Seth Barnes Apr 9, 2007 8:00 PM

Minister to others wherever you are

  Ron Walborn tells the following story. I was at the grocery store, checking out when the people behind me accosted me. "Excuse me, are...

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Ron Walborn tells the following story.

I was at the grocery store, checking out when the people behind me accosted me.

"Excuse me, are you Ron Walborn? Do you pastor that church north of town?

"Yes."

"Well, do you believe in prayer for the sick?"

"Yes, we do pray for the sick."

"Well, we're not Christians, but we're coming to your church tomorrow to get prayer for my wife here - she's got cancer, and the doctors don't give her much hope."

"That would be great, but you know, you don't have to wait. We could pray right here and now."

We paid for groceries. We were standing at the end of the conveyor belt, and I laid hands on her. I prayed just a few sentences and, much to my surprise, she keeled over under the power of God and lay sprawled on the floor. The husband dropped to his knees and exclaimed, "Hallelujah!"

I said, "I thought you said you didn't go to church."

"I watch TV," he said.

While on the floor, his wife got healed. Fortunately, the manager of the store went to our church and noticed the spectacle we were making. He ran out and put pylons around us and directed traffic to go by as I continued to pray over her. "It's OK, it's just God," he said to the onlookers.

This couple later came to church and gave their lives to Jesus. Subsequently, they began going down to Tijuana to care for the poor on mission trips.

* * *

The cool thing about the Walborns is that they are just regular people who love to laugh and stay up late into the night trading stories. Yet, they are acutely aware of their primary identity as citizens of a spiritual kingdom that is smashing the powers of darkness on this earth. I love it when people are alive to the power of God within them and alive to the way it intersects human needs, even in places as pedestrian as grocery stores.

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