Derek Prince and Healing

May 1972

One night Brian took me and some others on the ship to a large arena with a Charismatic speaker named Derek Prince. From the moment he began, I idolized him. He had an English accent and unlike most Pentecostal preachers of that time he spoke from the intellectual side of Christianity. Pentecostals that I knew focused so much on the emotional that I really had no clue there was an intellectual side to my faith. Prince was educated at Cambridge University and was an expert in Biblical Greek and Hebrew.

I learned so much from him the two or three nights I went to see him. On the first night he taught about the Word of Faith and claiming. He told us that our words are important and can actually make or break healing. If I have a disease, I should never accept it, but by faith speak it out of my life. WOW! I loved it.

So at the end of his talk he invited people up for healing - the easy ones first (as he stated). The easy ones were people like you and me who have one arm or one leg that is about 1/16 of an inch shorter than the other. Oh my gosh, we all had a short arm and a short leg. Before long the entire audience was practicing healing with each others' arms and legs. I got it so that I could tell every time, which of the two arms or legs was getting healed / lengthened and tell that to the person getting healed- and Shazam - they agreed, "You're right it was that arm / leg." I was floating in heaven.

After that tremendous outpouring of really not so needed healing, Derek invited the bigger needs for healing to come forward. A man in a wheelchair went on stage. Derek layed his hands on him and prayed for him and while we all waited for a great working of God, nothing happened. Derek prayed some more and still nothing happened.

Before things got uneasy in the audience Derek told the man in the wheelchair before the entire audience, "Go home and read more of the Bible so your faith can grow, then come back." That was so amazing - he needed more faith! I learned so much from Derek. Jesus met people who lacked faith and made up the difference never turning them away unhealed, but this was Derek Prince - the most amazing speaker of Christianity I ever heard until that time. Best of all, Derek quoted Greek words from the Bible. I was truly blown away - this guy was so educated.

I learned from Derek that I could claim power over sickness every time and that only a lack of faith could keep me or anybody else from being healed.

Several months later I was on the ship being tossed around by waves on the Atlantic Ocean. I was so seasick I really longed for death. But I learned from Derek Prince that I could claim healing from sea sickness if I spoke the words. So I claimed and claimed. I spoke and spoke, "I am healed, in Jesus name I am...." I threw up.

As the vomit came out all over the ship's deck everything I learned about naming and claiming came out with it. In that moment I discovered what many others have: in most cases, naming and claiming just doesn't work in real life.

But Derek Prince had a second night with even cooler stuff to learn.