Monthly Archives: March 2023

No Formulas in Healing with God

Posted on by

My 5-year-old son accidentally dropped a massive Besser brick, from a great height, on his friend’s foot, smashing a bone. Her foot was massively swollen and extremely painful. We were in Mozambique, and she was to fly back to England the next day. Unfortunately, she wasn’t allowed to fly. Flying is contraindicated with a broken bone due to the flight aggravating the swelling and placing her at increased risk of circulation loss or a blood clot.

Amidst the crying of pain, her dad and I looked at each other. There was only one solution. We needed a miracle. We needed God to show up and heal this little girl’s foot.

In that moment of utter desperation, her dad and I commanded the bones to be mended, and we watched as we immediately saw the swelling dramatically reduce. The pain eased, and all movement returned to her foot. This girl was cleared to fly home the following day as the bones were declared healed.

Several months later, a friend’s nineteen-year-old daughter broke her foot. She went to the Doctor, and X-rays were taken, which showed a fracture in her foot. The girl’s mother brought her to our home for prayer before taking her to the Orthopedic Specialist the following day. I prayed, and the pain eased but returned, only to reduce significantly overnight. Her mother requested a further x-ray before the Specialist decided whether to operate. The second x-ray showed an old trace of a break in the bone that was now fully healed. The before and after x-rays were as if they were from a different foot.

So, when my daughter’s friend had a broken bone in her hand, I wanted to pray for her so that her fracture would be healed. I prayed, and the pain and swelling lessened slightly, but not completely. Over the next few days, it became evident that the broken bone had not healed.

Reflecting on this several days later, I realized several things. First, I had reduced God’s healing to a formula. I had prayed a certain way around people with broken bones, so I had prayed the same way. Unfortunately for us, God doesn’t have a formula for healing. God is supernatural, and He heals using whatever He desires. We cannot use formulas with God. Time and again in the Bible, we read God used unconventional means to heal or to get people’s attention. A fantastic example is when Jesus heals the man who was deaf and mute in Mark 7:32-37 by spitting and touching the man’s tongue.

Second, I had become proud. My prayer for my daughter’s friend was out of pride. I had previously prayed for several people with broken bones, including the two girls above, and seen them healed. I had subconsciously developed a wrong attitude that my prayer had healed them. When I had prayed for my daughter’s friend, I had prayed, but I had not waited to ask God what He wanted me to pray. I had prayed my thoughts, not God’s thoughts.

It can be easy to believe that it all depends on us or to look for the right ‘formula’ so they will be healed. That people will be healed if we pray for them a certain way, that we can ‘fix’ people and their problems. We are not Jesus. We are not the answer to the problem. Please do not partner with the belief that you are the Messiah and that people need you to pray for them. God can always heal them another way. God is not dependent on us, but we are reliant on God.

On the other hand, we are invited to join God in seeing healings and miracles and bringing Heaven to earth. The secret is staying close to and remaining humble with Father God, Holy Spirit, and Jesus. Hearing what they want us to do and then doing that.

Questions I love to ask God are:

  • “What do you want to do in this person’s life, God?”
  • “What are you already doing and would love me to join You?”
  • “What would you love me to do and say?”
  • “How do you want me to pray, God?”

What about you? How have you seen God heal people?

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every blog post, I list five prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God 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: Prepare outlines of the human body on paper. Ask the children which body parts God wants to heal in the group. Ask the children to colour in those body parts. Then ask the chidlren to pray for those parts to be healed.

2. Group Activation: Spread out a pack of playing cards face down on a table. Ask people to each choose a card and then to get into pairs. Ask people to prophesy over their partner using the playing card they picked up.

3. Beginner Activation: Spend time with God asking Him to show you something about yourself that God delights in. Explore this further with God, asking Him more questions about this.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to bring to mind someone who is sick. Spend time with God hearing His heart for that person and how He would love you to minister to them.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight a disease to you and then to show you His heart for people with this disease. Spend time with God seeking His answer to how you are to pray about a cure for that disease.

Surgical Intervention is not Inferior Healing

Posted on by

Surgical intervention is not inferior to a supernatural spontaneous healing from God. Sometimes, in our enthusiasm for miraculous healing, we can reduce the role of Doctors and medicine in the healing process.

Several years ago, we went on a journey of ‘medical’ healing.

Hubby began experiencing tingling, and extreme discomfit in his right hand and arm. This had persisted for several months, during which he hadn’t thought to tell me before then. That Sunday morning, when we were chatting in bed before getting up, I commented how Hubby should book in to see our local Doctor. That afternoon, two medical specialists were at our home for pre-engagement counselling. Hubby commented on how he wanted them both to pray for him, as they have a supernatural healing ministry. They examined him, prayed for him, and strongly suggested he see the doctor for an MRI.

The next day, hubby rang the GP. The GP was fully booked out, leaving in a couple of days for an operation herself, and would be out of the office for several weeks. Hubby decided to ‘call in’ and see her at the end of her work, and she saw him then. He then rang me at 7 pm to say he needed an MRI, but it usually takes a week to get an appointment. I suggested he ring that night and see if he could leave a message. He rang, and they told him they had just had a cancellation for that night and he could come in immediately. Thus, another miracle.

The GP received the report of the MRI the following day and asked Hubby to come in as it was serious, and she wanted to refer him to a neurosurgeon. Again, we were told there would be a delay in getting in as we were public patients and did not have private health insurance. For all this to be achieved before our GP went off for her operation was impressive.

Hubby asked people to pray for supernatural healing of the C6 prolapsed disc and bony spur. He felt that there was enough faith in our home for healing, but we also invited other members of the Healing Rooms to come and pray for healing. During this time, I saw a picture of a bone being shaved away. Our 10-year-old son heard God say that Gary would be totally healed. I had a dream where I saw Arthur Burk standing in front of me, and he said, “Gary will be healed when he deals with his stuff”. Thus, Hubby was on bed rest, and I just wanted him to ‘deal with his stuff’ and ask God what He wanted to show him during this time. Our faith in supernatural healing was high.

The following Monday, we were sitting in the Neurosurgeon’s office. We had been warned that his bedside manner left a lot to be desired, but that didn’t concern us. His expertise was more what we were focussing on. I silently released peace and God’s presence into that room, and we immediately noted a change in the Neurosurgeon’s attitude. He started sharing his heart of justice, his mother, his frustration with the health system, and his concerns with some patients. Hubby felt a spirit of fear leave him in that room, plus he also had an encounter with Father God sharing some stuff with him. The outcome was that no conservative treatment would be effective for his situation, and Hubby would need surgery, but as we were public patients, there would be a wait of several months. The Neurosurgeon organised tablets and a cortisone injection that may help whilst awaiting surgery.

We have a few friends who are doctors and physios, so Hubby got their opinion. He started physio but experienced no change. The symptoms were getting worse.

Just as the 10-day course of anti-inflammatories finished, I received a phone call saying that Hubby was booked in for surgery at a private hospital that Friday at no expense to us. All within a fortnight of seeing the surgeon.

During that fortnight, we had also been on the team at our church’s Saturday morning Healing Rooms, where the team members and the children prayed for healing—no change in symptoms. One of the team leaders approached me and said, “You know Jane, surgical intervention is not inferior to a supernatural spontaneous healing from God”. I knew that, but now I have grasped more of it.

Our response then was: does Hubby proceed with the operation, or does he wait for supernatural healing? Is God going to heal through surgery?

I rang my dad, who said, “Jane – you don’t believe in coincidences. You always say that there are never coincidences with God. It sounds like you just need to walk on through the open doors.” Another few friends then said it was like the man in a flood standing on top of a roof crying out to God for help. A plane came, then a boat, and the man shooed them away each time and said he was waiting for God. The man finally accused God of not helping, and God replied, “I sent a boat and a plane. That was me reaching out to you.”

Thus, we went ahead, and Hubby had the surgery. Removal of the C6 disc, an artificial disc inserted and the bony spur shaved off down to the bone marrow. In an operation that was meant to take about 50 minutes, it ended up being 2 ½ hours as 1-2mm metal tip of a probe broke off during the surgery, and they had to find it and remove it by suctioning it out.

Apart from that complication, he had an incredibly amazing recovery. He did not have any pain or discomfort, even over the wound site or the site where the bone was shaved dramatically. The nurses gave him some Panadol in the hospital because they had to after surgery. He also had no complications after surgery.

The following morning, when the nurse took down his wound dressing, I was amazed at the lack of swelling, inflammation, bruising, and bleeding. The suture line looked beautiful and further healed than less than 24 hours post-surgery. As an ex Coronary Care Nurse, I was used to dealing with suture lines, and it honestly looked like it was about five days post-op with the lack of redness and inflammation and the closure of the wound. He came home that day with no pain, which is the major indicator of discharge in this surgery.

I googled “Arthur Burk pre anaesthetic prayer” to prepare for Hubby’s surgery. I found a video titled “Your spirit and surgery” – https://vimeo.com/315889893 (Approx 21 minutes) In this video, he describes some tools you can use to prepare your spirit for the operating room so that the procedure and the recovery are positively affected by the dominion God designed for your spirit.

I believe these prayers and how we prayed were a major help in the lack of pain and inflammation after the surgery. I must confess that we were running out of time, so I had scribbled the prayer on a slip of paper, and as I drove to the hospital with Hubby in the car, I prayed the prayer then. Not the best environment, but wow – the result was excellent!!

Four days before last Christmas, Hubby had major eye surgery. We again prayed the pre-anaesthetic prayer; he had no pain and an uneventful recovery. Hubby jokingly shares how the surgeon peeling off the tape over his eye patch was the only ‘pain’/discomfit he felt.

For those that would like this prayer, feel free to either watch the video on this link or contact me via email for a copy of the written prayer.

God created humans with the ability to gain skills and knowledge in a variety of areas. One of those areas is in medicine and healing. Healing through medicine is as valid as seeing supernatural healing through prayer.           

      

Prophetic Activations / Exercises to incorporate into your week:

Every blog post, I list five prophetic activations/exercises under children/family, group, beginner, intermediate and advanced. The purpose of these exercises is to practice to help us hear God’s voice in a clearer manner. They sharpen our senses to hear and see and sense God 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: Gather a list of people needing healing. Write each person’s name on a separate piece of paper. Pray. Ask children to draw a picture from God for the person whose name is on the paper. Write a statement, in the child’s words, about what they felt from God. Distribute the pictures to the relevant people.

2. Group Activation: Divide the group into small groups of 2-3 people. Give each group the name of a medical specialty at a local hospital eg cardiac services, respiratory services, kidney/renal, neurological, gastrointestinal, haematology, etc. Ask each group to individually hear from God and then as a group to combine what they heared/sensed/saw and prophesy over that service/area of the local hospital.

3. Beginner Activation: Ask God to highlight a person to you who is having surgery. Ask God to communicate to you His heart for them and to show you how to deliver it to them.

4. Intermediate Activation: Ask God to highlight a hospital/medical clinic to pray and prophecy over. Spend time hearing God’s heart for that hospital/medical clinic and what He would love you to do with what He has communicated to you about that place.

5. Advanced Activation: Ask God to highlight an area in the world that is in dire need of medical care and expertise. Spend time asking God to show you His heart for that area and what He would love you to do in response.