letter from mom, my reply, healing, screenplay
This is one of the best emails I've had from you in years. I'm posting it in my livejournal and printing it out. There's hope for you yet!!! I'll have to work your email into my someday akashic records type screenplay. It's funny, I remember that one time where I felt like I was looking around the records, like people were looking at me. Not mean but just like I was a kid in the middle of the really big libraries at Harvard w/ the overstuffed leather armchairs. I was definitely in a new land.
Last night was no quite normal..dizziness and noises but I handled it. I've got to get my grounding now...how submerged in the church do I want to get, how much job searching vs exercising...you know getting back on trail and balancing.
Will go whale watching only $15/person w/ the church!!! with Aaron, Zoe and Becky
Do you think we all get gifts? I wish I knew what mine are.
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Vicki Beaulieu Page wrote:
Hi Doll,
how are you and how have you been? You & Becca called several times on Sunday and I listened to the messages but got home late. Jenny stopped many times along the way home ie: Christmas tree shop in Augusta, Texas Road House at 3pm for late lunch/early supper, the LLBean store in Bangor, picked up itlalian sandwiches for Tadd in Hermon, etc... I called Becca late Sunday and told her I was home safe, Smile I dont really know what the difference is between a charismatic baptist church and a Pentecostal there are so many similarities. Oh wait! Yes, I do! Duh! (slaps forehead and makes mental note to tell Becca too) Its a BIG difference! Pentecostals think you can loose your salvation thats why they "reconfirm" their salvation every Sunday. The baptist know that once forgiven is enough for their salvation, they just rependt of any sins committed during the week and re-establish their walk with the Lord.
Well, so how are you sleeping and feeling now? Remember you are safe and loved!
I woke this morning and had a thought about you. It wasn't a dream because I had already woken up, but maybe it was a waking dream? Anyhow, you & I were in a huge warehouse, shelves galore loded with crates, boxes, assorted sizes of containers neatly stacked along these very tall shelves. The aisles extended further than the eye could see with rows of shelves on each side. It appreared to be limitless. We asked a warehouse associate where we could find the Akashic records and he said "those are located next to the Map of Eden and are off limits to humans."
So i think that all your "troubles" started with you wanting to know something that "isn't allowed." Like you bit that apple in the garden. And you reap what you sow. I think you also came to this same conclusion days ago, but that's what my thoughts/dream represented to me and I wanted to share it with you. Since Edgar Cayce is the "father of New Age," I think you are correct and this is a confirmation.
You can still do healing with Christ. Perhaps if you studied the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" you may find enlightenment. Check this scripture out:
1 Corinthians 12:8-13 (New American Standard Bible)
8For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
9to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
10and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
11But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
12For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
13For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Study the above text and see which gift(s) the Spirit has entrusted to you. You should develop it.
Where there's a gift, there are natural abilities and developed skills which can go with it.
And this is the fruit of the Spirit which ALL Christians have:
Galatians 5:22-23 (New American Standard Bible)
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
And you can see from that scripture that it supports the one that say "you do not have a spirit of fear, but of love, and the power of a sound mind..."
Ok honey, I'll write more later. Love ya to pieces and hope you are feeling better AND rested!
Love, Mom
Where there's a gift, there are natural abilities and developed skills which can go with it.
* There is the gift of discernment of spirits, and the natural ability of intuition, and the skillful use of a discernment process.
* There is the gift of healing, and there are the natural healing processes and the medical skills to assist those processes.
* There is exorcism, and there are people able to rid their lives of those who use lies and trickery, and the skill of making themselves more true.
* There is prophecy, and there is the ability to discover the truth and the skill to figure out how and when to share it.
* There is ecstatic spiritual experience, and there are romance and desire, and the skills to use them to create bonds of love with your spouse.
God created everyone with these natural foreshadowings of supernatural gifts. They're good, and are meant to be used all, not just the faithful. If you find that you have a talent, use it and develop it as best you can. But it takes the Holy Spirit working within the believer to put the natural and the supernatural together with power to serve.
The 'skill' part of this is important. There is no room to be lazy about it. If your gift is given for a direction or purpose, then you also have a responsibility to use the gift as best as you can, and that means working to get better in the related 'skills'. In fact, most people who have gifts are so steered by the purpose behind the gift that they thirst to get better at it -- to learn from mistakes, to rethink the way it's done, to more thoroughly base it in spiritual living, to connect with those who are built up by its use. They want to be at their best for their Maker. That thirst is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
Pray for : (1) the Spirit to lead your response. (2) Inner peace about it.
Sometimes God is calling on you to do a hard thing that the work of others will be built on, or that will free others to do things. That usually has some sort of burden attached. Usually God will open a door, and slam a bunch of others shut. God doesn't always grant peace of mind (sometimes the burden's essential for the task at hand), but usually God will supply you with an ease of conscience and a sense of certainty once you start moving in faith. Sometimes it breaks into flat-out joy. But this must be taken in prayer and into Scripture, meditations, and devotions. Please do at least some part of that with other Christians, preferably ones who have some grasp of what you're going through, but if not, just firm believers who care about you.
Something's up. Overall, such news is mostly good, because of Who's at work. Keep that in mind, because it won't always feel like it. Trust God, listen for the Spirit, and watch for the opportunities.
Sometimes; often it's something the Spirit gives you to remind you to keep plowing ahead. But guilt can bog you down, and the moment you sense that, remember that the Spirit is in you and you have been forgiven your sins in the power of Christ.
Your task now is to move ahead from that new start, and that takes more than a tent revival. It takes really tying yourself into a church and to believers in the church who are eager to teach you and model for you what this new life is. That can be really frustrating -- you're only now discovering the full range of what God has done, and other Christians aren't always wonderful or grace-full. But that is where we learn. I can't tell you where to go (certainly not when I don't know your local churches), but I can tell you to look, pray on it, and commit to it. I also urge you to join a bible study -- hopefully connected to that church, but it doesn't have to be. Preferably the ones held in someone's home. You can find closeness there to other people who are taking that same walk in Christ.
Be confident! The Holy Spirit **IS** working in your life. That is not a guess. That's true from the moment you're conceived, and it was what led you to the revival. And will lead you beyond it. Trust God with that. It doesn't mean things will go right -- indeed, they may get really bad or (more likely) really boring. But keep at studying the Bible, worship, and most of all prayer. Make a habit of it. Slogging through the mud will give you strong legs for the climb. You'll look back years later and say, 'wow, I've come a long way'.
Healing In the Bible
Anyone who's paying any attention while reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus has a hard time missing that Jesus healed people of physical illnesses. Not only did Jesus do it early and often (so often that during His life, His healings were seen as a trademark of His work), but He is reported in Scripture to have given his followers the ability to do the same, and more. As to the church actually following through on that promise, see Acts 3:1-16.
From the point of view of the Bible as a whole, healing happens whenever harm or damage is made whole. This broader view of healing needs to be kept in mind when you think Christianly about politics, society, interchurch relations, decision-making methods, and questions of racism, sexism, or classism. Yet, the Bible usually means something more specific and earthy than that when it speaks of healing. It tells the story of specific people being healed of their specific physical illnesses. If we over-emphasize the broader vision, we can quickly lose sight of the specific usage. Thus, in this chapter I'll stick to the primary meaning of healing, that of physical restoration of health, and leave inner healing to another chapter.
Jesus did his healings in the context of Isaiah 53:5 (according to Matt 8:17). That's an atonement passage. It's tempting to simplistically link all healing with the Lord's Supper, and treat healing as a fait accomplice, as if it's already there for the asking. But the Eucharist is about Jesus' presence, which is not only an 'already', but a 'not-yet'. The body and blood 'already' were shed to save us, and believers in Christ are 'already' a part of the Kingdom of God, but we await his 'not-yet' return ( 1 Corinthians 11:26). That's why there isn't perfect healing in this life, any more than there is perfect living. The Christian faith does not deny brokenness. It denies that brokenness has the last word. Healing is a foretaste of a Kingdom that has not yet come in its fullness.
"God heals the sicknesses and the griefs by making the sicknesses and the griefs his suffering and his grief. In the image of the crucified God the sick and dying can see themselves, because in them the crucified God recognizes himself."
----- Jürgen Moltmann, *The Spirit of Life*, p.191. Emphasis is in the original.
The early church understood this, and not just in the era of the Apostles. Throughout the first two centuries, wherever Christian witness went, physical healing went too. It would perhaps be helpful to mention a saint or two who healed, but the fact is, healings may well be the most common miracle ascribed to those the Roman Catholic Church honors as saints, famed and forgotten saints alike. While it became much less common after the time of Constantine, it did not nearly vanish like most other miraculous acts and signs. Instead, nearly every era has some Christians who touched and healed people, right through to our own times. It goes hand-in-hand with a deep spirituality and an even deeper love of God and other people -- when the Spirit is there, healing happens !
Healings are a sign of the day when all illness and unease is healed. It is actually one of the actions of that kingdom asserting itself, the beginning of the healing process for all of creation. (Only a beginning. It is no substitute for the completed Kingdom. The healed will eventually die, just as the raised Lazarus died again. So getting part of that wholeness through healing reminds us of what it is to have the whole thing someday.) In healing prayer and healing work, we can all be a part of God's holistic overall work of healing. Christians don't worship health. We don't call on God to remove all suffering from life. What we do is ask God to fulfill the divine purposes, and trust God to give us health where it helps and suffering where that is needed.
"We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help."
----- Henri Nouwen, *the Wounded Healer*, p. 27
God Heals
All healing is, in some way, divine healing. We can speak of 'natural' processes for healing, but who created nature? Who set its rules, gave it its direction? God, of course. So when body tissue repairs itself and the immune system works, it is doing what God intended it to do. We can also speak of 'medical' healing. But medicine is rooted in the understanding of how nature works. It gives a boost to the systems for healing that we already have within us, clearing away roadblocks to restoring health, and does some things that nature does not have the ability to do on its own. Medicine itself has no ultimate healing power. All medicine can do at its very best is to delay death's inevitable arrival. Even medicine's ability to delay death is a great gift from God. The Holy Spirit is, according to the Nicene Creed, the Giver of life. The Spirit is also the sustainer of life, the breath you keep drawing in as long as you're alive. Just as the Spirit can heal your soul, the Spirit can work within you to heal your body.
The kind of healing that the Bible talks about also takes place today in our day and time. It is real. It's in the toolbox that the Spirit has given Christ's followers. As we do with many of those tools, we try to be in control, to manipulate using healing (like Simon Magus may have done), or to fake it in order to become famous. The real gift may be hard to find because so many are claiming to do it.
In today's world, many people turn to healing ministries and faith healers for many of the same reasons they use for turning to alternative medicine, unusual therapies, and New Age healing:
* spiritual hunger;
* meaning in life;
* direction for life.
It's best to address these needs without letting them overwhelm the healing task at hand. A congregational healing ministry is not a shrink's couch or a medical practice or a weekend with a guru. It has a different task. It must not try to imitate them.
Faith healing is not there to replace medicine or the body's healing processes. But Western civilization has gotten even most Christians to look to medical science as their only source of healing. When the Bible speaks of healing, it is speaking of God's stepping in to bring about healing by divine power rather than mere medicine. The natural processes obey God's command rather than operate as they normally do. Miracles show who's really in charge. Thus, the Christian's prayer is not just that the ill be comforted, but that they may be healed. When healing occurs, we are not to ask what we did right, but to ask what God is up to.
From a church bulletin:
"Due to the Rector's illness, Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice."
Healing is the Master reasserting His reign
God-Talk About Healing
Healing is a divine mystery. God does not provide the same things to everyone, nor the same thing all the time to any one person. The gifts are measured according to the Kingdom's standards, not our standards, and are given entirely for God's purposes. It's not a 'health and wealth' thing where one presses a prayer button marked 'gimme' and out pops a new Mercedes or a miracle healing. The idea of automatic blessing is presumption, not faith. Yet, charismatic Christians take issue with the church in general for not seriously believing that God will lead, heal, or empower. They believe that God can and DOES step into our lives. They trust that God will do right by them when they are ill (Matthew 6:19-33).
However, there's a serious problem among some churches. It's especially severe among fundamentalists and fringe Pentecostals, but the problem can be found in members of just about any church. The problem starts with a simple idea : that unconfessed sin can cause illness. The Bible teaches that. Life experience teaches that. I myself have gone through serious physical distress because of what an unconfessed sin did to me from inside, twisting me into such knots that I developed itchings and sores and headaches and bodily weakness.
The problem is that many Christian churches teach this backward: if you're ill and it doesn't go away with prayer, then it must be caused by unconfessed sin or the absence of faith. Baloney! It usually isn't caused by unconfessed sin. Illness is made possible by the sinfulness which comes with being a part of this created world -- the sort of sin which Christians mean when saying that all human beings are 'fallen'. This 'fallenness' (sometimes called 'original sin') has put us all out of kilter and made us un-whole. That's why we all break down and eventually die. Our state of sin is what makes it possible for us to become ill. But all the confession in the world has never once gotten rid of that state of sin within earthly life. It's with us till the Kingdom comes. Specific sins are usually not what gives a specific person their specific illness at a particular time. That's usually a matter of germs or conditions or bad genes or accident, the result of this world's 'fallen' disorder.
Yet I can tell you of dozens of people I have met (and hundreds I have heard about) who were scolded, berated, shunned, shamed, and labeled as a grave sinner just because they happened to be ill and it didn't go away when they were prayed over. I've seen this happen with my own eyes more times than I care to recount. Most Pentecostalists I know of are aware of this, and say that they don't believe that the failure to be healed is always from unrepented sin. Yet, even for those people, old habits die hard. Often, the first thing that even those believers will do when someone isn't healed is to start interrogating the unhealed person about the parts of their life that personal sins are most expected to be found -- usually involving sex. Tens of thousands of people every year are driven away from the church by this belief. They flee because instead of being loving people who gave grace to someone in need, the church was an angry, superstitious, bitter, legalistic, elite clique which showed no real love at all, and indeed showed exactly the opposite of such love. This is not the way of Christ. Christ made contact with the ill, Christ treated them personally, Christ healed them, Christ showed them love. If your church doesn't do that, either change churches, or if possible, cause the church to change. It is a matter of the Gospel.
Catalysts for Miracles
People report that they go through strange things when they are miraculously healed:
* -- shaking or shivering hands;
* -- heat where a healer and heal-ee make contact;
* -- a gift of being led as to what to pray for;
* -- the feeling of being 'bathed in prayer', a sense of peace and assurance that there are people really actively praying for the person's wellness, and that God is giving a positive response to their prayers.
* -- a 'parting of the fog', a sudden clarity of mind or return of awareness during illnesses or treatments that produce dizziness, extreme weakness, headache, or disorientation.
There's a lot of dispute as to whether the gift of healing is given to a 'healer' (so said Oral Roberts) or to the 'healed' (so said David DuPlessis). There's reason to suspect that the Spirit is giving matching gifts to both. There are some people who just seem to be able to bring healing with them wherever they go. They act as great catalysts for healing. Yet in order to do the healing, the Spirit must also be operating inside of the ill person to make the change happen, with or without someone else healing them. The dominant gift, I would think, would be the one to the 'healed' person, as they are the beneficiaries; however, that's by no means clear. Whatever the case, one of the joyful rewards of being in a healing ministry is when you see the Lord bring healing in a way you didn't expect, especially when God gave you a part in what was done.
Someone can talk a lot about healing, share methods of healing, use anointing oils and liturgies at the scene, discover that they may have a healing touch, teach about intercessory prayer, and learn how to conduct healing services. That's all good, all important, and all part of a valid healing ministry. But, unless many actual healings come from that work, that person has less of an actual healing ministry than any of the tens of thousands who take part in prayer chains and hospital visitations for their congregations. Or for that matter, no more of a ministry than the countless Christians who are doctors, EMTs, nurses, psychologists and counselors. These unsung heroes of the Christian faith look illness, insanity, human frailty and even death right in the eyes every day. Yet, how often is it that anyone calls big-time attention to them, or stages big church events to whip up a frenzy of praise for them, even after what they did on 9/11? How many Christian congregations fail to even acknowledge such ministries? These people are taking part in what is best seen as a 'Body' gift of healing -- the kind of gift not focused in a single person or moment, but given to Christ's followers as a group as well as to those within it who take on these tasks.
Healing Thyself
While the Church has its part in healings, so does the sick person. For instance, you can take preventative measures -- proper diet, physical conditioning, and quitting smoking. Gluttony and laziness are sin, not because they make you ill, but because they undermine your sense of spiritual (and bodily!) proportion about yourself and show a lack of inner discipline. If your body is a temple for the Spirit, and is made to be that way by dint of God's creative hand, then it is an insult to God for you to lay waste to it.
Then, there is your devotional life. When you turn your attention to God, and open yourself up ever more to the inner work of the Spirit, it helps in every aspect of your life. Devotional disciplines like daily prayer, quiet time, and journaling help keep you in tune with God and helps you to turn over more of your life to God. If your illness is caused by a sin you're still holding onto, as it sometimes is, the disciplines help you find the sin, where its roots are, and how it can be ended. Also, the Spirit might bring you the gift of spiritual healing of yourself -- making you both the healer and the healed.
If this should happen to you, give praise and thanks to the God who made it possible. Let yourself go in the praise of God! It's fun, and it's right!
It's not illness, faith healers, doctors, unusual occurrences, or even the sick person that merits our greatest attention. It is Jesus the Healer who merits it. This remains true even if health is not restored.
Depression is.... well... depressing.
When There Is No Healing
I've gotten many of these letters over the years:
> A woman's daughter was dying. Her friends brought in this other woman who
> claimed to be a healer and a prophet. She went to the hospital, prayed over
> the daughter and anointed her head. Then, she prophesied to the mother that
> the child would live. The child died the next day. When the prophetess heard
> about this, she said that it was because the mother didn't have enough faith.
> The mother turned to her pastor, who told her that it must be so, otherwise
> the daughter would have been healed. The mother has turned her back on the
> Christian faith because of this, and runs from her former friends, who
> really miss her much. What happened, and what should we do?
What happened is that her friends' lack of discernment fed the mother's desperate desire to believe anything which might give her back her child when everything else says the child will die. When someone is in that state, they'll cling to anything for hope, and the Devil sends his people around to be that 'anything'. Hence the 'prophetess'.
Someone with real healing gifts would know better than to promise or guarantee a successful healing. They know from experience and Scripture that they don't know why things happen the way they do in this broken world, and that the child may not (but also may) be healed. They know healing is a gift from God whenever it is done, it is not really under the healer's (or for that matter, the doctor's) control. They may be confident a healing will take place, but they can never be certain. Thus, the 'prophetess' shows herself as false by the very fact she declared that the girl will be healed. Unusual medical treatments often provide false hope, but 'prophetesses' like this one are worse because they peddle false hope as part of their trade. You can't expect the mother to discern such things in the state of mind she was in, so her friends, and then later her pastor, have the responsibility to discern for her. And they did not. Instead, they blamed her. Whether she believes or disbelieves in healing or prophecy or medicine, she's still totally desperate. If this promise wasn't there, the mother would have grabbed another. Wouldn't you if it were your child? That's what makes this kind of a lie so evil - the mother has so little choice. The guilt trip is so heavy, and so hard to resist.
Now that it's happened, the best thing to do is let the passage of time settle things down. Later on, opportunities may arise, and she may be more open again. But don't force anything. She's angry, and has every right to be.
Spirithome.com warns hard against the belief that the failure to be healed is caused by a supposed 'lack of faith'. Some Christians act as if the use of doctors or anti-depression medicines are a 'lack of faith'. Faith does matter, but in a different and positive way. The presence of faith sets the groundwork for healing possibilities which may or may not happen. Mis-faith or lack of faith, however, is not usually why faith healings (or medical healings) fail. There are too many other reasons we are ill and die. This is a material world which is out of kilter with God. Because of that, we all die. Even worse, any one of us can die anywhere at any time from any number of causes. That's the way of the world -- no exceptions. No amount of faith changes this. (Nor can any medical treatment change it.) This isn't the way God wants it to be. (That's why there's a died-and-risen Christ.) It is, however, the way it is till the Kingdom comes in full. And we must come to terms with it.
Last night was no quite normal..dizziness and noises but I handled it. I've got to get my grounding now...how submerged in the church do I want to get, how much job searching vs exercising...you know getting back on trail and balancing.
Will go whale watching only $15/person w/ the church!!! with Aaron, Zoe and Becky
Do you think we all get gifts? I wish I knew what mine are.
On Wed, Aug 18, 2010 at 10:01 AM, Vicki Beaulieu Page wrote:
Hi Doll,
how are you and how have you been? You & Becca called several times on Sunday and I listened to the messages but got home late. Jenny stopped many times along the way home ie: Christmas tree shop in Augusta, Texas Road House at 3pm for late lunch/early supper, the LLBean store in Bangor, picked up itlalian sandwiches for Tadd in Hermon, etc... I called Becca late Sunday and told her I was home safe, Smile I dont really know what the difference is between a charismatic baptist church and a Pentecostal there are so many similarities. Oh wait! Yes, I do! Duh! (slaps forehead and makes mental note to tell Becca too) Its a BIG difference! Pentecostals think you can loose your salvation thats why they "reconfirm" their salvation every Sunday. The baptist know that once forgiven is enough for their salvation, they just rependt of any sins committed during the week and re-establish their walk with the Lord.
Well, so how are you sleeping and feeling now? Remember you are safe and loved!
I woke this morning and had a thought about you. It wasn't a dream because I had already woken up, but maybe it was a waking dream? Anyhow, you & I were in a huge warehouse, shelves galore loded with crates, boxes, assorted sizes of containers neatly stacked along these very tall shelves. The aisles extended further than the eye could see with rows of shelves on each side. It appreared to be limitless. We asked a warehouse associate where we could find the Akashic records and he said "those are located next to the Map of Eden and are off limits to humans."
So i think that all your "troubles" started with you wanting to know something that "isn't allowed." Like you bit that apple in the garden. And you reap what you sow. I think you also came to this same conclusion days ago, but that's what my thoughts/dream represented to me and I wanted to share it with you. Since Edgar Cayce is the "father of New Age," I think you are correct and this is a confirmation.
You can still do healing with Christ. Perhaps if you studied the "gifts of the Holy Spirit" you may find enlightenment. Check this scripture out:
1 Corinthians 12:8-13 (New American Standard Bible)
8For to one is given the word of wisdom through the Spirit, and to another the word of knowledge according to the same Spirit;
9to another faith by the same Spirit, and to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
10and to another the effecting of miracles, and to another prophecy, and to another the distinguishing of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, and to another the interpretation of tongues.
11But one and the same Spirit works all these things, distributing to each one individually just as He wills.
12For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ.
13For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
Study the above text and see which gift(s) the Spirit has entrusted to you. You should develop it.
Where there's a gift, there are natural abilities and developed skills which can go with it.
And this is the fruit of the Spirit which ALL Christians have:
Galatians 5:22-23 (New American Standard Bible)
22But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
23gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law.
And you can see from that scripture that it supports the one that say "you do not have a spirit of fear, but of love, and the power of a sound mind..."
Ok honey, I'll write more later. Love ya to pieces and hope you are feeling better AND rested!
Love, Mom
Where there's a gift, there are natural abilities and developed skills which can go with it.
* There is the gift of discernment of spirits, and the natural ability of intuition, and the skillful use of a discernment process.
* There is the gift of healing, and there are the natural healing processes and the medical skills to assist those processes.
* There is exorcism, and there are people able to rid their lives of those who use lies and trickery, and the skill of making themselves more true.
* There is prophecy, and there is the ability to discover the truth and the skill to figure out how and when to share it.
* There is ecstatic spiritual experience, and there are romance and desire, and the skills to use them to create bonds of love with your spouse.
God created everyone with these natural foreshadowings of supernatural gifts. They're good, and are meant to be used all, not just the faithful. If you find that you have a talent, use it and develop it as best you can. But it takes the Holy Spirit working within the believer to put the natural and the supernatural together with power to serve.
The 'skill' part of this is important. There is no room to be lazy about it. If your gift is given for a direction or purpose, then you also have a responsibility to use the gift as best as you can, and that means working to get better in the related 'skills'. In fact, most people who have gifts are so steered by the purpose behind the gift that they thirst to get better at it -- to learn from mistakes, to rethink the way it's done, to more thoroughly base it in spiritual living, to connect with those who are built up by its use. They want to be at their best for their Maker. That thirst is an ongoing work of the Holy Spirit.
Pray for : (1) the Spirit to lead your response. (2) Inner peace about it.
Sometimes God is calling on you to do a hard thing that the work of others will be built on, or that will free others to do things. That usually has some sort of burden attached. Usually God will open a door, and slam a bunch of others shut. God doesn't always grant peace of mind (sometimes the burden's essential for the task at hand), but usually God will supply you with an ease of conscience and a sense of certainty once you start moving in faith. Sometimes it breaks into flat-out joy. But this must be taken in prayer and into Scripture, meditations, and devotions. Please do at least some part of that with other Christians, preferably ones who have some grasp of what you're going through, but if not, just firm believers who care about you.
Something's up. Overall, such news is mostly good, because of Who's at work. Keep that in mind, because it won't always feel like it. Trust God, listen for the Spirit, and watch for the opportunities.
Sometimes; often it's something the Spirit gives you to remind you to keep plowing ahead. But guilt can bog you down, and the moment you sense that, remember that the Spirit is in you and you have been forgiven your sins in the power of Christ.
Your task now is to move ahead from that new start, and that takes more than a tent revival. It takes really tying yourself into a church and to believers in the church who are eager to teach you and model for you what this new life is. That can be really frustrating -- you're only now discovering the full range of what God has done, and other Christians aren't always wonderful or grace-full. But that is where we learn. I can't tell you where to go (certainly not when I don't know your local churches), but I can tell you to look, pray on it, and commit to it. I also urge you to join a bible study -- hopefully connected to that church, but it doesn't have to be. Preferably the ones held in someone's home. You can find closeness there to other people who are taking that same walk in Christ.
Be confident! The Holy Spirit **IS** working in your life. That is not a guess. That's true from the moment you're conceived, and it was what led you to the revival. And will lead you beyond it. Trust God with that. It doesn't mean things will go right -- indeed, they may get really bad or (more likely) really boring. But keep at studying the Bible, worship, and most of all prayer. Make a habit of it. Slogging through the mud will give you strong legs for the climb. You'll look back years later and say, 'wow, I've come a long way'.
Healing In the Bible
Anyone who's paying any attention while reading the Gospel accounts of Jesus has a hard time missing that Jesus healed people of physical illnesses. Not only did Jesus do it early and often (so often that during His life, His healings were seen as a trademark of His work), but He is reported in Scripture to have given his followers the ability to do the same, and more. As to the church actually following through on that promise, see Acts 3:1-16.
From the point of view of the Bible as a whole, healing happens whenever harm or damage is made whole. This broader view of healing needs to be kept in mind when you think Christianly about politics, society, interchurch relations, decision-making methods, and questions of racism, sexism, or classism. Yet, the Bible usually means something more specific and earthy than that when it speaks of healing. It tells the story of specific people being healed of their specific physical illnesses. If we over-emphasize the broader vision, we can quickly lose sight of the specific usage. Thus, in this chapter I'll stick to the primary meaning of healing, that of physical restoration of health, and leave inner healing to another chapter.
Jesus did his healings in the context of Isaiah 53:5 (according to Matt 8:17). That's an atonement passage. It's tempting to simplistically link all healing with the Lord's Supper, and treat healing as a fait accomplice, as if it's already there for the asking. But the Eucharist is about Jesus' presence, which is not only an 'already', but a 'not-yet'. The body and blood 'already' were shed to save us, and believers in Christ are 'already' a part of the Kingdom of God, but we await his 'not-yet' return ( 1 Corinthians 11:26). That's why there isn't perfect healing in this life, any more than there is perfect living. The Christian faith does not deny brokenness. It denies that brokenness has the last word. Healing is a foretaste of a Kingdom that has not yet come in its fullness.
"God heals the sicknesses and the griefs by making the sicknesses and the griefs his suffering and his grief. In the image of the crucified God the sick and dying can see themselves, because in them the crucified God recognizes himself."
----- Jürgen Moltmann, *The Spirit of Life*, p.191. Emphasis is in the original.
The early church understood this, and not just in the era of the Apostles. Throughout the first two centuries, wherever Christian witness went, physical healing went too. It would perhaps be helpful to mention a saint or two who healed, but the fact is, healings may well be the most common miracle ascribed to those the Roman Catholic Church honors as saints, famed and forgotten saints alike. While it became much less common after the time of Constantine, it did not nearly vanish like most other miraculous acts and signs. Instead, nearly every era has some Christians who touched and healed people, right through to our own times. It goes hand-in-hand with a deep spirituality and an even deeper love of God and other people -- when the Spirit is there, healing happens !
Healings are a sign of the day when all illness and unease is healed. It is actually one of the actions of that kingdom asserting itself, the beginning of the healing process for all of creation. (Only a beginning. It is no substitute for the completed Kingdom. The healed will eventually die, just as the raised Lazarus died again. So getting part of that wholeness through healing reminds us of what it is to have the whole thing someday.) In healing prayer and healing work, we can all be a part of God's holistic overall work of healing. Christians don't worship health. We don't call on God to remove all suffering from life. What we do is ask God to fulfill the divine purposes, and trust God to give us health where it helps and suffering where that is needed.
"We are all healers who can reach out and offer health, and we are all patients in constant need of help."
----- Henri Nouwen, *the Wounded Healer*, p. 27
God Heals
All healing is, in some way, divine healing. We can speak of 'natural' processes for healing, but who created nature? Who set its rules, gave it its direction? God, of course. So when body tissue repairs itself and the immune system works, it is doing what God intended it to do. We can also speak of 'medical' healing. But medicine is rooted in the understanding of how nature works. It gives a boost to the systems for healing that we already have within us, clearing away roadblocks to restoring health, and does some things that nature does not have the ability to do on its own. Medicine itself has no ultimate healing power. All medicine can do at its very best is to delay death's inevitable arrival. Even medicine's ability to delay death is a great gift from God. The Holy Spirit is, according to the Nicene Creed, the Giver of life. The Spirit is also the sustainer of life, the breath you keep drawing in as long as you're alive. Just as the Spirit can heal your soul, the Spirit can work within you to heal your body.
The kind of healing that the Bible talks about also takes place today in our day and time. It is real. It's in the toolbox that the Spirit has given Christ's followers. As we do with many of those tools, we try to be in control, to manipulate using healing (like Simon Magus may have done), or to fake it in order to become famous. The real gift may be hard to find because so many are claiming to do it.
In today's world, many people turn to healing ministries and faith healers for many of the same reasons they use for turning to alternative medicine, unusual therapies, and New Age healing:
* spiritual hunger;
* meaning in life;
* direction for life.
It's best to address these needs without letting them overwhelm the healing task at hand. A congregational healing ministry is not a shrink's couch or a medical practice or a weekend with a guru. It has a different task. It must not try to imitate them.
Faith healing is not there to replace medicine or the body's healing processes. But Western civilization has gotten even most Christians to look to medical science as their only source of healing. When the Bible speaks of healing, it is speaking of God's stepping in to bring about healing by divine power rather than mere medicine. The natural processes obey God's command rather than operate as they normally do. Miracles show who's really in charge. Thus, the Christian's prayer is not just that the ill be comforted, but that they may be healed. When healing occurs, we are not to ask what we did right, but to ask what God is up to.
From a church bulletin:
"Due to the Rector's illness, Wednesday's healing services will be discontinued until further notice."
Healing is the Master reasserting His reign
God-Talk About Healing
Healing is a divine mystery. God does not provide the same things to everyone, nor the same thing all the time to any one person. The gifts are measured according to the Kingdom's standards, not our standards, and are given entirely for God's purposes. It's not a 'health and wealth' thing where one presses a prayer button marked 'gimme' and out pops a new Mercedes or a miracle healing. The idea of automatic blessing is presumption, not faith. Yet, charismatic Christians take issue with the church in general for not seriously believing that God will lead, heal, or empower. They believe that God can and DOES step into our lives. They trust that God will do right by them when they are ill (Matthew 6:19-33).
However, there's a serious problem among some churches. It's especially severe among fundamentalists and fringe Pentecostals, but the problem can be found in members of just about any church. The problem starts with a simple idea : that unconfessed sin can cause illness. The Bible teaches that. Life experience teaches that. I myself have gone through serious physical distress because of what an unconfessed sin did to me from inside, twisting me into such knots that I developed itchings and sores and headaches and bodily weakness.
The problem is that many Christian churches teach this backward: if you're ill and it doesn't go away with prayer, then it must be caused by unconfessed sin or the absence of faith. Baloney! It usually isn't caused by unconfessed sin. Illness is made possible by the sinfulness which comes with being a part of this created world -- the sort of sin which Christians mean when saying that all human beings are 'fallen'. This 'fallenness' (sometimes called 'original sin') has put us all out of kilter and made us un-whole. That's why we all break down and eventually die. Our state of sin is what makes it possible for us to become ill. But all the confession in the world has never once gotten rid of that state of sin within earthly life. It's with us till the Kingdom comes. Specific sins are usually not what gives a specific person their specific illness at a particular time. That's usually a matter of germs or conditions or bad genes or accident, the result of this world's 'fallen' disorder.
Yet I can tell you of dozens of people I have met (and hundreds I have heard about) who were scolded, berated, shunned, shamed, and labeled as a grave sinner just because they happened to be ill and it didn't go away when they were prayed over. I've seen this happen with my own eyes more times than I care to recount. Most Pentecostalists I know of are aware of this, and say that they don't believe that the failure to be healed is always from unrepented sin. Yet, even for those people, old habits die hard. Often, the first thing that even those believers will do when someone isn't healed is to start interrogating the unhealed person about the parts of their life that personal sins are most expected to be found -- usually involving sex. Tens of thousands of people every year are driven away from the church by this belief. They flee because instead of being loving people who gave grace to someone in need, the church was an angry, superstitious, bitter, legalistic, elite clique which showed no real love at all, and indeed showed exactly the opposite of such love. This is not the way of Christ. Christ made contact with the ill, Christ treated them personally, Christ healed them, Christ showed them love. If your church doesn't do that, either change churches, or if possible, cause the church to change. It is a matter of the Gospel.
Catalysts for Miracles
People report that they go through strange things when they are miraculously healed:
* -- shaking or shivering hands;
* -- heat where a healer and heal-ee make contact;
* -- a gift of being led as to what to pray for;
* -- the feeling of being 'bathed in prayer', a sense of peace and assurance that there are people really actively praying for the person's wellness, and that God is giving a positive response to their prayers.
* -- a 'parting of the fog', a sudden clarity of mind or return of awareness during illnesses or treatments that produce dizziness, extreme weakness, headache, or disorientation.
There's a lot of dispute as to whether the gift of healing is given to a 'healer' (so said Oral Roberts) or to the 'healed' (so said David DuPlessis). There's reason to suspect that the Spirit is giving matching gifts to both. There are some people who just seem to be able to bring healing with them wherever they go. They act as great catalysts for healing. Yet in order to do the healing, the Spirit must also be operating inside of the ill person to make the change happen, with or without someone else healing them. The dominant gift, I would think, would be the one to the 'healed' person, as they are the beneficiaries; however, that's by no means clear. Whatever the case, one of the joyful rewards of being in a healing ministry is when you see the Lord bring healing in a way you didn't expect, especially when God gave you a part in what was done.
Someone can talk a lot about healing, share methods of healing, use anointing oils and liturgies at the scene, discover that they may have a healing touch, teach about intercessory prayer, and learn how to conduct healing services. That's all good, all important, and all part of a valid healing ministry. But, unless many actual healings come from that work, that person has less of an actual healing ministry than any of the tens of thousands who take part in prayer chains and hospital visitations for their congregations. Or for that matter, no more of a ministry than the countless Christians who are doctors, EMTs, nurses, psychologists and counselors. These unsung heroes of the Christian faith look illness, insanity, human frailty and even death right in the eyes every day. Yet, how often is it that anyone calls big-time attention to them, or stages big church events to whip up a frenzy of praise for them, even after what they did on 9/11? How many Christian congregations fail to even acknowledge such ministries? These people are taking part in what is best seen as a 'Body' gift of healing -- the kind of gift not focused in a single person or moment, but given to Christ's followers as a group as well as to those within it who take on these tasks.
Healing Thyself
While the Church has its part in healings, so does the sick person. For instance, you can take preventative measures -- proper diet, physical conditioning, and quitting smoking. Gluttony and laziness are sin, not because they make you ill, but because they undermine your sense of spiritual (and bodily!) proportion about yourself and show a lack of inner discipline. If your body is a temple for the Spirit, and is made to be that way by dint of God's creative hand, then it is an insult to God for you to lay waste to it.
Then, there is your devotional life. When you turn your attention to God, and open yourself up ever more to the inner work of the Spirit, it helps in every aspect of your life. Devotional disciplines like daily prayer, quiet time, and journaling help keep you in tune with God and helps you to turn over more of your life to God. If your illness is caused by a sin you're still holding onto, as it sometimes is, the disciplines help you find the sin, where its roots are, and how it can be ended. Also, the Spirit might bring you the gift of spiritual healing of yourself -- making you both the healer and the healed.
If this should happen to you, give praise and thanks to the God who made it possible. Let yourself go in the praise of God! It's fun, and it's right!
It's not illness, faith healers, doctors, unusual occurrences, or even the sick person that merits our greatest attention. It is Jesus the Healer who merits it. This remains true even if health is not restored.
Depression is.... well... depressing.
When There Is No Healing
I've gotten many of these letters over the years:
> A woman's daughter was dying. Her friends brought in this other woman who
> claimed to be a healer and a prophet. She went to the hospital, prayed over
> the daughter and anointed her head. Then, she prophesied to the mother that
> the child would live. The child died the next day. When the prophetess heard
> about this, she said that it was because the mother didn't have enough faith.
> The mother turned to her pastor, who told her that it must be so, otherwise
> the daughter would have been healed. The mother has turned her back on the
> Christian faith because of this, and runs from her former friends, who
> really miss her much. What happened, and what should we do?
What happened is that her friends' lack of discernment fed the mother's desperate desire to believe anything which might give her back her child when everything else says the child will die. When someone is in that state, they'll cling to anything for hope, and the Devil sends his people around to be that 'anything'. Hence the 'prophetess'.
Someone with real healing gifts would know better than to promise or guarantee a successful healing. They know from experience and Scripture that they don't know why things happen the way they do in this broken world, and that the child may not (but also may) be healed. They know healing is a gift from God whenever it is done, it is not really under the healer's (or for that matter, the doctor's) control. They may be confident a healing will take place, but they can never be certain. Thus, the 'prophetess' shows herself as false by the very fact she declared that the girl will be healed. Unusual medical treatments often provide false hope, but 'prophetesses' like this one are worse because they peddle false hope as part of their trade. You can't expect the mother to discern such things in the state of mind she was in, so her friends, and then later her pastor, have the responsibility to discern for her. And they did not. Instead, they blamed her. Whether she believes or disbelieves in healing or prophecy or medicine, she's still totally desperate. If this promise wasn't there, the mother would have grabbed another. Wouldn't you if it were your child? That's what makes this kind of a lie so evil - the mother has so little choice. The guilt trip is so heavy, and so hard to resist.
Now that it's happened, the best thing to do is let the passage of time settle things down. Later on, opportunities may arise, and she may be more open again. But don't force anything. She's angry, and has every right to be.
Spirithome.com warns hard against the belief that the failure to be healed is caused by a supposed 'lack of faith'. Some Christians act as if the use of doctors or anti-depression medicines are a 'lack of faith'. Faith does matter, but in a different and positive way. The presence of faith sets the groundwork for healing possibilities which may or may not happen. Mis-faith or lack of faith, however, is not usually why faith healings (or medical healings) fail. There are too many other reasons we are ill and die. This is a material world which is out of kilter with God. Because of that, we all die. Even worse, any one of us can die anywhere at any time from any number of causes. That's the way of the world -- no exceptions. No amount of faith changes this. (Nor can any medical treatment change it.) This isn't the way God wants it to be. (That's why there's a died-and-risen Christ.) It is, however, the way it is till the Kingdom comes in full. And we must come to terms with it.