Living Boldly for Christ: Daily Reflections on Faith, Prayer & Spiritual Life by David Hathaway
The miraculous healing I experienced from throat cancer built a foundation of faith for an even greater trial years later. When I was sentenced to ten years in a foreign prison—five for smuggling Bibles and five for preaching the Gospel with the underground church – I turned to God, praying for deliverance.
Answers to prayer are deeply intertwined with our faith. When Jesus descended from the Mount of Transfiguration, He found nine of His disciples unable to cast out a demon. When they asked why they had failed, Jesus pointed directly to their lack of faith, explaining that such breakthroughs require prayer and fasting. To see real answers to our prayers, we must maintain a positive posture of faith in both what we speak and how we pray.
During the greatest crises of my life, prayer was essential. In 1964, when I was diagnosed with throat cancer, I made the decision to refuse medical treatment and trust God for healing. After three months, the doctors examined me and insisted prayer had failed. The tumour had grown so large that without an immediate operation, I would soon choke to death.
Prayer is not merely about us speaking to God; it is about God speaking to us. Real communication is never one-sided. In any human relationship, silence or failing to respond creates distance – and the same principle applies to our walk with the Lord. Prayer is designed to be a dynamic, two-way conversation.
In any relationship, if there is no communication, the relationship ceases to truly exist. When a husband and wife stop talking to one another, the marriage struggles. The same principle applies to our walk with God: if we do not talk to Him, we do not have an active relationship with Him. Prayer is not a ritual; it is a living relationship, a genuine conversation, and a way of relating directly to the Father.
When I received the Holy Spirit, everything changed. From that moment, I understood that I was called to live and minister in the same way we see Peter, Paul, John, Philip, and the other apostles living and ministering in the Book of Acts. The work of God cannot be accomplished in human strength. We need the power of the Holy Spirit.
Acts 20.24 says: “However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; if only I can finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given to me – the task of testifying to the gospel of God’s grace.”
What a powerful statement. Paul considered his own life nothing compared with finishing the race and completing the task God had given him. All the suffering, all the hardship, and all his personal desires were secondary to that one purpose.
Paul was full of concern because he says, “I am going to Jerusalem, not knowing what will happen to me there.” He didn't know what awaited him. He didn't know what the consequences would be. But he knew he had to go. That is what it means to be compelled by the Holy Spirit. You may not know everything that lies ahead, but you know that God is telling you to go – and when He compels you, you obey.
Acts 19:11 gives us something we haven't seen recorded in quite this way before: “God did extraordinary miracles through Paul.” Even handkerchiefs and aprons that had touched him were taken to the sick, and people were healed and evil spirits left them.
Here we see another dimension of the healing ministry. God was working so powerfully through Paul that even cloths that had touched him were being used as a point of contact, and the sick were healed.
Paul explains in verse 4 that John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance. John told the people to believe in the One who was coming after him – that is, in Jesus. When they heard this, they were baptised in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Paul laid his hands on them, and the Holy Spirit came upon them. They spoke in tongues and prophesied – and there were about twelve men. What an incredible picture of the power of the Holy Spirit!
One night, the Lord spoke to Paul in a vision and said, “Don’t be afraid. Keep on speaking. Don’t be silent, for I am with you, and no one is going to attack and harm you, because I have many people in this city. I was extremely conscious of that in my own ministry. I spent 30 years working in communist countries, and another 30 years afterwards – 60 years in all working throughout the former Soviet Union. And during those years, there were four attempts to assassinate me. Yet I was always conscious that God was protecting me.
This is the only occasion in Scripture where prayer is answered by a literal earthquake. I wish more of us would pray with that kind of faith and expectancy today. This was no routine prayer meeting – it was prayer that shook the earth, broke chains, and opened doors. That is the kind of praying the Church needs once again.
Jesus came into the world to save the lost. He came to die for sinners. He did not come for one group of people or another. He did not come only for the Jews or only for the Gentiles. He came for all people, so that everyone might have the opportunity to be saved. And today, our calling is to take that message of salvation to everyone.
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