Just like having a physical shower washes off any dirt and germs and cleanses you on the outside, there is a spiritual ‘shower’ or spiritual ‘hygiene’ activities that you can do that can enable you to blossom and to not be pulled down into mediocre by ‘critters’ that attach to you.
When our daughter was 9 years old, she was involved in giving some words of knowledge for physical healing during the church’s morning service along with 2 other girls and 3 other boys similar ages. The kids then formed 2 groups (one the boys and the other the girls) up the front of the church and preceded to pray for over 150 people each group.
Since this took a long period of time, we left for home almost immediately after they had finished praying. We live a 45 minute drive away and by the time we arrived home, our daughter was complaining of feeling ill. She complained of feeling nauseous, and a sore stomach. No matter what I did or what medicine I gave her or the endless praying for her appeared to change anything. 24 hours later I sat on the side of her bed totally frustrated. Nothing we had done had helped at all. She was still feeling totally nauseous and had a very sore stomach. In frustration I said, “when did this start?” My daughter replied, “Straight after I was praying for people yesterday”.
BINGO!!
I suddenly realised what had occurred. I did one action that changed everything.
As I said, “I brush off everything that attached itself to you during the time of ministry that wasn’t of God” and physically just used a brushing action to brush off over the top of her, she immediately sat up and said, “Oh I feel totally fine now!!”
I was gobsmacked. Was that even possible?
My daughter preceded to get out of bed and ate lunch with no more complaints of a sore stomach and nausea.
I then emailed our Church’s Children’s Worker and explained this as well as notifying the Healing Rooms Director of which we were part of the Healing Rooms team. Since that day, we have implemented a quick action at the end of every Healing Rooms time of just ‘brushing off’ everything that has attached to us during the ministry time that is not of God. I believe that has circumvented a lot of potential sickness of healing rooms team’s members.
Our family also do this after every time of ministry, whether prophetic, evangelism, healing, serving, prayer etc. We are proactive and don’t wait until we feel unwell to do it. Even if we had the best time serving and ministering, we still do it to get rid of anything lurking. We have made it a fun thing that we automatically do when we get in the car on the way home from any ministry time.
I find that children tend to exhibit spiritual things quickly in the physical. I watch my kids and learn from them. No doubt what happens to them also occurs with me but it doesn’t seem to be as physically apparent.
The other side to this is making sure that we are properly prepared for times of ministering. For our family, this includes:
- Dealing with sin immediately
- Forgiving quickly
- Keeping short accounts with people. Not letting anything negative build up between us and anyone else.
- Not sweating the small stuff ie don’t get distracted by the small niggly issues. Get over it. Focus on God instead.
- Praying a hedge of protection around, under and over our family, house etc.
- Spending time worshipping God and listening to Him.
What about you? What are your ‘spiritual’ shower things you do to cleanse yourself?
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) and that it comes from a place of love.
1. Children / Families Activation: Get some bubble blowing equipment (bubble mixture and bubble wand etc) and blow bubbles. Ask each person to spend a minute with God asking Him to reveal to them something exciting for them that God wants them to begin to do or something that they would love to be able to do. Then blow the bubbles and ask each person to walk through the bubbles declaring out aloud what they are wanting to walk into.
2. Group Activation: Get a whole lot of Lego blocks. Set up several stations of Lego around the room and ask people to spread out around the Lego in groups. Ask people to start building with Lego and to get them to ask God to show them what to build, colours to use etc. Give them a time limit of ten to fifteen minutes to build and have fun building with God directing them. The end result of the built Lego is something personally for them from God. Ask people to ask God what it means for them personally, either the finished product or the process.
3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to show you an electrical item that you remind Him of. Ask God to show you why and how.
4. Intermediate Activation: Spend time with God crafting a blessing to either write or declare over your parent. If your parents are both dead, then ask God to show you a significant older person in your life to be able to bless.
5. Advanced Activation: Spend time with God interceding and asking God what to pray and decree and declare over your state / country’s Education Minister & his/her future decisions. Then decree that into the atmosphere.