Palestinian muslim has a "God encounter" in the hospital

Last night we went to pray for a Palestinian muslim man who is scheduled for major heart surgery. He was in very bad shape - gasping often for breath, coughing in a way that was disturbing to watch, etc. I explained what we wanted to do and shared some testimonies to what we'd seen God do. Most importantly, I began to declare some of what God was going to do as we prayed.

Basically we know that when Spirit-filled Christians lay hands on sick non-believers something will ALWAYS happen. Many Christians don't seem to expect this, but my thinking is "How can something NOT happen?". We don't know what will happen, but something HAS TO happen.

I told this man and his wife that he would FEEL God's presence as we prayed. I explained that when God's Kingdom comes (whenever and wherever it comes) pain and sickness MUST go. I find it ironic that many muslims seem to understand this aspect of the nature of God's Kingdom better than some Christians do!

Basically I prayed the Lord's prayer over him - I released the PEACE of God into a situation where there was so little peace. I also prayed that God would visit him and send him dreams in the night. During the time I was praying, he began to call out to Jesus as I was praying in His Name.

What happened next had to be witnessed to be believed - this man, who just moments before was gasping for air, coughing and looking very disturbed, is having some kind of encounter with God. He was staring out the window as if we weren't even in the room. His wife was shocked - she asked us, "what is he doing"? "is he sleeping"? To be honest, I had never witnessed such a drastic change in someone so suddenly. At one point, I was even a bit nervous because he didn't even look alive to me! (I saw that he was in fact breathing which relieved my concern).

After a few minutes, he turns to us and begins to declare in Arabic - "I'm so relaxed, so peaceful, I can breathe again...." OVER AND OVER again. His wife was visibly amazed at the change in her husband.

In some ways, we left not knowing what had just happened, but the point is that somehow this man had a powerful encounter with God. We don't know yet about what the Lord did to his heart or anything else. We can't wait to hear the reports as we follow this up.

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