The Omukhulu Lesson: When What You Want Is GIVEN, You May Have To ACT To ACQUIRE It

I do not believe that you can have too many T. L. Osborn books. I am also a big fan of Neville Goddard, who often taught that after you pray and plant the seed of what you desire, you do NOTHING to produce its fruit. Absolutely NOTHING. But there does come a time when you do have to RECEIVE into reality that which you have received by faith in prayer. I.e., there are times when you have to ACT to ACQUIRE what you have received.

Chapter 38 in T. L. Osborn's The Power Of Positive Desire is "Omukhulu of Nyanza," which I here present edited and condensed. This is the story of a desperate, dying man's ACT of ACQUIRING what God had GIVEN. Omukhulu was an especially sad case in an Rwandan village. Some years past he had fallen 45 feet, crushing his lower vertebrae and hip structure. Numerous surgeries had not helped, and being a hopeless case, the hospital sent him back to the village to die. His family grew tired of waiting on him and had abandoned him in a mud hut, his mother occasionally bringing him food, everyone agreeing that it would be better if he could just die.

A young minister found Omukhulu in this lonely state of despair, and shared the hope of the Gospel with him. Messages from Osborn's crusade at Kisumu were available in the local language on cassette tapes, so the minister left a cassette player, a set of the tapes, and a stash of fresh batteries with him. In the crusade Osborn has taught about putting faith into ACTION, relating Bible verses about acting faith, such as the crippled man whom Jesus had told to get up and walk, and about the man with a withered hand to whom Jesus had said, stretch it out.

In the tapes Osborn recounted many examples of people who had attended previous crusades, believed on Jesus Christ, received Him as savior, and had then put their new faith into action, receiving great miracles in return. Day after day, Omukhulu listened to the tapes. He believed on Jesus Christ as savior, and repeated the prayer of salvation as Osborn had directed. After that teaching, Osborn had led the crusade's multitude in a prayer for physical healing, emphasizing the Bible verse This is the confidence that we have in him, that if we ask anything according to his promise, we know that he hears us, and if we know that he hears us, we know that we have received what we have asked him for (1 John 5:14-15).

Osborn had told the multitude that if they believed God had heard their prayer, then they should put their faith into action, to do whatever they had not been able to do before. If a person had been blind, to open their eyes and look, expecting to see. If he or she had been crippled, to get up and walk--to ACT according to their faith.

Mighty miracles manifested at the meeting: blind people had received sight, deaf people received hearing, the paralyzed, lame and crippled who had put their faith into action had been healed. Many who had been healed came to the microphone to share their miracle publicly--scores of miracles had been reported and were there on tape.

Omukhulu, laying in his hut on his straw mat listening to the teachings, prayers, and miracles day after day, got the message. He had become a believer. Finally, one day, he had said to himself, "I have listened long enough! Now I must pray, as the people did at that Osborn Crusade, and God will answer me like He answered them." He turned off the machine and there, alone, he began to pray. He could not remember how long he had cried out to the Lord, but all of a sudden, he had this idea: "I have prayed enough. I do not need to act as a beggar. It is time for me to act as though God has answered me, like Mr. Osborn told the people at the crusade to do."

Omukhulu pushed the cassette player out of the way and pushed himself upward with his arms, expecting to get up and be whole. Nothing happened. He repeated this effort. No change. He dragged himself to the wall of his hut and propped his shoulders against it, maneuvering every way he could to lift himself up. If he gained a few inches, he slumped back.

He was determined to get up. He had believed the message. He desired what God desired. He never succumbed to uncertainty or to fate. He kept ACTING his faith. Under the steaming heat in his African village, he became drenched in perspiration. He never abandoned hope. He knew what he believed. He was certain that God's promises were true. He trusted God's integrity.

As he floundered on the dirt floor that afternoon, he had bruised his head and arms, hitting them against nearby objects. Sweating, struggling, crying to God and doing everything he could do, he again inched his shoulders up the wall with his head, when suddenly a beautiful presence filed the hut. A soothing warmth entered the top of his skull and spread through his head. It was like a warm liquid as it moved down his spine and into his hips. As it spread, every nerve and muscle became alive. His bones were recreated.

Omukhulu said: "I got on my knees, then I stood up. I was perfect. I raised one leg, then the other. They were whole. I looked up to God and I wept and laughed hysterically for a long time, I could not control my joy. The more I realized what had happened, the more I was overcome with joy. Then, I thought of my people. I went out of my hut and began running, throwing my arms in the air, yelling as loud as I could to everyone, that it was me, Omukhulu, that I was healed."

Seeing him, his family fled. His mother thought he was Omukhulu's ghost. Catching her, he reminded her of the minister, the recorder, and the tapes of the Osborn crusade at Kisumu. She realized that her son had become a believer in Jesus and that the living God had done a miracle. The Living God is the Life-giver.

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After the story of Omukhulu, Osborn says, "All you know, all you hear, all you believe, all you hope for and all you aspire to is an unpossessed domain until you decide and commit yourself to action."

And one translation of James 2:17 is: "Believing is useless without doing what God wants you to do."

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I presented this story of Omukhulu of Nyanza because it is a great example of WORLDS WITHOUT GOD THAT NEED GOD IN THEM. We produce these worlds; it is given into our hands to make man into the likeness of Our image (Genesis 2: 26). But entering into this world we are ignoranced of what we were and really are. We think without God, and without God our worlds stink. In Osborn's books* are many stories of the fruit of our death, our disconnect from God's Consciousness. People are poor, crippled, blind, deaf, diseased, oppressed by Satan in every way, and then Jesus comes in and they are healed. THAT's the thing: we suffer in our worlds without God until we let the Healer in and are healed by Him. Let Him in, and then when He is in, ACT.

I know that Jesus Christ is much more that the Bible indicates, BUT THE SIMPLE STORY IS OKAY. HE IS NOT ASKING FOR MORE THAN FAITH IN THAT. The "lowly doors" are doors nonetheless, and belief puts us on the right path.

* I'm thinking specifically of Biblical Healing, Healing the Sick, God's Love Plan, The Power of Positive Desire, and The Gospel According to T.L. and Daisy.