Jesus said "I only do what I see the Father doing". When praying for people, it's a very good idea to involve God and ask for His leading! We can do nothing apart from Him and He always knows best what people need.
I felt God say to me quite clearly that I should pray in a specific way, a way that I was quite uncomfortable with, a way that I had been taught not to pray when with non-Christians. Not a bad way though, let me just clarify that! (I'm deliberately withholding the specifics of this testimony because I don't want people focusing on the method.)
So, I left the bathroom and joined the lady in the room she was in, with many other of her friends curiously watching and listening. She told me to pray for her back, so I asked if I could lay hands on her, to which she said something along the lines of 'absolutely not!' So I prayed every kind of prayer I could think of, rebuking the sickness, asking God to remove it, commanding it to go, releasing peace, acknowledging I can do nothing apart from Christ...I used all the options and words I could think of to try to make the pain leave. But I felt that I really should pray in the specific way that I felt incredibly uncomfortable doing, especially in front of all these people. And you know what? I didn't do it. And there appeared to be no difference in the pain level when I asked the lady, and I felt stupid.
Alls I know for sure from this experience is that I didn't obey God when He told me to do something. It's not something I'm proud of, but I do wonder whether this lady would have been healed if I had obeyed what I felt God telling me to do. Thankfully, my God is a God of grace and I am on a journey. I really do want to be a person who obeys God when He speaks to me.
It's one thing to hear from God, but those who listen & obey are truly wiser than those who hear from God and do not obey Him. It's not how much you know, but it's what you do with what you do know.
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