matter how trivial, no matter how insignificant. And a lot of people, what they really heard then was, which is not what I intended at all with this line of question or this line of thinking.

But what they heard was like to not take it to God would somehow be communicating that God is like, you know, he's trying to answer all these phone calls and he's just really busy and he can't quite get to them all.

So I don't want to bother him.

The Bruce Almighty. Like I have over a million email prayer requests. Just yes to all of them.

Yeah.

I can't keep track of it all.

I can't read all this. Just yes.

Flat.

So if you wouldn't.

So like the idea in their minds was like, if you wouldn't bring it to God, it was like, because you're viewing him like that.

Right.

But then, you know, in my mind, it's just like, it has nothing to do with that.

Okay.

Like why you would why you would bring in a request to God or why you wouldn't bring a request to God. It has nothing to do with him being too busy or him being too occupied or it being too trivial or anything like that.

Like the whole point is like in the Bible, there is actually a type of prayer that is off limits to God. Like so that you have a theology of praying. And then you have like kinds of prayers that God in his word tells you that he's not going to answer.

Okay.

So like James four talks about these kind of prayers that he's not going to answer. So, you know, James four one, what causes quarrels and fights among you? Is it not this your passions are at war within you, you desire and do not have.

So you murder you covet and cannot obtain. So you fight and quarrel. And then it says you do not have, because you do not ask and you ask and you do not receive because you asked wrongly to spend it on your passions.

And so in my mind, there's just this category of asking wrongly to spend it on your passions. And I think what we often do is we're often training kids to ask wrongly. So what you do is you train kids to ask for like very self-centered prayers that have nothing to do with, you know, my kingdom come, my will be done kind of prayer.

So they're just not prayers that are according to the will of God. And so you train your kids to do that from an early age. And what happens is once they get to be teenagers, they basically get to a point where they've been praying the self-centered me focused me agenda kind of prayers their whole life.

And they realize that God just doesn't answer any of them. And then they just kind of throw their hands up in the air and say, Hey, what's the point? And so in my mind, like praying for those three tiny scratches on the, on your kid's knee is like, it was just an obvious example of you asked wrongly to spend it on your passions kind of prayer.

But then the remarkable thing to me was that like, you know, that wasn't obvious to most people. Okay. Like they doubled down on it. They tripled down on it. Like that was perfectly fine. That was perfectly acceptable kind of prayer in their minds.

So what, so what is the, I mean, what is the reasoning for the praying for the three boo-boos from, from the other side? You know, like, what is the, is there like some sort of biblical, you know,. Oh, well, here's why, here's the explanation for why, while, you know, because I think I can imagine some people saying, you know, Hey, yeah.

Like praying for the, praying for the three scratches or the three scrapes on my kid's knee. Sure. Maybe it's not like the most pressing thing, but then I'm still going to pray for it because, because nothing's too trivial for God or whatever.

So, so what is, I mean, was there some sort of like biblical reasoning given there?

The biblical reasoning is the nothing's too trivial part. That's kind of the thing that people kept on saying over and over again. So nothing's too trivial. Right. Sure. So, you know, in all your ways, this got brought up a few times in all your ways, acknowledge him, and he'll direct your path.

So like what you need to be doing is like praying without ceasing, you know, that would be another line of thinking that people are taking. So you pray without ceasing and then, you know, like, if you ask anything according to the will of God, you know, like you can, so in their mind, like there's this idea of asking, like you can, I think in most people's minds, like, you can basically ask for anything you want so long as you have the right motive, basically.

Okay. So like, that's the idea. You can basically ask for anything you want so long as you're, you have the right motive. But then what I'm trying to, you know, what, what I've noticed with prayers in general, with people, like whether you're talking about in churches or online, is that the vast majority, I mean, everyone knows this, like the vast majority of prayers that people make are prayers that are entirely kind of self-focused.

And if, you know, you're not really allowed to comment on it, but, you know, I made another post about this and, you know, this got some attention on it because people know what you're talking about. They just, I think people just don't have really a good theology of prayer in general.

They don't really know what they're supposed to be doing. So like the post I made was like, have you ever gone to a church prayer meeting where the majority of the prayer requests were the typical, my neighbor's, my neighbor's second cousin's dog's friend found out that they had strep throat kind of prayers, right?

The neighbor's second cousin's dog's friend.

And you know, and you had the impolite thought. You had the impolite thought that something feels off here. Right. And you know, and so this is, I mean, this is, this is really a huge problem and I think it starts with praying for the boo-boos kind of thing.

Okay. So like, meaning, like, I think if you teach your kid that basically they can pray whatever they want to pray, so long as they add, if it's your will on the end of it, that what ends up happening is like they, I mean, routinely people they just pray about the physical, right?

So they pray about the physical, they pray about like, you know, health, safety, comfort, you know that we're well, well, well rested, you know, all that like that. So like the bulk of what they're doing is they're praying these prosperity prayers when they're little kids.

And then when they get older, they just, you know, basically they're just taking whatever desires they have, bringing them to God and say, Hey, do it. Right. If it's your will, you know, if it's your will do it.

And then when they get older, like that, like they've learned to pray for very superficial things. Like most of it's just entirely physical, but then like what people hear, then they hear that like, there's some sort of like reaction that's being had to praying for the material playing for the earthly praying for the whatever.

And it's like, none of that's really the point. Okay. So here's, here's the point. Like here's the point Jesus in his, like when the disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he taught them to pray. Like our father, who is art in heaven, hallowed be your name, right?

Your kingdom come, your will be done on earth as is in heaven. And so when you think about the Lord's prayer, there's an agenda that should drive all of Christian prayer. Okay. So there's an agenda that should drive it.

And that agenda is God's kingdom coming and God's will being done. And then when you're thinking about the nature of how you even pray or how to even approach God in that way, what you're doing is you're trying to pray according to God's will.

And if you're praying according to God's will, then that changes even the things that you ask for. Okay. If you, okay. So like, if you think about the boo-boo thing for a second, what is God's will for boo-boos?

What do you think?

That he would, I guess, sanctify you through that stuff. I mean, I mean, it sounds like a little three boo-boos, you know, like if you're 30, I don't know how, I don't know. Hopefully getting us, hopefully getting three scrapes on your knee is not a sanctifying experience for you at this point.

It could be, but you know, maybe, maybe you're like,.

For the kid, right. Yeah.

Maybe you're like a little kid and you put your faith and trust in Christ. Then sure. Perhaps that's a sanctifying experience for you. All right.

So, but think about it. Right. So like a kid, so God decided pain to be a part of the world. So pain is part of the plan. So don't, you know, Jesus says, don't think I come to bring peace. I haven't come to bring peace, but a sword, like you're destined for trip, you know, afflictions, like afflictions are a part of life.

Pain's a part of life. Pain is part of the fallen human condition. And so like, you think about your child, like your child scrapes their knee on the ground. They don't like it. Right. Right. So what is this like a, like an unsanctified child wanted that moment the pain pain to stop.

Right. They want relief. They give me relief. That's what they want. Like fix it. Right. And so, but then if you're to sit there and say, okay, well, whatever you want to take to God, you take to God.

Right. Without any checks. Right. So there's no like check of asking wrongly. There's no check of trying to make sure this is according to God's will. Right. Because theoretically anything can be according to God's will.

Like you don't know. So, but then the issue is like, you know that he's designed the body to be self healing. Right. So you know that that scratch is gonna, those three tiny little scratches, they're going to be healed in about two or three days.

Right. Maybe even quicker. Right. Yeah. Right. So now if you're asking a child, like if you're trying to inculcate faith in this child, right. To help them to grow their faith and the way you do that is asking like God to do a divine miracle and stop that pain right now.

Right. Yeah. That's what you're doing. You're asking for it. Like God doesn't really like if you know his will, you know, his will is to like, he's already made your body. It's going to heal itself. Right.

Sure. Like it's going to heal itself. Like you don't need a divine miracle right now to stop it. What you actually need to do is learn to suffer well. Right. So the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, meekness, kindness, faithfulness, self-control.

So right now this is an opportunity for you to learn long suffering. Right. This is an opportunity for you to learn patience. This is opportunity for you to trust the Lord that he knows what he knows that you're going through pain.

He has a purpose in it. He doesn't want you to like, he doesn't want you to respond to everyone and anger and fear and irritability. Like this is a moment for like a parent to really step in and say, to teach them about life.

You know what I'm saying? To teach them about life, about God, about his plans for the world, about his plans for you. And what like, you know, 77 of the people on my poll said was that this was an opportunity to basically teach this kid to like, ignore everything they know about God's will and pray for a miracle.

Right.

Do you see what I'm saying?

I mean, I hesitate to even call it a miracle because it's so insignificant.

But why I'm calling it a miracle.

Yeah, I understand because it's not like the normal.

Well, it's violating the laws of nature.

Right. Right. Yeah.

Right. So like I said, technically it is the definition of a miracle. Like to instantaneously heal those three scratches.

It just feels like the most inconsequential miracle ever.

So the reason why.

Jesus wasn't going around in his public ministry. Healing, healing scraped knees.

All right.

I mean, but that gets that like this. And that's what gets at this. Like I was trying to come up with the most like silly, absurd example that you can possibly think of, but it didn't work. Right. It didn't work.

And so, but, but if you think about what's actually happening, you are asking God to do a divine miracle to heal these three scratches just for the sake of getting your kid to stop crying. Right. When this was like a parenting moment, like this is a parenting moment to teach them about like theology.

This is, I mean, this is a moment to teach them about God, about his purposes in the world. Why is he had pain? This is like a profound moment that you can take advantage of to teach him how to pray for the right things.

Right. Right. But then what, what happens is like what people come away with is like, just ask God for all the self-centered, selfish things you want to ask him for. So long as you add Lord willing at the end.

Right. So then, you know, like they get older and it's like, Hey, can you pray? Like every time they're sick, Lord, you know, take it away, you know, help me get better, you know, help me get the girl I want.

Right. So I want the prettiest looking girl in the school to go on a date with me. So can you arrange that if it's your will?

Yeah.

So, I mean, but then people, they shamelessly say that kind of thing. Right. So like, just, you know, I want to get all A's on my test. Right. So Lord, can you help me get A's on all my tests? If it's your will.

Right. Help me win the high school football championship. Right. If it's your will. Right. So now, I mean, like the reason why it's all absurd is because like, if it's your will, it's not some magical phrase you add onto your selfish request in order to cover your basis.

Right. Like what you actually need to do is think, what is God's will and his will for your life. Isn't just that you're the best at everything and that you get everything you want. Like his will is actually to make you more like him and to advance his kingdom.

And if you want to pray intelligently, the way that you pray actually intelligently is to learn like, what is God's will. And let me pray for the means to accomplish that in the world. Right. And so the more that you're doing that, the more you can pray confidently.

Right. I mean, I, you know, you think about like, think about like an absurd example of what we're talking about. Like Lord, I pray that you give me a Lamborghini. If it's your will.

Yeah. Lord, help me lose 50 pounds on the cake and candy only diet.

So,.

So what people need is they need like a category for asking wrongly. Okay.

Or, or even worse, you know, like Lord help, help me get a job as a stripper.

That would clearly.

Play. You've definitely at that point,.

No one should be able to argue now. No, but no. All right. You say that you say that like, as if it's a joke,.

I did because it is a joke. Not, not because it might be a joke because it is a joke.

You say, you say that as if it's a joke, but I've literally had like church members asking us to pray that their job at the bar would open up, you know,.

And they,.

That they would get a job like being a bartender. And they didn't know if they were good looking enough to get that, you know,.

But they,.

But that's what they're praying towards. Okay.

So like, this is not like people pray in that direction. So for sure.

Yeah. You know, so from my perspective, I, well, let, let me ask you this, Tim.

So.

You've, you've been, you've been talking about, you know, this idea. I mean, we've been talking about the, the scraped knee, right? Well, let's move, let's move to a slightly less ridiculous, ridiculous example, which would be like, you know, Hey, I've got, you know, strep throat or something like not, it's not dangerous to me.

It's not, it's just inconvenient. You know my throat hurts. Maybe my voice isn't really what it, what it, what, what it normally is. It's, it's hard to talk right now. It's painful to talk. You know, are you saying, are you saying that the person who has strep throat would, you know, be praying a prayer, a selfish prayer by praying, Lord, will you heal me of this?

If it's your will, it could be, it could be, they could be. Okay. So, so what, what are the distinctions in your mind there?

So, I mean, the original poll I was asking would be, is it okay to, you know, ask social media to pray for your cold? Like, is it okay for social media to ask people on social media to pray for your cold?

You know, that you assume that the person's like healthy, like normal person, there's just a normal part of life. Is that okay? And so I think, yeah, I mean, obviously like, like part of this discussion, you know, I don't know if you want to take it this direction right now, but part of this is just like, how do you handle sickness in general?

And then part of it is just like, what does it mean to pray according to the will of God kind of thing? So like, I think, you know, obviously like God wants us to pray for physical things, as much as he wants us to pray for spiritual things.

Now I would say that if you read like the new Testament and you read the prayers of the saints and you read the old Testament and you read the things that they're praying for, like the vast majority of their prayers are very one-sided.

Okay.

What do you mean?

Well, I mean the vast majority of the prayers that New Testament saints are actually praying are for things that are very spiritual in nature. Okay.

Okay. Okay.

So like, I mean, for example, like Ephesians three is a good example of this. So Paul says, for this reason, I bow my knees before the father from whom every family in heaven and earth is named that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love may have strength to comprehend with all the saints.

What is the breadth and length and height and depth and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge that you may be filled with the fullness of God. And then he says, now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think, according to the power that is that work within him, to him be the glory of the church and Jesus Christ throughout all generations forever and ever and amen.

So, I mean, when you think about the kind of things that they're actually praying for in the Bible, it's very rarely the physical. Okay.

I just want to say I've never heard anyone ask for that on social media.

All right. Now they don't ask for it on social media, but they don't ask for it in prayer groups. Right. Right. Yeah. Like if you're at a church prayer meeting, like they're not going to like the 99 .9 of it is all going to be physical.

And I think if you were to ask that at a prayer meeting, everyone would probably look at you and think like, Oh, there, you know, like Jesus Duke over here, you're, you know, you're asking everyone to pray for sanctification.

Okay. You know, you're the, you're the super Christian, you know?

Well, that's been my experience. Like I don't know how to participate in these stupid prayer meetings myself. Like, and I'll call them. I don't really know how to participate because I don't like, like what most people think is like, and the reason why there's like they're scrambling in their mind to come up with the most, like the closest person they can think of that is sick.

Second cousins, dogs, friends, knee or whatever. Yeah.

I mean, that's what they're doing. And because they're just struggling to figure out like, you know, I'm not going to pray for anything like real, you know, I'm not going to pray for anything about me.

I'm not going to pray for anything spiritual. So they're just trying to figure out the closest person they know who's sick or whatever. So, so, but most like when I did that poll, like there's a lot of people who had the same kind of experience that you're talking about.

And what I've actually had in my life is to say that they feel profoundly unwelcome to bring up spiritual request and those kinds of situations anyways. Right. So, so now, I mean, you're asking for something like strep throat.

Well, what I'm trying to say is I don't, I don't see like an over abundance of examples in the Bible of anything like that. Okay. Yeah. Now, regardless of whether or not,.

Timothy has his whole stomach thing, Paul doesn't, Paul doesn't tell him, you know,. Hey, go, go write a letter, asking all the churches to pray for it.

And then the more like signatures you can get on that letter, the more confidence you'll have.

They got to answer. Yeah.

So like you look at, I mean, if you really read the Bible and you look at the kind of things that they're praying for, the bulk of them are spiritual and that reflects some sort of psych, spiritual maturity, but then what you have, like, you know, if you think about what's actually happening in the Bible, you know, there's a lot of times, there's a lot of times that I really wish that the Bible, like, we really wished it.

You could go to go to the Bible and figure out what to do. But I mean, James five basically gives you a prescription of what to do when people are sick anyways. So it's, it's not like, as if there's not like a prescription given in the Bible, right?

So James five 13 is anyone among you suffering? What should you do? Let them pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let them sing praise. Is any one among you sick? What do you do post on social media?

Surely that's what Paul, what James says.

No, but I mean, so I put mostly like, like, if you think about like, man, I wish the Bible were that direct with what to do. If I'm sick, the Bible does give a prescription there. It says, let him call for the elders of the church.

Let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of the faith will save the one who is sick and the Lord will raise him up. And if he's committed sins, he will be forgiven.

Verse 16, therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another that you may be healed. The prayer of righteous person has great power and it's working. And then it gives the example of, you know, Elijah was a man with a nature like ours.

He prayed fervently that it might not rain. And for three years and six months, it did not rain on the earth. Then he prayed again and heaven gave rain and the earth bore its fruit. My brothers, if any of you wonders from the truth, let someone, and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings a center back from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.

So I think what you have, like, I think you have a situation where the Bible kind of speaks to this issue to where, like, if you think about the bulk of the prayers, the bulk of the prayers are spiritual in nature, but then if you have someone who's significantly sick, like God would want them to go talk to their elders and do like a spiritual inventory of your life and see, like, is this connected to the way I'm living in certain ways?

Am I giving God any reason to give me this sickness that I have? Right. Like, is it connected? Like, is this like a, you know, a consequence of, you know, you know, me rejecting God, is this like something he's doing to try to get my attention?

And so like what, what people are meant to do is they're meant to think that kind of that way. Right. But then what we immediately think, like when someone is sick is we think, well, obviously it has nothing to do with their, their sin.

It's just a natural part of life. Just pray that God makes it go better. And really, I mean, like, sadly, I just think that's the bulk of the things that we're praying for. So I have a category for praying for it, but I think it should be like,.

Um,.

The new Testament envisions a kind of scenario where you deal with the whole person and not just praying these like self-centered prayers that are just kind of like take away all the bad stuff. Does that make sense at all?

Yeah. Yeah. And I think, uh, I think that's, you know, probably most people, most Christians could say that's their experience, especially as you look on social media, whether it's Facebook or Twitter or whatever.

I mean, I can't tell you how many times we're joking about it, but I can't, I can't tell you how, I mean, probably every single prayer request I've read about, well, I guess not every single one. I have seen some that are like, Hey, I just shared the gospel with, you know, some person I just met pray that, you know, God was honored and that they repent of their sins and put their faith and trust in Christ or something like that, which is good.

You know, I'm glad people are, you know, like going out and sharing the gospel, but then most of the prayer requests that I've ever seen are like, Hey, you know, my, like my dad broke his leg or something, you know?

So, uh, pray, everyone pray, pray for healing, you know? And then, and then you feel, and then you're, I guess you're supposed to feel bad. Like if you just read that and then scroll on and you don't like, you don't like it, you know, or you don't, you don't comment and saying, you know, sending prayers or, or whatever, you know, thoughts and prayers, thoughts and prayers, whatever, you know, some, some, you know, comment saying, Hey, I'm, I'm praying for you basically.

And I, I've always, uh, been like concerned with that just because I think, I think that is, I think what's being communicated there is this idea that we really are praying selfish prayers. So, so my perspective on all of this is, is, is maybe slightly different from yours, but maybe not, you know, I I'm of the perspective that you were joking about the football game, for example, I'm, I'm of the perspective that you can pray and say, you know, Lord, help us win the football game, you know, help us, you give a grant us, you know, favor, victory or bless our preparation or, you know, help us play to the best of our ability, whatever.