By reading just the title of this article, it’s likely you expect this is going to be a message about forgiveness, but it isn’t.  It’s about something else entirely, something very near and dear to my heart, and about an encounter I had that I will probably never forget.  It was actually very hard for me at the time, and has continued to be to a certain degree, but let me tell you a short story and I’ll explain.

Over a year ago, my best friend texted me to connect with a woman local to me whose baby had just died.  I won’t go into all the details of the tragic situation, but it was a premature baby who was only about a week or so old.  My wife and I went to the hospital and spent over three hours praying with the family over this child and commanding the life of Heaven back into it’s precious, tiny, cold, feeble body.

I will never forget that night.  I personally spent two and a half hours holding that child as we prayed, commanded, decreed, worshiped, and did our level best to stay in a place of faith, expectation, and love as we attempted to partner with Heaven to bring this child back to life.  A few hours in, the Holy Spirit began nudging me that it was time to close down this session of prayer.  Let me tell you, there is no easy way to say to a family who is believing alongside you in faith (or really, we were believing alongside them) that “we’re done here.”

And let’s be honest, that’s not actually what I said—I was a lot more tactful and gentle.  As the Holy Spirit was leading me to close things down for the evening, there were some other very real and practical needs the family had to address as well, and I do believe based on all factors involved that it was an appropriate time to close out that particular session of prayer.  It didn’t mean that we couldn’t continue to pray after we left the hospital, nor that we couldn’t hold another prayer session later, but being the one responsible for making that decision is hard.  Even harder is to have to say “I’m sorry” to the family when the loved one doesn’t return.

Sometimes saying “I’m sorry” just isn’t good enough.  It wasn’t good enough for them, and it still isn’t good enough for me.

I won’t say this encounter haunts me exactly, but it did stick with me, and it will probably always remain a strong memory.  It was really hard, and I have had to spend intentional time with God healing my own heart as a result.

There are defining moments that we have in life—moments that we can look back upon that change us.  They might change how we view certain things, or alter decisions we make for the future.  I have said “I’m sorry” to families on multiple occasions, and it is never easy.  I have gone through my own grieving process with each loved one who doesn’t return, regardless of whether I knew them or not.  But after holding this child’s lifeless body for multiple hours, saying “I’m sorry” has ceased to ever be good enough.  It’s not that I ever found it acceptable before, but that encounter marked me.

Jesus paid a very clear price, with his own body, signed and sealed in his precious blood, so that we might live.  Abundant life is God’s gift to us, and it is our job to step out in faith and release His power and presence in every situation to reveal His love in signs, wonders, miracles, healing, resurrection, and everything else that any situation needs.  In this situation, a baby needed to be raised from the dead.  And while I spent a lot of time encouraging, praying, loving, and attempting, the end result was still the same.  One more family continuing to grieve over a death that shouldn’t have been.

On the one hand, if we step out in faith then regardless of the outcome we are a success in God’s eyes.  In fact, the only thing God kept saying to me when I was holding that child and asking Him “What do I do next to partner with You?  What’s the next step?”, was how much of a wonderful job I was doing.  Yet, while I am a success in God’s eyes, I remain at least a little bit of a failure in my own.

While that can be its own message about changing our perspective to see ourselves how God sees us, there is a very practical side to what I am saying.  The hard fact is that the baby didn’t get raised.  And that is a hard fact, because what it means is that in that situation, when someone reached out and asked for help, when I showed up to manifest God’s solution, that solution didn’t come.

Why does that matter to me so much?  Because I realize that if Jesus had been standing there instead of me, the outcome would have been entirely different.  And I’m not okay with that.

We are meant to be the hands and feet of Jesus in this age.  When Jesus needs to show up, it’s my job to go as His ambassador to release the delegated authority I have received from Him and fix the problems in front of me.  In Matthew 10, Jesus didn’t tell his disciples to go and pray hard for God to show up.  He told them to go and raise the dead.  In that circumstance, and in most situations, scripturally speaking it actually is my job to fix the problem.

I wish to live in a world where regardless of the problem, I have reached a place in my spiritual journey where it doesn’t matter what the problem is, I can release God’s power to solve it.  2 Corinthians 3:18 tells us that we are being taken from one level of glory to another as the Holy Spirit transforms us.  I firmly believe that both I personally and we as the church need to level up to a place where it doesn’t matter the time, place, or problem, but that we are able to successfully meet the need and bring the solution in Jesus’ name.

To that end, at least as far as raising the dead goes, I recommend the following:

1. Read my book Faith to Raise the Dead and Tyler Johnson’s book How to Raise the Dead, or for a quick-reference guide, grab a copy of Practical Keys to Raise the Dead
2. Attend a training with the Dead Raising Teams led by Tyler Johnson of One Glance Ministries.
3. If unable to attend in person, buy his School of Resurrection audio series, invite some friends over, and have your own virtual DRT training.
4. Start looking for opportunities to pray to raise the dead, whether pets or people.