I go to the gym every morning at 5:30 am, six days a week. I consider it a vital part of my life to maintain mental, emotional, and spiritual health. At the beginning of this year, there was another guy in the gym (Steve) who was working out at the same time as me, and we became friends, chatting away as we went around the weights.  He used to play cricket for Auckland and is an all-round gifted sportsman. However, I am a lot fitter now than him and he always used to joke with me about how his goal was to be as fit as me.   Cut a long story short, I asked him one day if he’d like to train with me and he agreed. If you have read my book on evangelism, making friends with someone like this is what we call ‘ploughing’ in the six steps of bringing a person to Christ.  Over the past six months, we’ve been training together in the early morning hour and having a lot of fun. In fact, we laugh the whole hour and a half we are there!  Gradually the friendship has deepened.  We’ve even started seeing each other outside the gym.  One day we went to a cafe to talk and I was able to share the gospel with him via my iPhone. He literally poured over it with great intensity. When he finished it, I asked him what he thought. Well, he said a whole lot of things. First, he thought it was just a fairy tale and he couldn’t quite believe that  I would believe it. From that point on we debated how one could know the Bible was true, evolution, etc etc. Then he told me the most sad thing. He had an older brother who was a full on Christian who was tragically drowned four years ago.  He loved his brother very much and he and his family questioned why God didn’t save him, especially since he was the only Christian in the family. I could really feel his pain. In fact, said Steve with a tear in his eye, ‘My brother was the most devout Christian.’ He continued,  ’If God is really there surely He could have rescued him?’   This is good question to which I didn’t have a good answer. I don’t think there is ‘a great answer’ that would satisfy a grieving brother and family.  Anyway, we talked a lot about this at the cafe and then went home.  I prayed about Steve and his huge disappointment with Him. ‘How would I overcome this challenge?’ I thought. Now here is where the miracle kicked in. Steve has always complained about having a nagging sore shoulder.  Whenever he lifted certain weights in a certain way, he would experience great pain.  He told me he’d had thing problem most of his life. Interestingly, his dad had much the same problem, so there was something hereditary there.  About a week ago he was complained as usual, so I suggested I pray for it. He’d asked me before what I thought of Benny Hinn and others on TV who had healing ministries. I had always affirmed them saying God can and does heal people but I didn’t like the showmanship on TV so much.  I offered to pray there and then on the gym floor about a week ago.  He was a touch cyncial and scoffing when I offered but he was in such pain he said ‘OK, go on then, let’s see what God can go’ so  I prayed a very simple quiet prayer  like ‘God, please heal Steve’s shoulder’ and I laid hands on him as I prayed. I kept my eyes open, so that no one else in the gym would have a clue what we were doing and Steve wouldn’t be embarrassed in any way. Well, when the pray was over we carried on with the weights.  He did the next exercise and finished beaming and a bit confused. The pain had gone. Completely. To be honest, I was a bit surprised as well!! It was so instant and complete!  Steve stood there waving his arms around to really ‘test’ whether the healing had really taken place.  But it had.  The next day he arrived at the gym and told me the shoulder was still ‘healed’ and that normally as he was driving in his car, certain movements would result in sharp pain. He hadn’t had that pain when driving for the first time in memory! I thought ‘Wow! This is a genuine healing.’  At the gym the next morning I told Steve about Jesus and the 10 lepers, and how only one had returned to thank Jesus for the healing, and that he should thank God not me. I would say ‘You should thank God Steve, not me’ to which he would reply (laughing)  ’No, thank you Julian!’  He really struggles to thank Jesus for this healing.  Isn’t that interesting!  The disappointment over his brother’s drowning lives on and has a powerful hold on him. Pray with me about Steve. The story of our time at the gym will continue, and I will keep you posted. I wonder what Jesus is going to do next? What are the lessons here? 1. Take the opportunity to pray for people, even if it seems silly and you are filled with unbelief.  I don’t pray for people enough like this for healing. It is God who does the healing, not you or I. 2. Make friends with non-Christians and do stuff with them. Steve is actually a gift from God for me and had made my time at the gym a lot of fun. We naturally get on really well.   I feed in scriptures into our gym routine. ‘Iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another’ is our favourite.  Whenever I urge Steve on to lift a heavier weight, or he urges me on, one of us usually says this proverb, and we laugh! 3. The seed of the gospel has been planted, so I need to keep watering it through prayer and friendship. It’s now the Holy Spirit’s responsibility to ‘grow’ the seed, and I keep reminding myself of this lovely liberating truth. 4. When people have had great disappointment with God about something tragic, as Steve had, I have learned not to give trite answers like ‘One door closes and another opens’ or ‘God picks the flowers he loves’ which only serves to aggravate the issue and make things worse.  4. God is in the business of putting us together with non-Christians sovereignly.  Steve has been a great blessing to me as a friend and made my time at the gym much more enjoyable.  He has a fantastic sense of humour!  And don’t we all love to laugh? God seems to always be arranging ‘win-win’ situations for us. He cares about me as much as He cares about Steve – how cool is that!

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