09/03/2026
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THIS KIND DOESN'T GO OUT BUT....
Early in my walk with Christ, I went to work at a hospital for mentally handicapped children in Lubbock, Texas. Just like Jesus was driven or
impelled by the Holy Spirit to go to the wilderness, I was impelled to enter my own wilderness in Texas—and it was this state school for profoundly handicapped children. It was one of the most tragic places I could have
chosen. My days there were filled with heartbreaking hours of interaction with broken and hurting children in an atmosphere filled with some of the most foul smells you can imagine. The children I worked with didn’t have
control over their bowel functions. Many times they would smear excrement all over themselves, over the doors, and over you. I often asked,
“Lord, is this You? Did You really guide me here?”
Before long I came to understand that the Lord had brought me there by sovereign appointment to teach me about Himself. That place in Lubbock,Texas, was my own personal school of the Holy Spirit. In fact, most of the
key principles I use in my ministry today I learned in that place.
There were hundreds of little children there, and most of them had basically been “thrown away” or discarded by their parents. Although they were officially “wards of the state,” in reality they were little pieces of broken humanity whom nobody wanted and nobody claimed. The Lord said to me, “My Word says if your father and mother forsake you, I will take
you up. I want you to go and love these little ones and be My ambassador of love.” So I went.
For the first nine hours, I would work with the ambulatory children,those who could walk. Then I would go to the non-ambulatory wards to work with little brain-damaged babies. Many had been born to mothers on he**in, and others landed there after their alcoholic parents had brutally attacked and injured them in fits of rage or alcohol-induced delirium. These babies would stay in the little cribs until they were too big to fit in them,and I would just hold them in my arms and gently rock them in a rocking chair while I prayed in tongues (my prayer language of the Spirit). I just knew Jesus loved them, and I knew that I loved them too. It was as if Jesus broke off a little piece of His heart and put it in me. I truly loved those little children.
Suddenly I found that these little ones who were never supposed to walk were walking. One little girl whose official medical file stated that she had been born blind, started seeing and responding! Every time I came into the
room, even though I made no noise, she would turn around and look at me while putting her hands out! It’s true—the Lord started healing these children.
It was during that time that I was assigned to what was called a “psychology task force” to administer behavior modification techniques to
some of the children. These techniques were designed to teach selected 15-,16-, and 20-year-old children how to tie their shoelaces or go to the bathroom unassisted.
I’ll never forget the day I met a 16-year-old boy in that group of children whom I’ll call “Stevie.”2 Stevie was a victim of Down’s syndrome,a moderate to severe form of mental retardation often characterized by reduced mental capacity and certain physical. deformities. Stevie was afflicted with something even worse. He was a self-mutilator who was driven to cry out and beat himself in the face constantly.
The staff psychologist at the school had secured permission from state officials in Austin, Texas, to administer electric shock therapy to Stevie for a six-month period. This “negative operant conditioning,” as they called it, was meant to modify Stevie’s behavior by administering electric shocks any time he beat himself. They graphed his behavior over that period of time, and I saw the graph. He just got worse and worse instead of better. By the time I was there, his face felt like dry alligator skin because he beat himself continuously.
Finally, the attendants tied Stevie’s hands in splints so that he couldn’t bend his arms to reach his face. The only problem was that the other children in his dormitory ward developed a new game once they figured out that Stevie’s hands were bound at his sides. They liked to run up behind him and push him so hard that he would lose his balance and fall down. Since
Stevie could no longer instinctively shield his face with his arms because of the splints, every time the kids on the ward played their game and pushed him, Stevie would land facedown on the floor without any way to protect himself or soften the landing.
Most of the time we would find him with blood streaming from his nose, lips, and mouth. Whenever I would come, Stevie could sense God’s love coming from me and he would put his head on my shoulder and just weep.
Finally I said, “Lord, You told me that You sent me here to love these children. What is the answer for Stevie?”
Very clearly I heard the voice of the Holy Spirit say, “This kind goes not out but by prayer and fasting.” Although this may be a very familiar
Scripture to you, it sounded totally foreign to me. I had attended a Bible university for four years and had earned my bachelor’s degree there, but I didn’t even know that the Spirit was quoting a Scripture passage to me from
Matthew 17:21!
Another thing I’d failed to learn about during my four years of Bible school training was the subject of fasting. I said, “Fasting—doesn’t that
mean no food and no water?” So I didn’t eat and didn’t drink water or Coke or anything else for that matter. I didn’t realize that when I fasted from food that I would have dreams about fried chicken, baked potatoes, and steaks. I was also unaware of the fact that when you do without water, your priorities
will change. By the third day of my fast without water, I began to get jealous every time I heard someone washing his hands in a bathroom sink!
One time a person came out of the bathroom and I said, “You know what?
You could have been drinking that water!” He said, “What?” and I hurriedly said, “No, forget it.”
Now Pray for Stevie
On the fourth day the Lord spoke to me and said, “You can drink,” and so I started drinking water. But I did not break the fast until the fourteenth day and the Lord said, “Now pray for Stevie.”
When I arrived for my shift at the school that day, I took Stevie into my little office cubicle and said, “Stevie, I know your mind may not understand what I’m saying, but your spirit is eternal. I want to tell you that I am a servant of the Lord Jesus Christ. I’ve come to preach good news to you. I want you to know that Jesus Christ came to set the captives free.”
Then I said, “In the name of Jesus, you evil spirit of mutilation, you let him go now in the name of Jesus.” Suddenly Stevie’s body was flung about eight feet away from me and hit the other wall of the cubicle! When Stevie hit the wall, his body was elevated about three feet above the floor, and then he slid down to the floor and let out a long sigh. Immediately I smelled an incredibly foul smell of rotten eggs and burning sulfur in the room, which gradually faded away.
I quickly went to Stevie, cradled him in my arms, and removed his splints while he watched with wide eyes. Then Stevie began to bend his arms and gently feel his face. I watched him softly touch his eyes, his nose,
and his ears; then he started sobbing. He had realized that for the first time he was not being driven to beat himself. He was gently touching his face, and he had been delivered! In that unforgettable moment, the Lord revealed to me what a powerful weapon He has given to us to pull down strongholds and set the captives free. Within a few months, all the scabs had fallen off of Stevie’s face. He had begun to heal because he had stopped beating himself.
I thank God for this young man and for the way the Lord used my compassion for his desperate situation to impart to me this divine truth.
- Mahesh Chavda ( The Hidden Power Of Fasting And Prayer)
- Spiritual Notes
