Teaching kids to pray for healing

Senior and young holding handsOur church hosted a conference at the weekend where Bill Johnson from Bethel Church and Leif Hetland were the guest speakers. On the Saturday, they ran a ‘More for Kids’ day event where both Bill and Leif came and spoke to the kids and then received prayer and prophetic words from the kids. Both of our kids were involved. Princess (13) as a leader, Matey (10) as a participant.

Matey came home with a booklet from the day called ‘Healing is easy as 123’. Two pages from the booklet stood out for me that the leaders used to train the kids to pray for healing for people and to see results. (Both my children have been involved in our church’s Healing Rooms for nearly 5 years and have seen and prayed for people who have received physical healing. Princess in particular has a gift in praying for infertile couples and seeing them return with a baby. I believe this is part due to the fact that hubby and I struggled for over 10 years with infertility and Princess was the blessing from it and now God is using her to bless others.)

The 3 points were:

  1. Ask: What hurts? Between 1-10, how much does it hurt? (This way you can determine if there is any change.)
  2. Pray: You can choose to put your hands on them or not (our kids are taught to always ask if they can touch them first at the spot where it hurts, or if an inappropriate spot to touch, to touch their shoulder or hand.) Pray out loud with love. Welcome God’s power & presence. Tell the pain to go. Pray quick prayers. You can also sing, dance, jump, wave a flag, anoint with oil, draw, share a Bible verse – go with what you feel/see/hear the Holy Spirit telling you to do.
  3. Test: Ask the person what the pain is now like? If it is better, celebrate what God has done. If it is not better, or eased a bit but still there, pray again.

Our Church’s Healing Rooms has recently made a huge change in regard to the children on the team and this change has been hugely beneficial to the children, the rest of the team, and the people coming to receive prayer. They have formed groups of 2 children with an adult and they pray purely for physical healings. Prior to that, one child would be matched up in a team with 2 adults and most of the requests were emotional based which was hard for the children. This way, the kids love ministering with their friends (who doesn’t!!) and they are purely involved in physical healings and not deep emotional issues. We are seeing that the people coming for healing love the children praying for them and the children are seeing most of their prayers answered with amazing results. The children also draw pictures from what they see, hear, sense God is saying and showing them. They then ask God who they should give the picture to and then go and find that person, give them the picture and perhaps pray for them. These pictures are highly valued by the recipient. These folk often comment how the picture brought healing or spoke to them prophetically.

As part of the preparation on the day, the children gather and usually fill out a ‘Word of Knowledge’ sheet. It has an outline of a body on it. They ask Jesus who He wants to heal today and then listen to what He tells them or shows them about an injury/illness or body part or Jesus may even give them a feeling in a body part eg a pain in the finger that would mean that He wants to heal someone’s hurt finger. The children then draw or write it on the blank body outline and then look out for these injuries/illnesses when they are praying for people.

I usually find that the kids hear from God very quick. Whilst I am still quietening myself and turning my heart to God, my kids have already received the answer from God. They hear quickly, probably because they don’t doubt and question is that God or is that me etc. Please don’t doubt or dismiss what they are hearing. I struggled with this especially with my son when he was younger and we were first doing this. He would always get something we had talked about that morning (thus I would assume that it was because he had heard it that day) or something connected with him. I would sometimes dismiss it but what he had heard always came about.

I encourage you to spend some time with your children, perhaps after a meal etc. Have outlines of the body on sheets of paper and get your children to ask God to show them what He wants to heal. We even ask God for specific people or specific names of people to go with the injury/illness. Then pray for those people with your children.

The more you practice and pray for people for healing with your kids, the more you see people being healed. My kids are now used to seeing physical healings and just expect it all the time. I can remember hearing Jennifer Toledo (www.gcmovement.org) speak about how her kids practiced raising people from the dead by practicing on each other and having one family member pretend to be dead. The audience laughed to which she then said, “You can laugh but I bet you that my children will pray for dead people and they will see them being healed before you children do.” Oooh, was I challenged!!

Imagine how you and your children could change the world by praying for healing for people.

This blog post is also published on my other blog – www.raisingworldchangers.com.au where I blog about raising children who are changing the world.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Gather around a world map. Ask God to highlight a different country to each person and what He would like them to say over that country. Then take it in turns declaring it.

2. Group Activation: Get into pairs. Ask God to show/tell everyone a country or place which God would love to use to tell their partner something about themselves and how God sees them and their future. Ask God questions to ‘flesh’ it out more. Share with your partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend some time quiet before the Lord opening up your imagination before Him. Then ask God to show you a specific place in the world where you will visit within the next 3 years. Ask God to show you more of the picture of what you will be doing there. Journal it and write a declaration about it then speak it out aloud.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to bring to your mind someone in your life who is of a different nationality to you. Ask God to show you how you can communicate to them how God sees them and loves them and ask God to highlight to you His purposes for them. Ask God to set up a time when you can communicate this to them.

5. Advanced Activation:  Find a current news item about a different country in the world to where you live. Ask God to show you His perspective on the situation in that country. Declare out aloud what God has shown you and pray into that situation, decreeing and declaring God’s perspective over that place and situation.

Children having unanswered prayers

iStock_000001758636SmallRecently I have had a number of people say to me that I need to be careful not to let my children become disappointed with God because they haven’t seen their prayers for sick people answered. I have an issue with comments like that.

Firstly, God is far bigger than my children’s unanswered prayer. If I am going to limit their prayers so that they only pray prayers that I know are most likely to be answered, then that really doesn’t require faith. It also says a lot of negative stuff about God, His ability and also my children’s ability to trust God no matter what.

I want my children to be praying big prayers. I want my children to take huge risks and ask God for things that are of His Kingdom and that He would love to answer. The prayers may not be answered in the way they thought, or how they liked. That surely though is part of the process of learning that they need to go through. I don’t want to reduce their view of God to only being able to answer little requests. To trust and believe in a small God.

When our daughter was younger, she had multiple allergies that were anaphylactic (requiring adrenaline if she was exposed to certain foods – egg, nuts, diary, soy, fish, cottonseed oil. When she was 5 years old, she desperately wanted to be healed. I can remember a number of times when she went forward for prayer at church when there was a healing service. Each time, there was no change. After a number of times of this occurring, she gave up. She no longer believed God could heal her and she no longer wanted anyone to pray for her. Her plea was just that ‘I want to know what chocolate tastes like’. We chased her healing for her. She was healed about 12 months after she had given up hope.

To be honest, during that time when she had lost hope in being healed, I was hurt. I hated seeing her despondent and no longer responding to calls for healing. I kept the hope for her. I chased her healing. I knew that God saw everything, knew everything, understood everything. I also knew that God was bigger, far bigger than her hurt and disappointment. I also knew that it wasn’t my role to protect her from God ‘disappointing’ her by not answering her prayers in the way she wanted.

An incident comes to mind when we were leaving the city morgue after praying for a lady who had died to be risen back to life. She was not risen back to earthly life. That ‘sat’ alright for my kids and I. We never doubted God one bit. In fact, we realised that she was in heaven and had an attitude of why would you want to come back here when you can be there and how great that would be. There were a few people with us though, who were distraught at their prayers for this lady being risen back to earthly life not being answered. As I reflect back on that, I am glad that my kids have seen some prayers go unanswered and people not being healed. Their theology reflects that God is in control and that God knows best and that suffering is part of this world.

My children are on the Healing Rooms Team at church. They regularly pray for people with cancer. They have seen some healed and some not. An elderly neighbour who became a very close friend died a few years ago of cancer. He wasn’t healed here on earth. Yet they have prayed for others with cancer who have been healed. How do I help them reconcile that? I actually don’t try and justify anything. I leave it to God. We certainly chat about it and the various outcomes but I don’t try to help God out by explaining away and minimising the issue. I believe that this has not affected my children negatively. It has not changed the way they take big risks and ask God for miracles.

They know that my mum died from cancer when my daughter was 3 weeks old and that we had prayed desperately for her to be healed. They have been to at least 10 funerals of old people, babies, children, dads with young children etc. We don’t shield our children from death and disappointment. It is a part of life. We read all the Bible, the good, the bad and the ugly. That is life.

The Bible says that we are to come to Jesus with an attitude like little children. Little children believe that God can do and will do anything. In Matthew 17: 20, Jesus says, “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.”

What are you teaching your children and modelling to them? Are you trying to protect ‘God’?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Ask God to show each of you what picture He would have of themself on His fridge then draw it. Ask everyone to share what God showed or told them.

2. Group Activation: Have everyone get into 2 circles, one circle inside the other circle but equal numbers in each circle. Play some music briefly and have the outer circle walk to the right whilst the inner circle walk to the left. When the music stops, face the person nearest to you from the other circle. Have 30 seconds quiet to ask God how He sees their partner dressed. Then take 1 minute each sharing this with your partner. Play the music again, walk again and when the music stops everyone will be in front of a new partner. Ask God another question for their new partner eg “If their partner was a lolly, what sort of lolly would they be and why?” Then take 1 minute each to share with their partner. Play the music again. Walk again. New partner again. Ask a new question eg “If God was to take their partner anywhere in the world, where would it be and why?” Take 1 minute each to share with their partner.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you a scene of a park with lots of trees. Ask God to reveal to you where He sees you in that scene. Ask Him to reveal to you why He sees you in that position. Spend some time chatting with God and asking Him further questions about what you have discovered.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to bring someone to your mind at the moment. Grab hold of the first name or person you think of. Then ask God to show you how you could most encourage that person at the moment. Then do it.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to show you a current major societal issue and what role He would have you play in the outcome He would have for this issue. With God’s help, craft a decree and declaration around that issue and your role and the outcome that God showed you. Decree and declare out aloud what you have written.

Transforming a person’s spirit

iStock_000001483815SmallSeveral weeks ago, hubby received a phone call from a mental health worker. This worker had previously rung all the churches in the local area and they had all refused her request. She simply wanted a Christian to spiritually cleanse a house for a client of hers who was an inpatient in a psychiatric ward. Hubby asked her a few questions to clarify what it was exactly she was after. This lady had no idea really except she didn’t want anything weird. Her client was a Christian, currently a psych inpatient and about to return home but refused to go into his house before it had been spiritually cleansed. This lady didn’t know who else to turn to to ask for help as all the churches had refused. An outreach worker at one of the churches would have willingly done this but she was going away on holidays. A fellow worker in the same office as the lady had said he knew us and reckoned that we would help. Hubby admitted to the lady it was probably more his wife’s thing and yes, we would help.

The day that this man was being released from hospital was a day that we had prior engagements that couldn’t be broken so we arranged to meet the lady, and her client ‘Bill’ at Bill’s house. Since we couldn’t be there until 4pm, Bill was staying in hospital until then as he refused to enter his house before we had ‘cleansed’ it. Once the lady received a phone call from us that we were outside the house, she brought him from the hospital.

Bill, the lady and a friend of Bill’s met us on the footpath. We introduced ourselves. Bill stated very firmly that there was no way he would enter the house until we had finished and cleared all the evil spirits out. Bill’s friend and the lady went into the house to assess it for any damage as the key had been loaned by Bill to another friend. I turned to Bill and asked him what he wanted us to do. After he had explained, I asked him if he could see in the spirit eg demons etc. He said he did and he looked as though he relaxed slightly because we were taking him seriously and validating what he had experienced. I then asked him if, before we started, we could pray for him. It was a very simple prayer. We didn’t touch him but just quietly I called his spirit to attention and prayed a blessing over him for sound mind, peace, sanity etc. As soon as I had finished praying for him, he stated that he was ready now to go into the house. I was quite taken aback and a bit shocked seeing how he had adamantly refused to before. I stressed how we were planning to use some oil to anoint every door and window etc and he gave permission to still go ahead and do that, but also stated that he felt it was okay to now go in.

20 minutes later we had walked right through the house, praying, blessing it and had finished and were leaving. He asked if he could give us an offering and we stated ‘no’. We didn’t want anything in return. The lady had also asked us previously what we charged as in a prior case she had been charged an exorbitant amount for someone to do something similar.

As we left, I couldn’t help but reflect on how calling this man’s spirit to attention and blessing it had resulted in a major difference for him. The key was calling his spirit to attention and blessing his spirit. It had far greater impact than simply praying a blessing over him. Speaking to his spirit, after calling it to attention, makes sure that it goes deep into his spirit. Imagine how the world could change if we began calling to attention people’s spirits and blessing them. The change in this man was literally amazing.

I encourage you to begin to try this week. As you pray for your kids or each other or even yourself, call their/your spirit to attention and pray a blessing over it. Our son loves it when we do it over him. Most nights as I am tucking him into bed, he will ask me to ‘do that thing you do’ where I call his spirit to attention and then bless his spirit.

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Practice calling each other’s spirit to attention and praying a blessing over each other’s spirit. You, as the adult, go first so that they can see what to do. Example: “Joshua, I call your spirit to attention and I bless you with knowing who you are and how God sees you. I bless you with knowing that you are fully loved by your Heavenly Father and by daddy and me. I bless you with favour and friends, with knowing how to be a good friend and having great friends around you. I bless you with wisdom and the ability to choose wisely and make great decisions. Joshua, I bless your spirit with knowing that God created you as you are. He completely loves you and how He created you, with your gifts and abilities. I bless you with joy and hope and peace. I bless you with great sleep and an ability to dream with God.”

2. Group Activation: Pair up and then spend 3 minutes each taking it in turn to pray a blessing over your partner. Remember to firstly call your partner’s spirit to attention by name. Concentrate on blessing your partner’s identity, design and destiny.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time asking God to show you what He loves about you and listening to His response. Write down what you hear God say about you.  Turn these into a blessing that you can say aloud over yourself when you call your spirit to attention. If you have difficulty with this, begin by asking God to show you how He sees you being dressed ie what outfit/clothes you are wearing.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to show you whose spirit needs blessing. Write them a letter, blessing them with as much fullness as you can. Then, pray it aloud where you are ie you can be at home and that person not near you. Call their spirit to attention and speak it over them, realising that in the spiritual realm you don’t need to be near each other to hear in the spirit.

5. Advanced Activation: Think of a specific child who struggles with autism or behavioural issues. Ask God to show you a picture of them in the spiritual. Call their spirit to attention and pray this over them. Pray over them the opposite of any negative behaviour or attitudes. I have done this many times lately with children and they haven’t heard me physically as I have been in another room or I have whispered it quietly whilst in the same children’s ministry class etc but I didn’t want the children to know what was happening. The physical change in the children was amazing.

Living a supernatural lifestyle

Senior and young holding handsIn living a lifestyle where we are full of the Holy Spirit and dependent on God, we are living a life where every day presents wonderful opportunities to partner with the Holy Spirit. In our daily life, if we are not dependent upon the Holy Spirit to ‘show up’ and intervene, then perhaps our life has too much ‘me’ and not enough ‘God’.

I look back to when hubby and I were church planting. Those days were full of excitement and we desperately needed the Holy Spirit every day for what we were facing and experiencing and loving. We had some amazing opportunities to share God’s love and saw people accept Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. We enjoyed running various programs, stopping for the one and helping strangers and hubby having an ‘open’ door in the local primary school but we desperately needed God to show up as we were often out of our depth. God did show up and we were always in awe of how He worked. We then became burnt out and weren’t seeing God or experiencing God in our life.

Years later, we are living a supernatural lifestyle again, but probably with more ‘balance’ than those early years and with more of a flow ie we partner with God every moment of the day instead of finding ourselves in a situation where we are desperate for Him to turn up and ‘save the day’. Little things and big things occur daily where we see God’s hand on our life and we are impacting others. A classic example is the other day. The kids and I were at the dentist. About a month ago, I really sensed to ring and make an appointment with our dentist (who is amazing and gives us free dental care because of how hubby helped his wife 20 years ago). This dentist is 75 years old now and works 2 half days a week, so getting an appointment is usually a month in advance. Both of our kids need braces and I felt to go and see him to see if they needed any fillings or teeth removed that he could do to save us money. For a few months, I have been praying that God would either provide us the means of getting their teeth straightened and aligned or miraculously align them Himself. As we don’t have private health insurance, it was going to be a costly exercise otherwise.

Our family is not immune to dental miracles. When our daughter was 10 years old, she went to the dentist and he said she needed to have 2 fillings. He didn’t have time then to do them so he booked her back in for a month’s time. My daughter wanted to leave the appointment until after she had been to our church’s Healing Rooms and received prayer because she desperately didn’t want any fillings. She received prayer and returned to the dentist. The dentist was amazed that she no longer needed any fillings as her teeth were fine. Since he had the time set aside, he then removed 4 teeth from her overcrowded mouth.

Then about a year later, I went to the dentist with tooth ache. It was ascertained after x-rays that I needed a root canal. Four subsequent appointments were made. I turned up to the following appointment and the dentist was totally shocked. He asked if I had been praying to my God as a miracle had taken place in my mouth and no root canal was needed. Thus, we have no trouble in believing for dental miracles.

We went to the dentist the other day and the dentist came up with a plan for how we could get braces for both children with very minor cost to us. We had discussed this with the dentist last year but no solution had been forthcoming then. Whilst he was examining both children, the next patient turned up and popped her head in the room to speak to the dental nurse. They exchanged greetings and a few words about the patient’s recent mission trip. The patient then stated that her knee was extremely swollen and causing her a lot of problems. The dental nurse asked me to look at her knee and give her advice as I was a nurse. I ascertained that the swelling had been there prior to the trip and it wasn’t due to a blood clot from being on the plane etc. I then explained how I believed that Jesus can heal people and asked her if I could pray for her knee. I sat next to her in the waiting room and prayed for her knee and for her to encounter Father God’s presence. She was ecstatic with tears falling down her cheeks. Since her return to Australia from the mission trip, she had felt that God had abandoned her. The night before, she had felt really distant from God’s love and had been prompted to ring and get a dental appointment by the Holy Spirit. She just ‘happened’ to get an appointment for the following day at the exact time we were there to pray for her. She felt so loved by God.

Often it can be the little, everyday things like stopping and praying for someone that can make a huge difference in a person’s life. Who have you shown God’s love to today?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

The purpose of these exercises is to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and recognise God’s voice and His way of communicating with us. This enables us to grow in our relationship with God and also to impart to others what God tells us for them. Feel free to use as many of these activations each week as you can. The more you practice, the sharper you become at hearing God’s voice. Enjoy!

Remember that whenever you give another person a prophetic word or picture etc, please make sure that it is encouraging, edifying (strengthening) and comforting (1 Corinthians 14:3)

1. Children / Families Activation: Select an emergency service in your area eg police, ambulance or fire brigade. Get your children to ask God for a picture for them and get them to draw it. Write an encouraging explanation along with the picture. Ask God how you are to deliver it to them.

2. Group Activation: Select 3 people to come up the front. Blindfold them. Select another 3 people to come up. The 3 people can choose which blindfolded person they are going to stand in front of ie one person each in front of a blindfolded person. The blindfolded person is to ask God for a prophetic word for the person in front of them and then to release it to them.

3. Beginner Activation: Write or draw a prophetic word for your postman and leave it attached to your letterbox with a note so that the postman will collect it. Alternatively, time it so that you are at the letterbox when the postman comes and hand it to them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Spend some time asking God to show, tell or give you a prophetic word for your local firemen or fire chief. Ask God how you are to deliver it to them or whether you are just to pray and declare it.

5. Advanced Activation: Look for a headline in the local newspaper that grabs your attention. Ask God to reveal more about the situation and listen to what God wants to share with you. Write a prophetic word about the situation or the people involved. If you can find their details, you may like to post it to them.