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Last week I attended a retreat with the Citywide Prayer Movement here in KC. I got to meet some new people and experience a slice of evangelicalism outside my usual circle, which is the context for this story.

During a prolonged time of prayer at the retreat, we prayed for a guy who had recently undergone rotator cuff surgery, and was living with a lot of pain. A few hours after our group prayed for him, he was shrugging his shoulders enthusiastically and raising an arm above his head to display full range of motion. With tears in his eyes, he explained that the pain was gone.

So when the leader asked if anyone else had healing needs, I figured I would only have one shot at this. I made some quick mental calculations (back surgery is more potentially crippling than knee surgery) and shot my hand up: “Does chronic back pain count?”

I wasn’t sure if something as nebulous as “back pain” was typically allowed in a healing-prayer-meeting, and immediately wondered if I should have said, “My spine is broken. Well, mostly broken.” But whether the vernacular was right or not, everyone gathered around me—joined by a couple dudes with chronic neck pain, as I had apparently opened the floodgates—and the praying began.

Serious praying. This was LOUD, passionate, emotional, praying. People put their hands on our knees and shoulders and feet. “Jesus, HEAL these men…REMOVE the pain, bring ALIGNMENT and WHOLENESS!” High volume, high intensity. This was the Red Bull of praying.

I have spent a lot of time praying for God to heal my back, which a friend of mine describes as “the back of an 80-year-old woman.” (“Yeah? Then I guess an 80-year-old woman is about to beat you up!”)  God never has repaired it. I thought maybe he would this time, at the behest of so much concentrated faith and volume. He didn’t. But he could have.

In the past, God has intervened in dramatic ways, and I had no doubt that if he chose to fix my spine, this was the type of invitation he would love.

But no such luck… For what it’s worth, I came away feeling like this shaky G.I. Joe of a body will be my proverbial thorn in the side. My experience of faith is earthy. More like boxing, less like flying. More asphalt and broken glass, less exotic locales and surprising visions.

Seems like some combination of the two would be ideal. Wasn’t that the world of Paul, the first-century apostle and church planter? Get beat on the street, get shipwrecked, get out of Dodge…get a vision of Jesus, get 40 days of desert retreat, get miraculously saved from death…

We could all use more surprising, supernatural experiences in our lives. At the very least, they would remind us that our bank accounts and hot dates and iPhones and houses and investment schemes are, at best, the footnotes to the real story. But ultimately, we have to do the best we can with what we’ve got. Jesus has saved my life at least once. He’s spoken to me in dramatic ways at least a couple times. I’ll be recalling those moments and taking comfort in them for the rest of my life.

But the spectacular charismatic events, no matter how frequent or infrequent they are, aren’t the litmus tests of faith. No, those would be the daily rhythms Jesus builds in our lives. The movements toward him, whether we’re healthy or not, whether it’s Friday or Monday, whether it’s raining or 80 degrees, whether we’re putting money away or living hand to mouth.

Therefore, I’ll keep opening the Bible and asking God to challenge and change me. I’ll keep praying, not just in meetings, but in the car, in the shower, in an argument, wherever. I can’t shake the notion that faith is primarily gritty and inexorable. It’s for the guy in the trenches.

So, what if I’m forced to “settle” for the occasional startling breakthrough, daily conversations with Jesus, and the stamina to keep on going?

Good enough for me.