Prominent Christian apologist Nabeel Qureshi, who is battling stage IV stomach cancer, has shared how Jesus miraculously gave him a reprieve from his stomach pain for 36 hours after a friend prayed over him in faith.
In a video update posted to YouTube on July 11, Qureshi, a Pakistani-American Muslim convert to Christianity who is an author and has also served with Ravi Zacharias International Ministries, revealed that the past few weeks have been "progressively more and more difficult."
The evangelist, who announced last year that he was diagnosed with a serious form of stomach cancer, said that ever since he started immunotherapy, he's had significant stomach pain.
"Whenever I try to eat anything, even drink water, I have to lie down because it just hurts, it hurts quite a bit," he said, admitting that July has been the "hardest month" he's experienced so far.
But despite his pain, Qureshi said something "crazy interesting" happened a few days earlier when his friend, Ken Fish, who he met through conservative radio host Eric Metaxas, came to town.
"Ken has a ministry of praying for people and sharing the gospel throughout the world, and the Lord has tremendously blessed his prayers and has spread the gospel in many places through him," said Qureshi. "Ken, when he prays for people to get healed, they often do."
While in Houston for a conference, Ken prayed over Qureshi, asking God to heal him. Qureshi said that "strange things" happened while they prayed, but he didn't want to share them in case they "scared some people off."
But after the prayer concluded, something amazing happened: Qureshi, who had been unable to take even a small sip of water, took a big gulp of water - and it didn't hurt.
"I was kind of hesitant, but people were rejoicing around me," he said.
After arriving home, Qureshi thanked God for allowing him to drink water, and fell asleep. The next morning, he woke up, and while his stomach still felt tender, he was once again able to drink water. Then, he was able to tolerate a high-calorie drink called Ensure and some Gatorade. Amazed, he ordered a kid's meal from Burger King, ate the entire thing - and still felt no pain.
"I praised the Lord and thanked Him," Qureshi said. "For the first day in weeks, I felt normal. At the end of the day, we went to dinner, and I ordered steak and some crab. I wasn't able to eat too much of it, but I ate it without any pain. I was just praising God."
He added that "something had happened in Ken's moment of prayer" that gave him about 36 hours of no pain.
The next day, the pain was back.
"I'm currently in a significant amount of pain," he admitted. "Yet, I know that God can heal me. I wonder what this 36 hours after Ken's prayer was about...feeling no pain, able to eat food. I was, for a little while, drinking water absentmindedly. When I realized what was happening, I just broke out in praise to God."
He continued, "What a blessing that was. What was that about? I have no idea. A little glimpse of what God is going to do in the future? Was it a little foretaste of the healing that will come? Was God giving me a reprieve for 36 hours, saying, 'you need a break from this pain?"
Qureshi asked supporters to pray that he is once again able to eat food and not feel pain in his stomach.
"I'm praying that something happened when Ken Fish prayed, or when others prayed," he said. "I'm wondering if the tumors have subsided, and if they're resolved...I'm praying for total resolution. And God can do that, and Ken certainly prayed for me in faith, and a lot of people have prayed for me in faith."
He added, "I got a day of reprieve, and so I thank God for that. If you have cancer, you don't get a vacation from it. There is no day off. Every single day is praying and asking the Lord to move and trying to make it through."
