Levels of breakthrough

Today I dropped of "The Shack" to the lady with arthritis ... what has this novel got to do with healing?

Well lots of illness are multi-layered and healing requires breakthrough at all layers... arthritis in particular has been shown to links to stress, trauma, anger and unforgiveness. I've seen arthritis healed a handful of times now, sometimes it has been straightforward, you pray and the pain goes... but other times you feel the prompting of the Spirit to release forgiveness to the person, or to ask them to release someone else in forgiveness ... this is much harder because easy forgiveness probably implies that there wasn't much to forgive, just offence taken by one party... when there has been real hurt, injustice and abuse forgiveness really does cost... and so breakthrough is struggle for the individual that needs to forgive

Look at the cross... we say that "to forgive is divine" and that is true... forgiveness connects us to God, but the cross tells us forgiveness is not trivial and even for God it is going to hurt to forgive so for the individual looking for healing through the release of forgiveness it may be a real process, not just a quick prayer...

in 1 John we are told that "we love because he first loved us"... this touches on a key... it is only the input of God into us that allows us to behave in God-like ways... my own personal testimony included someone I hated! I couldn't love them naturally... but I made a decision to tell Father that I knew he loved the person and so he could love them through me.... The relationship changed dramatically...

Anyway... my hope with "The Shack" is that the lady will encounter the love of Father and in this find the strength she needs to forgive too..


On a slightly different tack... I have been thinking today about why some healings are harder to release than others... this was true for Jesus too if you read the gospels carefully... you'll notice sometimes he has do more than other times... even praying twice etc... taking people away from the crowd sometimes and on other occasions just moving through the crowd...

On a personal level I know I see a lot of joint, back, neck, pain healing ... I tend to feel pretty confident in this area... but other things, while I've seen some incredible healings seem more sporadic... gradually I feel like I'm learning the different reasons, spiritual, physical, emotional etc that cause an illness to stick harder to one individual than another... I'm encouraged by the story of Jesus healing the epileptic boy his disciples could not heal... it tells me that it is not arbitrarily down to God whether he heals or not, but whether the wisdom and authority of the disciple is up to the particular  situation in hand with it's unique mix of faith, history, spiritual agreement etc... i.e God is consistant and I want to grow...

Finally... because I see a lot of joint healing etc I often don't mention them.... but I thought I would include a "Thank you" note I received a while back as it reminds me that for the individual no healing is insignificant.....

"Hi Chris,
 
Just wanted to thank you for praying with me on Monday. The good news is that whilst I wasn't instantly healed on Monday, my recovery since then has been dramatic! As from then, my back is about 75% better and I absolutely know that isn't the normal speed of recovery for the amount of damage I had done.
 
The things that you prayed were so spot on and I know that the Lord fed my spirit in a deep way and prepared the way for what I'm experiencing now. I'm still getting prayer whenever I can (especially from the kids!) and I know beyond doubt that the Lord is going to complete this healing for me. Monday was very significant - thank you! He's an amazing God...."