45 - The Children's Bread
"IN PRAYING FOR THE SICK, it makes an immense difference what the attitude of the person prayed for is. If the person prayed for is first in the spirit of prayer, goes to God as His own privileged child, and asks for healing himself, and then is joined in with by another pray-er—that is the best chance of healing.”
William Leggett, husband of Mrs. Robinson’s first associate minister, Eva MacPhail Leggett, had been severely injured as a young man so that he became increasingly crippled until he could walk only with the aid of crutches. For two years Mr. and Mrs. Leggett had been praying together for his deliverance. Now the Lord had Mrs. R. give him some teaching to show him what was hindering his receiving the answer to his prayer. The fact was that he had been leaning upon his wife’s faith, whereas if he was to be delivered it would be necessary for him by his own faith “to take the answer when it was given.” True, his wife “had prayed the heaviest part of the prayer and, of course, a person who prays a prayer,” Mrs. R. explained, “must take and hold it.” Then she continued with the teaching about prayer for a sick person as given at the beginning of the chapter.
Mrs. R. went on in her letter to show further what is the proper attitude for a sick person to have when he is being prayed for by another: “To be sure, the other person praying may be the greater pray-er of the two and have the larger intercession or faith, but what would require a miracle of faith on the part of the co-pray-er, if the one ill did not have active and leading faith in it, is a much simpler prayer— easier to get answered—if the one ill does have that faith. .
“In other words, if you yourself get the desire and grasp of your healing, it is your prayer and you are equally in earnest—that is the first necessity, of course. The other part of that is that it is a sort of principle of Divine Healing. As a child of God you have the right to just ask for the children’s bread—you are Father’s child and need it. Come to Him in your ‘sonship’ and privilege, as well as your faith.
“Eva in praying with you intercedes for another, and it is by faith you and she call for the healing. But if she carries the prayer and you were not in a state of faith yourself— she could not get the answer anywhere near as easy.
“Of course you and Eva know all this.
“But the Lord says sometimes you have failed to grasp your place as a ‘son’ and appointed for healing and look at it [as if] the same prayer of faith would have to be prayed for your healing as would have to be prayed for a person without such a claim. . . . All of this is really ordinary Divine Healing teaching and not just for you.
“This thought I have put in here about the children’s bread is something not seen as it should be by many people asking for their healing. The approach to God on that basis is the sound foundation for a confident faith. It’s your right and privilege. It’s God’s place and appointment. You glorify and obey Him to claim your portion. It is in the atonement of Christ for you. You step out into the purchased possession of Christ’s death for you by faith.
“We ask for that blessing as we do for others—such as the baptism, salvation even, etc., but He proposes the blessing for you ere you may even think to ask.
“I have been made to double on this point so it will be plain. You need to come as a child—simply—not looking at yourself as lacking in faith, but seeing your Father. Not fearful of your failure, but as a trusting child, seeing Father loves you and undertakes for you.
“He wants Will Leggett to have His health.
“You need the realization that He devotes Himself to you and claims for you as for others. You are called.
“It was some lack in this grasp that at first made it difficult to ‘take up’ your healing. It had to be you if possible who, as others have had to do, just went to God for healing, and if others prayed for you or not, you know you are going to keep in faith yourself till it is accomplished.
“In the same sense—now—it needs to be, you keep your expectations and faith clearly—as well as your co-pray-er.
“Lately two or three incidents in this house have occurred to illustrate this. One person fell ill with what appeared to be approaching influenza and was told to get hold of that herself and pray and take her own grip of faith and be before God for it—and then ask us, if she liked, to cooperate—and be herself the one that expects that deliverance—and [she] was beautifully healed.
“And yet in other cases the Lord has had to not do this way, but take the case for such a one—by someone else— making, of course, a greater miracle to perform. And God wants us to make these allowances— [for] children and weaklings and sometimes people not weaklings who are not someway clear in Divine Healing faith.
“But Jesus likes Mr. Leggett to see himself as one Jesus does not count as a weakling—but as one of the men of God—no child in faith.
“This letter . . . is an explanation evidently of a principle I explained to Eva when I got the little message that the prayer was great enough if it was really in your faith.”
Is it surprising that shortly after Mrs. R. wrote this letter and Mr. Leggett acted on its instruction that he received an instantaneous healing?