Dr Harold Koenig, is a Medical Doctor, a rather unique one. He taught at Harvard Medical about the healing effects of  prayer, of spirituality (and yea “spirituality” really bugs, sorry, but it’s kind of a vacuous copout, buffet style “religion”) and he is now the Director of Duke University’s Center for Spirituality, Theology and Health. That a major university would have a center that is based on the relationship between spirituality and health is certainly notable. Dr Koenig is Christian and is not reluctant to point that out and to point to true healing in Jesus.

His book, along with Dr Chester Tolson PhD is titled “The Healing Power of Prayer”. We have our part in prayer, no doubt, we should never lose sight of that. But ultimate healing, ultimate peace is in God. Make no mistake, true healing, true peace are never going to come in the world. As of this date, all you have to do is pick from Afghanistan, Iraq, Ukraine, Nigeria places that don’t even occur to me, to know that if anything the world is becoming more violent and the Book of Revelation tells us it will be even more so before the end. So when I quote the following from Dr Koenig, it’s from someone who has been at very high levels of education, of teaching, of medicine and also a Christian who has done these things and exercised authority in the secular world, that he knows where his true power lies:

“…Only God is capable and powerful enough to give lasting peace within us. As we are lifted up by the power of God to a single purpose to do God’s will, this brings peace and satisfaction. Such an experience only comes through grace and the atonement of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Similarly, the conflicts that occur within humankind can only be resolved by God. Only as the warring natures of men are brought together in the common loving nature of God, will the world find peace. As we pray together we are united in a common fellowship. Through prayer and the uniting power of Jesus Christ, all humanity will discover its true oneness. We shall know that the forces dividing us are not nearly as great a the God uniting us. As the old hymn ‘The Church’s One Foundation’ says, ‘True hearts everywhere shall their high communion find’

Prayer is intmate, yet it is cosmic. Prayer is immediate, yet it is eternal. Prayer is truly the driving-human encounter. Through prayer we are made well.

Horatio Spafford, after losing his family at sea, was able to write:

When peace, life a river, attendeth my way,

When sorrows like sea billows roll;

Whatever my lot, Thou has taught me to say,

It is well, it is well with my soul.

Prayer gives us that assurance.”

Amen. Dr Koenig has much background and research in the power of prayer for healing. It does not always mean physical healing, but if we faithfully follow what God is doing in our lives, how He is leading us, that no matter what, our soul is healed and we remember that eternal healing is in the eternal resurrection and in the meantime we trust His will for our lives.