This would be well beyond the scope of “ordinary” for most of us, but I thought it was worth sharing because the story didn’t end like these usually do, and Paul and his posse seemed ok about that.

Me and some friends have been hitting some city projects lately just seeing if we could pray and minister to people. My wife saw a girl sitting on a porch and asked if she needed prayer. While she was speaking with her, her boyfriend came out of the house I began to talk with him and ask if he needed prayer. It turns out he was totally deaf in his right ear.

We told him like Jesus said “the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (ref. Luke 10:8). He looked at me kind of strange and I began to explain that means God’s kingdom is right here in our midst. He let us pray for his ear when we ask if it felt any different he said he was feeling pressure in his ear. He also shared he didn’t have an eardrum, we were encouraged figuring if God put a new eardrum in you’d feel some pressure.

We prayed again and then he started to say I can totally hear out of my ear. We were all pretty shocked because we had never witnessed a deaf ear healed. It was awesome. He began to tear up saying he didn’t know why God would do something like that for him. We just shared that it’s because God loves you so much. He wasn’t ready to give his life to the Lord but he was totally blessed. We were able to follow up on them the next few days so that was very cool getting to know them.

–Paul

Note: Asking strangers if you can pray for them can sometimes come across as patronizing, arrogant, or self-righteous (I’m ok, you’re not).  This is a practice that requires a high degree of sensitivity to the leading of the Holy Spirit. Like any spiritual practice, if it’s just a technique to make you feel better about YOU, it’s bogus. But if you’re paying attention to the Spirit…well, almost anything can happen!