Healing Beyond Healing

“The world is waiting to hear an authentic voice, a voice from God—not an echo of what others are doing and saying, but an authentic voice.”

— A.W. Tozer

“His sheep hear his voice, but I must be deaf to it.”

For most of my life, I’ve had to rely on other people hearing the voice of God for me. It was rare that I would ever hear God’s voice outside of the Scriptures. No amount of books on prayer, journaling exercises or formulaic approaches to prayer had worked. I was stuck in an echo chamber and the only voice bouncing back was mine.

Developing shared Thoughts with God

Then my cancer returned and I turned to stories for hope. As I read accounts of verifiable miraculous healings and God-encounters, my spiritual sonar opened up. Stories became possibilities. As I prayed out of desperate hope, I began to experience what Dr. Jim Wilder calls, “Mutual Mind,” or shared thoughts with God. But it was subtle. I had to pay attention to my internal dialogue for the cues.

Honoring the subtle

What I really wanted to hear was a loud voice, an obvious voice, an unmistakable voice. Revelatory dreams or dramatic encounters with angels would have been reassuring. What I got was subtle impressions.

Throughout the last five months, I have received a series of what I’d call “divine impressions” from God. The specific message was often posed as a question, “What if the cancer cells are no longer malignant?” What if things are not as they seem?

How did I know this wasn’t wishful thinking? Or a psychological projection of my deepest needs? Here’s how I sensed something different was happening:

• The thoughts were in my own head, but came from outside of me.

• I couldn’t trace the thoughts back to a logical starting point: they simply materialized.

These impressions came five different times, over a period of months. Confirmation was built through continuity. I also knew that it was important to ask someone else to pray with me to see if they received confirmation of the word I was hearing. This would be someone whose discernment I trusted. So my mentor and friend, Doug, took several days to pray and came to the same conclusion: This was God speaking.

Confidence Level?

It’s important to note that at no time did I have 100% confidence that I was hearing the voice of God. At best, I had 65-75% confidence that these impressions were authentic messages from his Spirit. Some days, a 50-50 percentage was all I could hold onto.

“Flimsy Impressions”

The final impression I received came through a story told by Jack Deere, a seasoned pioneer in prayer for the sick. In an interview, Jack Deere, a younger apprentice at the time, recounted a conversation with John Wimber — “the most loved and hated pastor in America”—because Wimber was despised by conservative evangelicals for his ability to train people in the gifts of the Spirit.

During a conference, Wimber sensed there was a woman in the audience with cancer; a woman unknown to him. From the platform he said, “You flew in on Tuesday. You’re wearing a pink dress, sitting in the back of the room. Would you please come down so we can pray for you.” How did Wimber know this?!

A woman with cancer in a pink dress came forward from the back of the room.

Bewildered, Jack Deere later approached Wimber; “That word of God must have sounded like a loud foghorn in your mind.” To which Wimber replied, “Oh no; if I hadn’t been paying attention, I would have missed it.” So Jack, unconvinced, peppered Wimber with questions:

Deere: “How did you know she came in on Tuesday?”

Wimber: “I saw Tuesday float past my mind, and a lot of people come early to conferences to visit our beautiful Southern California.”

Deere: “But, Pink dress; sitting in the back?!”

Wimber: “When she didn’t come down intitially, I saw a pink splotch floating over the back of the room; and I just thought that meant she must be wearing a pink dress, sitting in the back of the room.”

Deere: “John, you just called out that woman to come forward in front of 3,500 people, based on those flimsy impressions?!”

Wimber: “Yeah, I do it all the time. That’s just the way the Lord speaks to me; and I’ve had better success learning to pay attention to these impressions than trying to get God to speak to me the way I want him to.” (1)

Trusting my “flimsy impressions”

To be clear, my own “flimsy impressions” came over a period of months, stacking upon each other, building my confidence in their veracity. I also asked someone else to verify those impressions by their own prayers. But at no time did I have 100% confidence in what I was hearing…until last week’s biopsy report came back and found “no cancer present.” At that point I knew God had spoken. The recurring series of impressions indicating “The cells are no longer malignant” was trustworthy divine counsel.

Most importantly, for the first time in 58 years, I could trust my own ability to directly hear God’s counsel. Though I will continue seeking the confirmation of others, testing what I am hearing, I am no longer suffering the shame of being the sheep who couldn’t hear his Shepherd. His voice is getting through.

This is the healing-beyond-healing. Curing the cancer was only part of the miracle: curing the man was the unexpected surprise.

Source:

(1) YouTube: “Training in the Gifts: Panel Discussion with Matt Chandler, Jack Deere, Sam Storms, and Jeff Wells”

Invitation: The Eucharist for Healing

The Eucharist is one of God’s best-kept secrets. As a means of concrete grace, it can deliver healing and connection, because Jesus shows up there in a way he doesn’t anywhere else.

A forgotten means of attachment

For me and many, Communion used to be a guilt-fest—a heavy, dark reminder of all I’d done to put Jesus on the Cross. Don’t get me wrong, I’m guilty as hell. But what got discarded was the idea that the Eucharist could be a bonding experience. Even a healing experience. If what we’re all looking for is secure attachment—what the bible calls, “hesed” love—then the Lord’s Table is the perfect vehicle for it.

food bonding

Did you know that we bond to the person who feeds us? 1. Food and attachment are linked in the brain. What if the Eucharist meal is an opportunity to receive attachment love; to strengthen our felt-sense of security in God? The “hesed” (loyal commitment) of God is nowhere more present than at the Table.

“In the same way, after the supper he took the cup, saying, “This cup is the new covenant in my blood, which is poured out for you.” —Luke 22:20

“New Covenant” means:

• New Belonging.

• New Security.

• New Bonding.

Remembering vs. Re-membering Jesus

“Every time you eat this bread and every time you drink this cup, you reenact in your words and actions the death of the Master.”

— Apostle Paul, "The Message"

Every breaking of bread is an incarnation. A reenactment. An Emmaus Road. Jesus’ body is re-membered, re-created, re-produced each time we “eat his flesh and drink his blood.” It is an ingesting of Jesus that allows us to irrefutably bond with him; a mutual indwelling.

Where metaphor fails

We must be careful not to be too metaphorical about this. Incarnation isn’t metaphor; it’s embodied power and personhood. This efficacy occurs on at least three levels:

• Our bodies are rejoined to the physical body of Jesus on the Cross, and out of the Tomb. Mind, spirit, and emotion are joined there as well. The Eucharist is a shared experience with Jesus.

• Attachment bonds are reformed and solidified because we take up our union with him afresh.

• Out of this shared union with Jesus comes healing: He ingests and overtakes our wounds, pain and separation.
  
  

Invitation to “Zoomcharist?”

My mentor and I have been using the Eucharist weekly, for over three years. We meet via Zoom and bring to Jesus my cancer, my dread, my losses, my family…everything that needs hope. It has been a profound attachment experience for me; increasing my felt sense of security and connection. The Eucharist is one of the most practical things I’ve done for healing.

Invitation: If you’re interested in using the Eucharist for healing—one-on-one with me—send me a note. To date, I’ve used this 173 times in my own journey. Discover what role the Eucharist can play in your healing.

P.S. I’m tempted to call these Eucharist Zoom calls, “Zoomcharists.” We’ll see. ;)

Source:
1. Dr. Jim Wilder, neurobiologist and theologian

Apprenticing for Resiliency

“A long apprenticeship is the most logical way to success.”

— Chet Atkins, Guitar Icon

Apprenticeship is the path to spiritual strength. An apprentice receives impartation more than information:

• The willing gain a perspective the watchers don’t.

• A trainee learns to lift the same weight the trainer does.

• Pupils share power while admirers share detached principles.

I have been more apprenticed by Jesus while fighting cancer than at any other time in my story. Desperation is a powerful motivator: “I need to hear. I need to sense. I need to trust!” I don’t want to be broken by this anymore. When there’s something at stake, admirers become apprentices.

Simply agreeing with Jesus isn’t the same as aligning our movements with him. Much of the church is stuck in believism—applauding Jesus and getting our convictions “right”—without being tutored in the things he actually did.

Truly, truly, I tell you, whoever believes in Me will also do the works that I am doing.
—John 14:12

principles without power

Just one example where believism and detached assent have weakened the Body:

• Bible study: Yes.

• Praying: Sure.

• Healing the sick: “Not in these parts.”

Rhetoric and right teaching might raise the roof, but it doesn’t raise the dead. It reframes but can’t resurrect. We love to teach but forget to train. Teaching is to training as hope is to habit: It’s the right foundation but needs “legs.”

Apprenticing into Uniqueness

Copying a master isn’t copy-catting your identity: You can still be a unicorn and follow Jesus. In fact, you’re likely to become more rare and individuated as an apprentice. Jesus imparts values, practices and power; while allowing our unique expression of those values, practices and power.

Increasing resilience

Jesus is interested in imparting capacity and agency. We observe, then do. We become more resilient and rebound more quickly; increasingly unbroken by the things that used to break us. Apprenticing is the way of his easy yoke.

Contending with God for Healing

God has given us permission to contend with him.
Yes; fight. Argue.

After aggressive prayer for a sick friend, Martin Luther wrote,

"I besought the Almighty with great vigor," he wrote. "I attacked Him with His own weapons, quoting from Scripture all the promises I could remember, that prayers should be granted, and said that He must grant my prayer, if I was henceforth to put faith in His promises." (1)

diagnosis and reversal

Before you suggest that Luther’s approach is an immature form of prayer—suited for rebels and spiritual insubordinates—let’s look at King Hezekiah’s health scare story. Suffering from incurable infection, he received the diagnosis no one wants: You will not recover; put your affairs in order.

King Hezekiah doesn’t take the news lying down; he immediately grapples with God. We can imagine him pounding the wall with his fists:

Hezekiah turned his face to the wall and prayed to the Lord, “Remember, Lord, how I have walked before you faithfully and with wholehearted devotion and have done what is good in your eyes.” And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

See what Hezekiah does here:  he contends with God.  He engages God passionately and grapples with his will.  He doesn’t simply succumb to the bad news.   

Then something unexpected happens: Within minutes, the diagnosis is lifted and the grieving king becomes the grateful king. How? Following God’s prompt, the prophet Isaiah goes back to Hezekiah and gives the king a death sentence reversal: ‘This is what the Lord, the God of your father David, says: I have heard your prayer and seen your tears; I will heal you.” (2 Kings 20)

my will could be god’s will.

Could it be that while Hezekiah contended with God—fighting for his own will—this was God’s way of giving Hezekiah what both Hezekiah and God most wanted?  “Don’t just give up, Hezekiah.  Don’t surrender to the diagnosis.  Contend for your life!  Ask me to give you what you most want; what I already wanted to give you.”

”come at me, bro!”

Our will was marred and misdirected by The Fall, and its restoration was purchased at the Cross. But part of restoring our will is using our will; we exercise our agency—our capacity to grapple, to push back, to contend. “Will you fight for this?” Even fight with Me?” asks God. God is interested in our participation, not our subjugation.

Wrestling with God is not an indictment of God’s heart, but an affirmation of it. Archbishop Richard Trent declared, “We must not conceive prayer as an overcoming of God’s reluctance, but a laying hold of God’s highest willingness.”  We’re holding God to his heart for healing.

Contending is not an act of disobedience; it reflects a relationship.

Sources:

(1) The Struggle of Prayer, Donald G. Bloesch

Quieting the Body's Firestorm

“Therefore my heart is glad and my tongue rejoices; my body also will rest secure.”

— Psalm 16:9

My body has been a house-on-fire for half a decade. Alarms have been ringing at the internal firehouse in response to peril and pitfall nearly non-stop. From what I can tell, the last five years have been a compounding sequence of hyper-inflammatory responses. A healthy, normal inflammatory response has gone off the rails.

My body (and emotions) have experienced in succession:

1. Stroke

2. Cancer

3. Pulmonary Embolism

4. Septic Shock

5. Cancer again.

Each disease produced an internal sense of alarm, and a cellular memory under siege. The authors of Designed to Heal indicate,

“Our immune system…is all about memory…It stores molecular and cellular memories of past infections, as well as encounters with hostile intruders such as foreign blood type or protein. When it experiences those a second time, it is ready with a much stronger inflammatory response.” (1)

Cancer can be associated with an inflammatory response that is outsized and disordered.

The joyful antidote

This is why I am learning to practice both joy and quieting. I am also praying to bring shalom to disordered inflammation.

“Shalom is a Hebrew word that carries multiple meanings, the most common of which is “peace.” However, its meanings go beyond that, encompassing concepts like harmony, wholeness, completeness, prosperity, welfare, and tranquility. ”

— 7esl.com

Creating shalom in the body

McLauren and Culiat suggest that, “positivity assists healing rates from surgeries and serious diseases. It is an essential component of a healthy defense system.” (2) To be clear, “positivity” isn’t denial. We notice and name our emotions; then practice ways to return to joy and peace.

Creating shalom in your body can be done simply, over time, by any or all of the following:

• Spending time in appreciation. As I scan my environment, what or who do I appreciate? What positive memories can I recall, then feel? Appreciation (especially feeling the positive emotions associated with a good memory) moves our noticing from rational thought to increased internal security.
  
  Appreciation increases our sense of positive bonding with God and others. The more moments I spend in appreciation mode, the more my brain looks for the positive.
  
  
  

• Learning how to quiet from difficult emotions. The organization “THRIVE today” teaches skills for returning to peace after big emotions.
  
  
  

• Exploring resources like, Building Bounce, by Warner and Hinman. Or, The Joy Switch, by Coursey.

Your body wants to heal. It is designed to heal. Building joy and quiet is a proven way to help us get there.

Sources:

1. Designed to Heal, by McLauren and Culiat

2. Ibid

“Thunderheart” and Divine Protection

“Thunderheart” and Val Kilmer

The movie Thunderheart, starring Val Kilmer and Graham Greene, is about a series of murders on a Native American reservation, and a young mixed-blood FBI agent (Kilmer) who doesn’t realize he’s the hero of the story.

(Spoiler Alert) In the final scene of the movie, Kilmer and Greene are pinned down inside a dead-end canyon by a corrupt FBI agent and his thugs—there is no escape and they can’t fight their way out. Kilmer and Greene are trapped against their “Red Sea” — hemmed in by a ring of pickup trucks, rifles and shotguns ready to end their story; and unscalable canyon walls behind them. This is their “no way out” moment; their impossible situation. Their dead-end.

Then the chanting begins, as Kilmer and Greene look upwards to the heights of the canyon walls. A host of armed protectors materializes out of nowhere; row upon row of tribal warriors gazing down upon Kilmer’s pursuers, dwarfing their numbers. Impossible help has arrived. It is a scene remarkably similar to the one Elisha’s servant faced in 2 Kings 6:17:

“Don’t be afraid,” the prophet answered. “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them.”

And Elisha prayed, “Open his eyes, Lord, so that he may see.” Then the Lord opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.”

— 2 Kings 6:17

Invisible protective detail

You have been assigned a protective detail—a divine defense force—”ministering spirits, sent out to provide service for the sake of those who will inherit salvation.” (Hebrews 1:14)

Author and philosophy professor, Dr. J.P. Moreland, has been told on several occasions that three peculiar angels have appeared behind him while speaking publicly. There were always two shorter angels—one on either side of him—and a taller one standing directly behind him. Dr. Moreland himself has never seen these divine emissaries; but different observers, on different occasions in different places have approached him and told him so. (1)

angels under a semi truck

While Bruce Van Natta was pinned under the steel axel of a collapsed six-ton semi truck, he saw two broad-shouldered angels on either side of his crushed torso—appearing to stabilize his body until fire department volunteers could arrive. He estimated that the two angelic assistants must have been at least eight feet tall each. (2)

Accompanied

Judith MacNutt, an authority on the biblical and modern reality of angels, suggests that we can ask God to thank the angels he has assigned to us. There are countless authentic accounts of those who were mysteriously defended or cared for by angels. You, too, are in good company. Or, rather, you are accompanied.

Trust the invisible.

Sources:

1. A Simple Guide to Experience Miracles, by Dr. J.P. Moreland

2. Real Life, Real Miracles, by Garlow & Wall

Creatives Are Force-Multipliers

Creatives are “Force Multipliers”—a military term for “a factor or a combination of factors that gives personnel or weapons (or other hardware) the ability to accomplish greater feats than without it.” 1

Why it matters

In other words, because you create, others are able to live with greater power and capacity.

• One example: According to Ted Esler, author of the book, The Innovation Crisis, modern healthcare “owes its beginning to hospital systems launched by Christians,” originating in the third and fourth centuries.” The Church became a “force multiplier” for healing—those inside and outside the walls found healing increasing because the Church provided them greater capacity for health and wholeness.

Burdens and Breakthrough

Truly disruptive innovation is an affront to Darkness. Why? Because innovation lifts burdens and creates breakthrough. Needs get met; the yoke gets easier for the heavy-laden. And the Enemy of our souls is offended.

notice your context.

Your context is war.

• “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.” — Ephesians 6:12

• Innovation isn’t just about breaking ground; it’s about taking ground.

If you are an innovator, you’ve broken through Enemy lines to bring help. You’ve slayed Goliath, provided Manna from heaven, and ignited a burning bush for those waiting for God to show up. He did, because you did.

Final words

Consider yourself a target. Pray for covering. Find your shield-bearers. Push into the fray.

1. “Force Multipliers,” Wikipedia