God Speaks In a Dream: Kyle Woods' Story

I spoke with my 19-year-old friend Kyle Woods a few days after a life-or-death surgery to correct a dangerous condition several months ago. When he told me the circumstances surrounding the perfect success of the surgery I was stunned. I asked him to write it down for me so I could share it with you.

Here is Kyle's account:

My name is Kyle Wesley Woods.

In March of 2012 I started to get sick by coughing up blood. Weeks went on and I still was experiencing this and I went from one type of specialist to another during all of March.

Finally, I was supposed to go Vanderbilt Hospital to find out what was wrong, but they did not have any room for me. Instead I was sent to UAB. My Doctor ran a couple tests. I had to go back from Birmingham and Madison every couple days for tests or a procedure. Turns out I had an AVM in my right chest wall sitting on top of some of my ribs.

Basically, an AVM is just a bunch of veins that try to spread out but have nowhere to go so they end up forming into a ball and can make their own arteries and turn into a decent-sized mass. AVM's are common in the head, but there has never been a report of one in someone's chest wall.

I went in to see the doctor on a Thursday, May 3rd. He told me that he would go in and remove the mass. He explained to me that I could lose a lot of blood and that AVM's usually do not cause pain. But mine was. He explained that I may have to take pain killers for the rest of my life and have chronic pain. He then informed me that he cleared his schedule for the next morning and added me to it.

When I heard this, I realized that it is never a good sign when your surgeon tells you “Hey we need to get this out of you tomorrow morning.” I realized I was dying and this mass was attaching itself to other main arteries in my body and stealing blood from other organs.

I was very confused spiritually. I was not angry with God because I knew He would take care of me and sometimes I realize for God to take care of his children that may mean bring them to Him. I used to be addicted to pain killers when I was younger. I was confused why He would let someone who struggled with pain killers for many years be back on pain killers for the rest of their life. It did not make sense to me.

Friday, May 4th, I had my surgery in the morning and when I woke up I was fine. All I had was surgical pain. Other than that I was perfect I felt better. I knew I was not dying anymore.
​My surgeon came into my room and told me that I am a miracle from God. This is what happened:

Thursday night, while I was questioning God of his plan, my surgeon prayed for me before he went to sleep. While he was asleep God showed him in his dream exactly how to do the surgery. Every incision to every stitch, from the start to the end. Friday morning when I was asleep on the table my surgeon started just like he did in his dream. He felt like he was cutting away too much of my muscle so instead he barely cut down into the mass [something that was not in the dream]. When this happened blood shot to the ceiling and he quickly plugged it with his finger and stitched it up. He then said, “Okay God, I will do it Your way.” he then finished the rest of the surgery the way he was shown in his dream.

After I was stitched back up and good, he then took the mass over to a table and cut through it like he originally planned. When he did, the mass cut open to reveal tons of more veins that were still alive and an artery that it had made. If he had cut through it he said that he would not have been able to control all of the blood and I would have died on the table within a minute.

​I am a miracle of God. I am a child of God. God will take care of his children no matter what. I am alive today to help people strengthen their faith and teach them about my Savior. The biggest thing I realized is that this story is not for me. It is for everyone else who will listen or read it. I am alive today so that my family, everyone else and Satan will know that death does not scare me and will not shake my faith.

I am called into the ministry.

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Jesus Heals a Guy Like Us

In 1888 there was an archaeological dig that was the result of repairs that had begun on St. Anne’s Church building. A 4th-century building was found first, with paintings on the walls depicting an angel stirring the water of a pool. Below that building the site of a pool was unearthed.

In 1888 excavations near St. Anne's Church… revealed the remains of an ancient church building. Beneath this lay a crypt, with its north wall divided into five compartments in imitation of arches; on this wall there could also be distinguished traces of an old fresco representing the angel troubling the water. Clearly those who built this structure believed that it marked the site of the pool of Bethesda. And subsequent excavations below the crypt showed that they were right; a flight of steps was uncovered leading down to a pool with five shallow porticoes on its north side, directly underneath the five imitation arches on the north wall of the crypt. There are few sites in Jerusalem, mentioned in the Gospels, which can be identified so confidently.
(from "The New Testament Documents: Are they Reliable?" by
 F. F. Bruce, emphasis mine)

This pool is the setting of the action that occurs in John 5:1-17, which our house church group is planning to read and study today. This post covers the first bit of what we'll be looking at.

Verses 1 through 17 give the account of Jesus arriving at the Pool of Bethesda on a Sabbath day. He healed a man who'd been an invalid for 38 years, telling the man to pick up his mat and walk. That was a no-no; carrying a mat from one place to another on the Sabbath was a violation of oral tradition which was eventually written down in a document called the Mishnah. There were 39 kinds of labor prohibited on the Sabbath according to the Mishnah.

You need to read the whole story before going on. In case you didn't click on it two paragraphs ago, here's another link to it.

Most modern translations of the Bible don't contain John 5:4 because it’s not found in the oldest Greek manuscripts. The text that's missing is part of verse 3 and all of verse 4: “Crowds of sick people—blind, lame, or paralyzed—lay on the porches waiting for a certain movement of the water, for an angel of the Lord came from time to time and stirred up the water. And the first person to step in after the water was stirred was healed of whatever disease he had.” (NLT)

Whatever the case, people seem to have been healed at the pool. It may have happened once a year, at the time of this Jewish festival (which is not named in this chapter but was probably Passover). The man may have been sitting in the little porch for 38 years. Or he may have been taken there this time every year (which is unlikely, because we read that he had no one to help get him into the pool). He was very used to waiting, and very used to failure.

We’re not told why Jesus picked this man out of everyone sitting there, but the way the story unfolds, it’s clear that Jesus chose to heal only him, not any of the countless others hanging around. And there seems to have been nothing remarkable about the guy; certainly he wasn't like the government official whose son had been healed by Jesus in the previous chapter. The man at the pool was at the bottom of the societal ladder. On top of that, he apparently didn’t even know who Jesus was, as evidenced by his response to the religious leaders after he was healed.

Jesus asked him, “Do you want to be healed?” and instead of saying, “Yes!” the man described what had become the story of his life. “I can’t.” Then he explained why he couldn’t be healed: “Sir, when the water is stirred, I don't have anybody to put me in the pool. By the time I get there, somebody else is already in.”

This is like us in at least a couple of ways:

1. Most of the time we have a pre-determined idea of how God will meet our need or answer our prayer. And we think it’s very sensible – and the only possible way God could respond. And frankly, we may be used to Him not answering in the way we’ve decided He should. We put God in our box, just like this man put God in his box. We have faith in God, but it’s very limited by what we expect to see. When we limit God like that, it serves to diminish our respect for Him and our faith in Him. What we’re left with is a faith that is there, but is weak and powerless. Or...


2. We have repeatedly done our best to get rid of some sin or bad behavior in our lives, but in spite of our best efforts, we know that tomorrow we’re doomed to fail again, just like we have every single time. And we complain, or we despair. “I’ve tried, but God hasn’t done anything.” This has the same result: it limits God in our minds and diminishes our belief and our faith in Him. We wind up with faith that is still there, but again, it's weak and powerless.

Jesus’ response to the man was, “Get up, pick up your cot, and walk away.” At first glance, Jesus’ healing of the invalid didn’t seem to depend on the man’s belief or faith, but we should remember that the man had strong enough faith to remain by the pool, knowing that God could heal him. He was beaten down by circumstance, he’d grown to think God wouldn’t heal him, and “knew” that there was only one possible way God could do it. But his faith remained. This, too, is also like many of us.

I believe Jesus wanted to use this man, on this day, in this setting, to bring attention and honor fame to Himself. That’s his prerogative – He is God and if He chooses to work this way, He may. That may be why He chose this man whose faith was so weak; so His strength could be seen in spite of a man’s weakness.

Our focus should be to keep our eyes peeled for Jesus in the midst of all the clutter around us, not to keep our attention on the problem, or on the way that we think God should resolve it, but to “keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, on Whom our faith depends from beginning to end,” even if we have to wait 38 years.

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De-Powering the Name of Jesus

In the old days, Superman could move planets. As if that weren't enough, he could move multiple planets at once. Heck, he could even do this as a teenager! Somewhere along the line, the writers decided that this just wasn't believable enough, I guess, so they brought his powers down to a more realistic ensemble. You know, flying, heat vision, super-cold breath... the more normal things.

The other day I was headed out to lead music for a group of believers that's begun to meet under the name of Ignite City Church. God has given me a gift and He gave me the desire to cultivate it and use it for His sake. I can play guitar and sing with enough skill not to be terribly distracting, and it's a privilege to share that gift, because most of the time I don't have tangible things (like money) to share. But I can always freely share this gift of music and give the assembled body of Christ the avenue of music as an expression of worship.

"Kinda like Peter and John," I briefly reasoned. Then I thought of the passage I'd learned as a kid in a song:

Peter and John went to pray.
They met a lame man on the way.
He asked for alms and held out his palms,
And this is what Peter did say:

"Silver and gold have I none;
But such as I have give I thee.
In the name of Jesus Christ
Of Nazareth, rise up and walk!"

The last half of that verse direcctly quotes the KJV in Acts 3:6. And I was inclined to think of a modern-day version of that Scripture, for some reason. This is what I might say if I were to talk with a crippled person in a similar situation: "Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, here's a little song I want to play for you that I know you'll find to be encouraging."

Hmm. Now, I believe that God still performs miraculous healing. At least, I think I do. But I realized that we often take a great, supernatural, holy God and put Him in our little box of de-powered expectations: impractical things we're pretty sure He won't actually do. Oh sure, God can heal, but He probably won't. God can miraculously provide funds in a desperate financial situation, but He probably won't. God can intervene in almost every situation, but He probably won't.

What faith!

Not sure of your stance on the miraculous; whether certain gifts of the Holy Spirit are no longer "necessary" in today's world (a dangerous place to begin one's thought processes) or whether there are charlatans who take advantage of people in the name of Jesus Christ (there certainly are!), but there's little doubt to me that many believers have de-powered God in our own minds. Just like what the editors did to Superman, it makes God a little more "believable," wouldn't you say?

I will continue to freely give and use the gifts I've been given for lifting up the Church and sharing the message of Christ, but I'm anxious to tear up my De-powered God Box.

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