Have you seen Stephen Spielberg’s film The Terminal? My wife and I heard a terrific performance of the wonderful clarinet theme on a recent ABC Classic FM Sunday Live program and were interested to hear the story of Viktor Navorski, the displaced man whose country had a coup while he was en route to the US. Now, the US doesn’t want him and he can’t go back to his country.

We bought a copy to see how the theme is used in the film, but also as we have been enjoying Catherine Zeta-Jones’ debut in The Darling Buds of May, said to be Britains most popular TV series.

We think Tom Hanks did a great job, and Ms Zeta-Jones is also perfect in her role as the air hostess he keeps running into.

The music is wonderful and the soundtrack seems promising, based on the snippets you can hear in Itunes try-before-you-buy thingy.

I understand that John Williams [who has written the music for almost all of Spielberg’s films] has not only made more money out of film music than any other composer, but also has made more than all of the others combined. He is a quiet- spoken man, and for someone about 20 years younger, I look too much like him!

I hope he knows some great charities to support!

It has a great storyline and I am sure people who like romantic comedies would enjoy the movie.

That is one of my most favorite movies David.

I love it how he steals some space to make a bedroom and scrounges for furniture and works out how to even earn money to live.

Hi Craig. How are you travelling? Nto stuck in an airport, I hope.

The music, like a lot of John Wiilliams stuff, is worth hearing withotu the film distractions. i think I’ll download it in Itunes. it is really itneresting and there are some beautiful moments.

I like how his friends set up a makeshift restuarant in the airport for him to have a meal with Amelia.

I like how the legend of Victor Navorski grew after he rescued another Krackoshian speaking citizen from the evil overlord of the Airport. The dinner scene was just bizarre.

David I have not thought about listening to the music tracks of movies.
Though I know there have been some terrific pieces written.

I’m traveling OK, as I said to my family, “If I take 3 steps forward and two steps back I’m still one step in front” While I’m not stuck in the airport I tend to be house bound.
We don’t know what is causing it, but sometimes I get really shaky which is caused by a rippling effect of the muscles that starts off with the toes / feet when I do exercises that require alternating stretching. For example if I exercise both my feet heel / toe - which is part of the training to teach me to run once again. For some reason the muscles which are supposed to tighten and relax after a short time it sends a ripple - tightening / relaxing of all the muscles which builds up to a huge shake by the time it hits my upper body.

We know what sets it off, the doctors don’t know why.

But God is good, I’m hoping to resume part time studies next semester in another 3-4 months.

Praying for you, bro

That sounds really awful Craig B, but surely a gathering of the elders of the church, some prayer and a little olive oil, and it’s gone?

Craig S.

Thanks mate, I know your a praying man.

Hi Dave L.

I have had the church gather around me and pray often and it sure has helped. BTW I challenge you to find in any of my posts where I have said by gathering the elders to pray it will be instantly gone!

I have always said that the prayer of faith will cause the sick person to recover, the same as what Marks says about laying hands on the sick. I have always consistently said that recovery can be instantaneous or it can be a process in the recovery.

This I know, without the prayers of the faithful, I would not be able to have coped with my sickness - praise the Lord.

BTW Dave, check out John Pipers sermon on calling the elders to pray

Yet when I raised the Harry’s Leukaemia with you, you implied there must be some fault on my part for Harry not being miraculously healed. We ended up having a long conversation about the particular formula’s I must not have complied with for Harry’s healing to have not occurred faster than “normal”. That’s how I remember it anyway.

Craig, it sounds like you are coping with what you’re going through far more graciously than I would, and I admire that about you. I’m just trying to point out how careful we have to be not to blame people for their or their kid’s illnesses.

Yet when I raised the Harry’s Leukaemia with you, you implied there must be some fault on my part for Harry not being miraculously healed. We ended up having a long conversation about the particular formula’s I must not have complied with for Harry’s healing to have not occurred faster than “normal”. That’s how I remember it anyway.

Dave,
Over the last couple of years you have continued to bring this issue up. I make the same reply to you now which I have done in the past. I have never ever implied or said that you are at fault for Harry not being miraculously healed. At least I am sure I have not.

We did indeed have a long discussion about what Scripture says about healing and the subject of faith. All along I have said that healing can be instant or it can take time for the recovery to happen. However we are to expect recovery to happen, if we ask for it.
I believe that you believe strongly that I did say and imply what you believe I said. As you say, “This is how you remember it anyway”

However in regards to memory - my memory also at the moment is not very good. I have holes in it and there are things that I have no recollection of every doing, saying or even happening to other people. Some of these things are trivial others are more serious. So if indeed I ever did say what you say I do apologize for it.
Yet I also have to be careful that I don’t take on board things that I didn’t say or do and in doing so form a false memory.

Therefore I do ask again which I believe I have consistently asked you whenever you bring this issue up to link to where it is I am alleged to have said it.

You never said: “This is your fault Dave!” You’re too nice to say something like that.

It’s more the whole Charismatic vibe that healing should get results or there’s something wrong in the way it’s being handled. I’m more “agnostic” about the “gifts of healing” than you. I’m not sure that God has guaranteed anything like healing, except in heaven. And so with this view I ventured into that long healing thread.

At that time, as well as discussing all the verses “for” and “against” miraculous healing, I was trying to illustrate the potential for harm, guilt and / or blame if healing is “guaranteed” but never happens. I don’t think Harry was “healed” by our collective prayers*, and stated so many times, only to be asked time and again by you whether or not I anointed with oil, or had all the elders lay hands on him, or took him to a healing service, or .... (insert any number of other healing formula’s). From memory you didn’t come out and say it was my fault, but the many questions about the manner of my prayers implied there was some fault in my “application of healing” — there HAD to be — because in your theology, healing never fails. The theology of the verses dealing with healing was covered far better by others — I was mainly trying to point out the pastoral implications of this view from the perspective of a father with post-traumatic stress symptoms watching his son nearly dying a slow and painful death from cancer.

* But, PRAISE GOD, Harry “got better”. That is, God used normal medicine and Harry recovered from his Leukaemia, and is still in remission today! But I have no evidence of a “miraculous” healing in Harry getting better.  So while I thank God for Harry’s life, and indeed all our lives on a daily basis, that is indistinguishable from every other common grace God gives us, like the sunshine and rain and crops growing.

I guess what I am trying to ask is there any biblical evidence of slow miraculous healing? Even the unique 2 stage healing of the blind man in Mark occurred on the one day, despite the 2 quick events.
If your elders prayed over you with olive oil and every healing protocol satisfied, how is this a miraculous healing if you are still recovering? When the apostles healed, didn’t it all happen on the one day?

Thank you David for finally clarifying that I never did actually say that you were to blame for Harry’s sickness and lack of healing. Also I don’t think I even implied you were responsible.

I did ask some questions about how you prayed and if you called the elders of the church to pray for him and asked you why not when you said you never did. I still don’t know why you didn’t.
Again from memory I don’t think I ever said every healing is going to be instantaneous. I have consistently said that sometimes God will instantly heal and other times the recovery may be more gradual.

I know what it is like to go through PTS as I went through it earlier this year and late last year when every night I dreamed that I was paralyzed again and couldn’t move and no one would come to help me. Its not much fun.

However in saying that I count myself blessed that I had faithful people around me who asked me how my faith was going. Who gathered around me and prayed for me. I went to a church where during the service they would pray for me and lay hands on me. That the elders come to the hospital and prayed for me, many times. Those who encouraged me when my faith was little, helping me to immerse and remind myself of the love of God which builds up hope and which in turn builds ones faith.

I may have asked you questions Dave, but can you link to any where where I actually implied you were at fault.
I would suggest that perhaps you would take offense to any one who would dare suggest that God still heals today through prayer and faith whether it be me or someone else.
And therefore your stock response is to who ever may make that suggestion that they are implying you are responsible for Harry’s sickness and slow recovery because you don’t actually believe that God still answers prayers of healing today - whether or not they actually did say or truly imply it.

Especially if your world view was perhaps challenged. - BTW what did you think of Pipers sermon?

I think God answers prayers for healing exactly the same way He answers all other prayers: Yes, No, or Wait. But just because God can heal today in some circumstances doesn’t mean we can imply He always will, and that if He does not there’s some neglect of some rule of ours.

Yet my thing is that I don’t see clear biblical evidence that we are to expect a positive result each time.

I’ve been re-reading the Benny Hin thread, and realised how upset I was at the time. I may have over-reacted in parts. Yet here’s the thing: I prayed, laying on hands… cuddling Harry’s sick, bald little head. And he still didn’t get better and had to go through another 6 months of utterly horrible chemo. And you repeatedly asked me why I didn’t bring in the Elders and the Oil, as if these actually being present are more important to God than the hearts of His praying saints.

Why didn’t I call in the Elders to anoint with oil and pray laying on hands? The short answer: James 5 didn’t apply.

I didn’t see Harry as “spiritually weak” after and under the “special discipline” of God. It’s that SOZO argument again, where they have been rebelling against God and are so spiritually weak and in such a state of rebellion that they basically need to repent to be saved, get better and be welcomed back into the church. The oil seems to be part of the welcoming back ceremony. I haven’t looked into it deeply but I’m guessing it’s to do with receiving them back into church life… with all those Old Testament connotations of the king being the anointed one of God, and now all God’s people are anointed by the Spirit… so I’m guessing the oil was just a sign of the church’s acceptance.

So basically, it did not apply to Harry. Heaps of people and churches prayed for Harry, but from the safety of their churches. We didn’t want too many people visiting the critical oncology wards where infection could kill kids. Theologically it was not necessary. And I was always praying for my boy as I hugged him, patted him, cuddled his face, whatever. I couldn’t stop. So as far as I know, Harry wasn’t defying God or under the “special discipline” of God. He was just sick. James 5 is a special prayer of repentance after defying the Lord… and seems more about weakness of faith than physical illness, and I don’t even know if kids are developmentally capable of the understanding required to defy God in that extreme sense.

I take it then Dave that you are saying that I didn’t actually say or imply you were responsible for Harry’s sickness and his recovery.

Thank you very much for this, it is gratefully accepted.

4 things.

1.) I think Scripture warrants us to expect what ever we ask for will come to pass.
2.) Harry has recovered, how can you say that God didn’t answer your prayers?
3.) Your understanding of James 5 is not scriptural and I was pleasantly surprised in listening to John Pipers sermon that he and I actually have the same view in regards to this passage of Scripture. I highly recommend you listen to it.
4.) In regards to slow verses instantaneous recovery the context of James 5 using Elijah when he prayed for rain shows us that persistent prayer will eventually bring what one asks for. The story of Elijah praying for rain was in obedience to God telling him to pray for it. It took a while for the rain to eventually come after he started praying. And he had to pray earnestly 7 times before the rain started to fall in bucket loads. Each time he prayed he sent his servant out to the top of the hill to have a look. This in its self indicates some time has to pass between the servant leaving and coming back. At first nothing happened. Then a tiny winy little puff of cloud appeared. Then after more prayer a little bit more cloud. More prayer, more sending out the servant to check on what was happening. Finally after 7 times the rain came.

I said you did not intentionally say Harry’s lack of miraculous healing was my fault — but that the theology you subscribe to does.

I’m having some interesting times with John Piper lately, and when I get around to it will listen to that one as well. I know a few evangelicals that hold the “weak faith” view of James 5 quite strongly. So I’ll try and keep and open mind and listen to John Piper on it.

It’s about definitions. I thank God that he answered my prayers for Harry to get better. It seems God chose modern medicine to make Harry better. In God’s sovereignty, Harry got better. That’s it. I don’t claim anything miraculous happened. I prayed, Harry got better. I never saw any evidence of “gifts of healing” and am not sure what Corinthians is talking about there anyway. Did many people get sick and then eventually get better again? We don’t know. I lay hands on Harry as I prayed for him, but obviously I’m not one of the apostles or Harry would have been instantly healed.

You’ve mentioned rain, but still no evidence of slow miraculous healing. The stuff Jesus did as fulfilment of scripture and then the later “signs of an apostle” seems always to have been instantaneous miraculous healing, not slower “getting better” — with many doctors visits in between.

I used to hang out with a charismatic group quite regularly. I have family members that are charismatic. I’ve never seen anything out of the ordinary. They get sick as much as the rest of us, and get better about as much as the rest of us. If it were any different, wouldn’t ABS statistics show it? Health by religious population group?

Anyway, I’m about done. I was just pointing out the obvious pastoral consideration that if one holds a “gift” view of healing or “guaranteed” view of healing, then if there is no healing, someone’s done something wrong. While you did not accuse me of keeping Harry sick, the constant questioning about the “method” of prayers I used could easily be interpreted as looking for an excuse for the healing not working.

Lastly, I pray that God will help you recover, and that somehow in this horribly stressful time will keep you trusting and clinging to God. God bless you Craig. Even though we disagree on this, you genuinely come across less “spiky” than I always do in forums, so, good on you.