Book Review: Blessed to Be a Blessing

Title: Blessed to Be a Blessing

Author: James K. Wagner

Date: 1980

Publisher: Upper Room

ISBN: 0-8358-0410-0

Length: 144 pages

Quote: “God has the power to achieve his purposes, but he does not superimpose it on our will.”

This is a book for church workers who want to “have an intentional healing ministry in [their] church[es].” It’s part of the charismatic movement thart appeared in several mainstream churches around 1980.

As disillusionment with the wilder claims of charismatic “healing ministers” set in, many churches lost interest in this kind of ministry. Wagner does not encourage the kind of false hopes that did harm to some who hoped for healing. He discusses possibilities like “[The patient] may not be cured of the cancer, but may yet receive help in one or more of the other areas,” and “All physical healing is temporary...physical death is not the end but the transition.” The Bible is as clear about the fact that some members of the apostolic church were not physically healed as if is about the fact that others were. Paul himself prayed about a “thorn in the flesh” (he was short, arthritic, nearsighted, and bald) and concluded that God intended for him to live with it.

I could wish that Wagner had given more attention to the healing visions in which some people report being directed to seek for instructions that will facilitate physical healing.

I thought, too, while reading this book, of one of those casualties of certain “healing ministries.” During the 1980s a “healing minister” came out with his retinue, and they laid their hands on the head of a cerebral palsy patient who had spent her life in a wheelchair, and prayed. To the extent that they were praying for her to stand up and walk, their prayer was answered firmly, “No.” She has never walked all the way across a room. Nevertheless, during the rest of the 1980s the thirty-something patient learned to type on a computer, got a job, and did much to educate people about brain injuries.

If Wagner had been present, he might have quoted from page 66 of Blessed to Be a Blessing: “When a person comes for healing he or she is always helped in some way.” As things were, the so-called healer announced that the lady remained unhealed due to unconfessed sins. He maintained this position after the lady had published tedious little confessions of every impatient word, lustful fantasy, or stolen cookie she could remember. Then the church became disillusioned with this minister and with the idea of healing prayer. They might have benefitted from this book.

Even Wagner, however, fails to discuss the possibility that the lady’s “healing miracle” could be that she would discover, or motivate someone else to discover, a physical cure for injuries like hers.

Although this book is addressed to pastors and contains liturgies for healing services in a church, it can be used by people who want to pray for healing at home or in small groups. Wagner tries to prepare people to understand that the answer to such prayers may be a dramatic recovery, an emotional healing journey, a subtle impression to consult a certain doctor or book, or even an impression that someone’s “healing” might involve writing off a wrecked body and moving on into eternity.

It may also be helpful to bear in mind that those praying, as well as those prayed for, may receive “help” from healing prayers. When my husband failed to recover from flu, and I prayed for him, the first clear impression I received was that I was concerned about my shortcomings, but “he was suffering for his own sins.” When I shared this impression with my husband, he immediately admitted something I had suspected before—that he felt worse after angry outbursts and felt better after praying for those who seemed to have provoked his periodic rages. (This was a month or two before we learned that he had multiple myeloma; after his death I learned that hypertensive rages may be an early warning of this rare form of cancer.) Later both of us prayed, and received an impression that his healing would consist of an almost painless departure from a body that was past physical repair. While some kinds of bone cancer are extremely painful and some patients feel pain with multiple myeloma, my husband consistently reported that what had felt like stiff muscles or rheumatism, while he had seemed healthy, had given way to numbness.

I mention these things to show why people should avoid projecting their disappointments onto others, “You prayed for your relative, and he died.” A simplistic approach to healing prayer tends to disillusion people. A broader understanding of the many levels on which healing is possible seems less likely to generate ill feeling. If you are searching for this broader understanding, Blessed to Be a Blessing is for you.