Last weekend was my weekend off work. I’ve been praying for about 3 or 4 patients a day when I’ve been on duty. I didn’t see any miracles of healing last week, but patients I pray with are beginning to write and share their stories. I’ll be posting one in a day or so. I spent a busy weekend around the house with my wife and kids. God decided to do a few cool things at home last weekend.
I know we humans are a three-fold being; body, spirit and soul. But think I suffer from spiritual amnesia. I often forget about the reality of the spiritual dimension and the fact that my spirit is the most important part of my being. I don’t like the fact that I’m involved in a constant spiritual battle. But that's a fact of life I'm learning to accept. This is a discussion about the body, spirit and soul and how the problem of pain is treated in each one.
My daughter came home from swim practice on Saturday with pain in her ribcage. We thought she may have muscle strain from the long workout. A year ago I would have grabbed the Advil and a glass of water. I don’t do that anymore; it’s not the way I roll. Because of what I’ve seen in the last year, my first reaction to everyday injuries is different. I knelt beside her with my eyes closed, placed my hand on her ribs and commanded them to be healed. Within a couple of minutes the pain was gone. God didn’t show me anything in the spirit.
The same day, my son Danny developed abdominal pain while doing homework. Lying curled up on the couch, unable to go on, he told me he was tired and felt sick all over. I walked over to him and closed my eyes, placing my hand on his abdomen. I saw a vision of something like a man wearing a black hood. It resembled someone dressed as an executioner. I commanded it to leave and spoke healing into his body. Within a minute or two the pain and all his symptoms were gone. He got up and continued doing his homework. About 30 minutes later he developed pain in the middle of his back. I repeated the process, again seeing a spirit and telling it to leave. We went through this same process with him about 6 months ago.
My son has many dreams of being in battle. God is constantly trying to sharpen his awareness of the spiritual battles in life. He had some visions in church this weekend. He began to ask God to show him some things to build his faith. He received some prophetic words about his spiritual gifts. The previous weekend an angel woke him up to tell him to write down a dream that he had. He’s growing in the spirit – it shouldn’t come as a surprise that the enemy would try to put the fire out. That’s the nature of the battle. God is always at work, helping us to grow but the enemy sends messengers of gloom, pain, or discouragement.
At the spiritual hunger conference a few weeks ago, I was healed of chronic shoulder pain. The woman praying for me asked if I was carrying a burden that wasn’t mine. As soon as she asked, the Holy Spirit showed me that I had allowed problems my wife had at work, to become my own problems. I unknowingly transferred the burden to myself and with it, the pain. I told Jesus I was sorry for carrying a burden that wasn’t mine, and released it to him. The pain in my shoulder was immediately gone and hasn’t returned. This was an issue of the soul, which is responsible for our mind, will and emotions. I was holding onto emotions of anger because of a situation my wife was dealing with at work. The emotion of anger cause a physical pain to be manifested in my body. Once the emotion was dealt with, the pain left. I suspect many people suffer chronic pain syndromes, like perhaps fibromyalgia, because of emotional issues that are never properly identified and resolved.
What I’ve noticed is that there are physical ailments with no apparent spiritual or emotional issue, as in the case of my daughter’s rib pain. It’s just a physical injury. These things can be healed with simple prayer. Advil will probably work, too - so would a cold pack - and yes, I still use them sometimes. But I'd much rather allow God to do it.
Then there are times when a physical problem has a spiritual or emotional root to be to be identified and dealt with. A pattern of recurring pain that leaves and returns or pain that occurs without injury should be suspect. The same is true for conditions in which multiple exams and testing reveals no physiologic cause for a condition. They should probably be treated as spiritual or emotional issues.
Sometimes God reveals a spiritual being that brings the condition with it. Spirits have no physical body - they prefer to hitch hike on us. Attitudes of the heart like sin, rebellion, bitterness, hatred , unbelief and many others provide a shelter for spiritual hitch- hikers and the pains and diseases they carry. It all gets transferred to us. We may need to get rid of a certain behavior or attitude to get rid of the critter and be healed. That makes a lot of people uncomfortable, but Jesus healed multitudes by removing demonic parasites. I believe he knew a little more than you or I do.
These things don't make sense to the natural mind, particularly if you're schooled in modern medicine's approach to healing. But there are spiritual laws in effect that aren't taught in med school. Spiritual laws (like gravity) are like natural laws; they can't be broken. Apparently one of the spiritual laws goes something like this; if you shoulder a burden that doesn't belong to you - it creates the same pain as if you were dragging a telephone pole around. In the natural, you would advise your patient to stop carrying heavy things around for no reason. Concerning the spirit we must do exactly the same thing.
I hope this post helps you grasp the realities of spiritual warfare a little better. It’s real, it’s all around us, and we have the tools to wage the war victoriously and win the battles. Awareness of the battle is the beginning of victory. I hope you win the battle you’re in today.
