Your Faith or Mine?

Another early morning theological question.

As Paul was preaching, he noticed a man lame from birth had the faith to be healed. Paul commanded him to “stand up”. He did.

My question: when we pray for others, how does their faith factor into the equation? For instance, if I am going for surgery and I ask for prayer for a successful surgery but the person praying begins to pray for complete healing without surgery, whose faith prevails?

There were times when Jesus said to people, “Go, your faith has made you whole.”

But there are also times when Jesus raised the dead and those people nor their family had no faith for that and Peter healed the lame man who was only expecting a donation.

So how does this faith thing work? Is it solely dependent upon my faith? Does the person I’m praying for need to agree? Again, I have no answers. Again my theological debate brings me back to the same response from God – “Trust me and be led by the Holy Spirit. When you pray for others, just listen to my voice, say what I tell you to say and don’t worry about results.”

Does anyone else wish God would give us some formulas?

While they were at Lystra, Paul and Barnabas came upon a man with crippled feet. He had been that way from birth, so he had never walked. He was sitting and listening as Paul preached. Looking straight at him, Paul realized he had faith to be healed. So Paul called to him in a loud voice, “Stand up!” And the man jumped to his feet and started walking. (Acts of the Apostles 14:8-10 NLT)