What happens when you pray for supernatural healing but you do not manifest any physical changes? Is the lack of healing because of a lack of faith? Could it be the result of supernatural affliction? Or does God simply choose not to heal some people in His divine sovereignty?
That’s the question evangelist Todd White had to answer during a recent Q&A session, captured on video in a clip posted to his ministry’s YouTube channel. A woman asked White if she was at fault after her pastor told her she was not healed—despite “probably 40” prayers over her—because she lacked sufficient faith.
“A lot of times when people don’t see something happen, they have to come up with a reason—a logical reason of why not,” White says. “And it’s the easiest thing to blame you for it. … A lot of times when a pastor’s praying, sometimes all eyes are on the pastor, and then he’s the man of God. So if that doesn’t happen for pastors, sometimes they have to save face in order to protect who they are as a pastor. And unfortunately, it’s at the cost of you. So you have to let that stuff go, because that’s not the Lord. Jesus wouldn’t say those things to you.”
White’s argument rests on the fact that Jesus never faulted individuals for having a lack of faith that prevented him from performing miracles.
“First of all, Jesus never laid fault on anybody, and it always happened when he prayed,” White says. “…Colossians 1:15 says that Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God. So when you see Jesus, you see what God would look like, how God would respond, how He would act, how He would heal, how he would talk, right? How he would walk. So when you see Jesus, you see a perfect image of the Father. Hebrews 1:3 says that Jesus was the express image of the Father. So the exact image of the Father. Jesus came to reveal the Father. So anything that you hear from people that doesn’t line up with the life of Jesus isn’t God. It has to line up with that.”
White then indicated the burden of having enough faith may be more on the person doing the praying as opposed to the person being prayed for.
“If we’re praying for somebody and we don’t see breakthrough, we need to move from faith to faith, from glory to glory,” White says. “But I can’t blame the person I’m praying for, because does the Bible say, ‘These signs will follow those being prayed for’? … It doesn’t. It says, ‘These signs will follow them that believe: they will lay hands on the sick and the sick will recover.’ Right? So therefore when somebody’s getting prayer and it doesn’t happen, I’m waiting for the church to actually get to a place where [when] they’re told, ‘Well, you need more faith’—wait a minute. The Bible said that I’m supposed to come to somebody to get prayer and I need your faith, so please pray for me. I need your faith. If you have faith, I’ll be healed. That pretty much annihilates the whole ‘Get more faith.'”
White concludes the video by praying for the question asker’s affliction. Watch the full response here.
