Klaus Issler - Author

Confident Faith in God Stories

STORY #9--Miraculous Healing of GERDs

Posted by Klaus Issler on April 27, 2010

JESUS:     “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.’”
(Matthew 21: 21-22)

      Not long ago, one of my graduate students came to see me during my office hours at the university. His name is Nathan, and he is an extremely bright young man. As he recalled what God had done for him, tears came to his eyes, and as I listened in amazement, my eyes filled with tears as well. Nathan told me that when he was thirteen years old he was diagnosed with GERDS (gastro esophageal reflux disease) in which the valve between his esophagus and stomach did not work properly. He would wake up every night gasping for breath and choking. He could not breathe because of the stomach acid that had gathered in his chest and the severe pain that resulted. Consequently, Nathan developed insomnia; he had to sleep sitting up and did not sleep through the night one single time for nine years. In 2002, Nathan got married and his wife urged him to go to a doctor to investigate surgery. He did and was told that he would need a series of five surgeries and would be on medication the rest of his life. Even then, the doctor said, he would be only about 90 percent healed.
      The next day, Nathan and his wife went to a small group Bible study they regularly attended. That evening a missionary couple from Thailand shared about their ministry, a ministry that included miraculous healings. No one at the Bible study knew of Nathan’s illness. Before leaving for the study, Nathan expressed to his wife that he was skeptical about the missionary couple, even though he had no good reason for his skepticism. However, is spite of his skepticism, he went to the study that night. And something incredible and shocking took place. In Nathan’s own words, “During the Bible study, out of the blue, the speaker stopped praying for another person, turned and said, `someone in the room is suffering from gastro esophageal reflux disease.’ This man had never met me nor could he have known the disease name.”   Nathan then told me that the missionary described a very painful event that had happened between the person with GERDS (Nathan had not yet identified himself as the person) and his father when he was diagnosed with the disease as a young boy (all details of which were unknown to anyone, including Nathan’s wife, and were completely accurately described). Nathan raised his hand to identified himself as the person with GERDS. When he did so, the missionary came to him, laid hands on him and prayed for his healing. As emotion welled up within him, Nathan relayed to me that at that very moment he was instantly and completely healed! From that night until the present (about three full years), Nathan has never had an incident, he has slept through every night since that Bible study (he hadn’t done this for nine years), and the doctor cleared Nathan shortly thereafter of the diagnosis. I met Nathan’s wife a few weeks ago at a student gathering, and without warning I pulled her aside to ask about the incident. She confirmed every detail of the story to me.
      What a wonderful and living God we serve! Let these true, credible accounts fill your own heart with trust and confidence in a God who is there. And God is there whether or not He chooses to heal. We seek his care and trust him whatever the outcome. When we hear stories like these, our response should not be “Why doesn’t this happen to me?” For one thing, you never know what God will do for you in the future. Since the “already” phase of Jesus’ kingdom has come and his promise invite us all to try them out. But more importantly, these powerful testimonies are designed to build your confidence in the triune God and his Word. Allow these accounts to have this affect on your heart and mind as you meditate on them.

© J. P. Moreland and Klaus Issler, 2008.
In Search of a Confident Faith: Overcoming Barriers to Trusting in God, (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity), pp. 149-151.

“Ask and you will receive; everyone who asks, receives. This is the eternal law of the Kingdom. If you ask and receive not, it must be because there is something wrong or missing in the prayer. Let the Word and Spirit teach you to pray properly. But do not lose confidence He wants to give you, that everyone who asks, receives. . . . As a child has to prove a sum to be correct, so the proof that we have prayed correctly is our answer. If we ask and get no answer, it is because we have not learned to pray properly. . . . Christ had good reasons for speaking so unconditionally. Be careful not to weaken the Word with human wisdom. . . . Lord! Teach me to pray.”

Andrew Murray (1828-1917),

With Christ in the School of Prayer,
(New Kensington, PA: Whittaker, House, 1981;
originally published London: James Nisbet, 1887), 40, 44.