I Am Healed!

I hear two extremes mentioned in Christian circles regarding prayer, prophecy, and ministry.

The first is, “I let anyone lay hands on me – I trust God to keep me safe!” and the second is its opposite, “I don’t let just anybody pray for me!”

My personal take on it looks more like the former but has some elements of the latter.

“Anyone” is a very big group of people. And in any group of people, presently, you will find varying levels of maturity, woundedness, and issues. We are all being transformed – from glory to glory. Most of us need very deep healing because of trauma, wounds, and bad teaching.

To arbitrarily decide, “I don’t let just anybody pray for me” puts a label on people that encourages immaturity and promotes woundedness. Can you imagine going to minister to someone and they say, “You can’t pray for me. I only let certain people do that; you’re not on my list.” That person would be very wounded and hurt. Think of how you would feel! (Oh, but you’re mature and gifted and anointed, they’d be wrong to say that to you! Well, I bet the person you just rejected feels the same way about themselves…)

Not only that, but it makes you look like you feel that you’re a rock star and deserve special treatment. Just sayin’.

At the same time, to decide that “anyone” can minister to you is foolish. There are people out there who should not minister to anyone anywhere. I have personally been ministered to by a creepy guy who seemed to be stalking women during a conference. Fortunately for me (or, perhaps, for this guy), my pastor had caught on to what he was doing and came and joined in the prayer. (Sidebar: I love my pastor!) We know another woman who feels the need to do “spiritual warfare” during prayer – she karate chops “demons” (who by the way are not there) and makes retching noises and writhes on the floor. Um. No.

So what do you do?

I believe there’s a balance between… where you have the grace to allow someone who is immature and perhaps has a few issues to minister to you… and when someone who is TRULY off comes, you have the grace to minister to them.

I’ve had situations where I knew that the person praying for me had issues (with you name it – porn, divorce, money, divisiveness) and I’ve prayed, as they prayed, “Lord – I accept every good thing that you’d like to give me out of this prayer, and I reject any evil thing that satan would try to use out of this situation.” I release the Kingdom and I encourage the person to grow in the Lord. Often the situation turns into two-way ministry.

Why do I do that? Because along the way, some people have fathered me that way… saw me in my brokenness, heard from the Lord, and allowed and encouraged me to grow in Him.  Yes – even when I had issues with lust, greed, divisiveness, and was in danger of leaving my husband.  If I’d been rejected and told that I could not be a part of what God was doing until I was “perfect”, I wouldn’t have stayed put and done the hard work with the Lord and with these people that it took to become whole.

So what do you do in a situation where you just CAN’T let the person in front of you minister to you? Take a deep breath, smile, and say, “I really feel like I should minister to you.” Call someone else to help you pray (preferably your spouse). Ask the Lord for a word of knowledge that will bring freedom into their life. Don’t judge or condemn – release love and the Kingdom into them. You never know what He might do

So – there’s my thoughts on it. What do you think? How do you handle this situation?

PHOTO INFORMATION: The picture in this post was taken by me at the Prophetic Power & Glory Conference at New Day in 2011. If you’ve never been in a setting like that before and aren’t sure what’s going on, this is “body ministry” – where everyone is invited to pray for everyone else. I have received great freedom and healing from the Lord from this sort of ministry, but I’ve also encountered a few situations like what I have described in this post. For more pictures, go to https://www.facebook.com/kaysharpe and click on my albums, I have many pics of our church there. Or if you’re not sure what it’s all about, feel free to ask me either here on the blog or on Facebook.

I’ve heard a number of people object to Dana Russell’s song, “Behold God is Great” for several reasons. One of the reasons often given is that it quotes God’s “accusation” of Job. It therefore has no place in the New Covenant, in which we do not live under condemnation. We certainly shouldn’t sing about it and aggrandize it, should we?

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth – where were you when I spoke and commanded the morning – where were you when I gave the sea its boundary and said no more – and said no more?

I think most people tend to read it as, “Who are you, little peon, to question The Great High and Mighty One? Who are you, little scumbag Job?”  Turn to Job 38 in your Bible… how do YOU read it?

Unfortunately, we tend to read the book of Job through our filters and lenses of hurt. If we’ve been taught that God can send satan to attack us if He likes, that He’s vengeful and angry, that He beats us up to make us better people, if there’s even a hint of the orphan spirit lurking within us, that’s how it will seem.

But the good news is that God is in a good mood.

Yesterday when we were singing this song at church my heart nearly leaped out of my chest in response…it was as though God Himself was asking me these questions and I was answering Him:

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?
I was in your dreams, Father! You dreamed such good dreams of me and for me!

Where were you when I spoke and commanded the morning?
Right there in Your book – you were journaling about me. Pages and pages, more than I can even number, telling of your plans and love for me!

Where were you when I gave the sea its boundary, and said no more?
I was being woven into Your plans for the world just like You wove the sea into those plans! They’re good plans, plans of hope and a future, plans of love and peace and purpose! 

How good it is to be a son of God!

Most people see the book of Job like a tag-team wrestling match: God and satan went and beat up poor ol’ Job. God used the devil to get Job good and pliable, and then He came Himself and pinned Job for the ten-count with His accusations, because Job just had to learn his place in the world.

The problems with that line of thinking are too numerous for the scope of today’s post (and may one day become a book), but I submit to you that God was not “accusing” Job at all. He certainly didn’t send satan after him! The “Prepare yourself like a man and I will question you and you shall answer Me” statement was not a challenge to a duel. God was saying, “Come now… let us reason together…who am I, Job? Who are you?”

He was reminding Job of the right answers to those two questions: Who is God, and who are you? Job had spent a long time dwelling upon the wrong answers. He’d lived in fear and had tried to stave off those fears by being very religious. This opened the door for satan to do all that he did. When Job repented and remembered God’s true identity, as well as his own, the door was effectively shut and God could move to restore what Job had lost.

In the end, Job said, “I know that You can do everything, and that no purpose of Yours can be withheld from You. You asked, “Who is this who hides counsel without knowledge?” Therefore I have uttered things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Listen, please, and let me speak: You said, “I will question you and you shall answer Me.” I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees You. Therefore I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”(Job 41:1-6, NKJV)

And again, how you read that passage has a lot to do with how you relate to Father. Did Job hate, abhor, and despise himself? That word, “himself”, is not in the Hebrew. The translators of the KJV and related versions felt it was implied and so it was inserted. It’s simply not there in the original text.

Can I propose to you that Job was simply rejecting his own previous understanding of life and accepting God’s standard? The NASB says “Therefore I retract, and I repent…”

Job wasn’t hating himself at all. He was changing his mind. He was responding to the questions:

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Where were you when I spoke and commanded the morning? Where were you when I gave the sea its boundary, and said no more?
Oh Father I’m sorry, I forgot but now I remember where I was when you did those things! I was in your dreams – and they were such wonderful dreams, so wonderful that for a little while I didn’t think it was possible that they could be about me! But now I realize that they were! I’d heard things about You that led me to act the way I did, but now I see you and realize that You are so much bigger and greater than I had imagined – and You are so good! Therefore I retract my previous understanding of You – I’ve changed my mind – I’m coming into alignment in my life with who You truly are!

Job laid down his orphan spirit and stepped into sonship…true sonship… and the challenge for us, even today is to do the same.

Will you retract and repent, and join Job and I?