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We were at a Vineyard conference this past weekend in Sussex N.B. to “do the stuff” from Gary Best’s book Naturally Supernatural and it was the weirdest, best conference I have been to. What started out to be a “fun” weekend complete with staying in a townhouse with friends got sidetracked. Normally I get into a mindset for conferences like this last one in a cloud of trepidation. Actually, mind numbing fear would be far more accurate. I’m not sure why or how it happens but I psych myself out so much that I need to be isolated from everyone when I’m not in a workshop or Worship or having a meal. It is super destructive to both myself and the folks that are around me and yet I am powerless to be any other way.
I was really looking forward to spending some quality time with our friends and having the much coveted accomodations of a townhouse but Knew that we were to make room for someone else. Little did I know that finding other accomadations was to be my first act of immediate obedience. We really wanted to stay with our friends but it was not to be. Turns out I would have been better off sleeping in the car, the ladder that was to “aid” me up to my top bunk was missing and every time Steve moved I moved too.
Right up front I would like to admit to never reading Gary’s book, I have seen his book, OK so I actually read the front and back cover but I have not read anything inside. Unless I need to know the material in the book for a workshop I will not read it. I prefer to hear, from the author themselves, why they wrote the book and what do they want the reader to get from the book. Editing is very subjective and much like seeing a movie that is based directly on a book I see no reason to view it through an editors eyes. Movies from books are usually very disappointing, you know all of the characters, the plot and the ending. All the little subtle changes that they make to make the movie more interesting only spoil the original intention of the book and I’m not a huge fan of Hollywoodization.
So back to the conference. Part of the “doing the stuff” from Gary’s book was healing prayer. When I was growing up the Church that I belonged to had a prayer chain but not like you would think. This chain was not links of people who prayed but rather it was the chain you had to follow. First you bring your prayer request to the Youth Leader who in turn brought it to the Prayer Leader who then brought it to the most junior of Priests who brought it to the the next least junior…………..Eventually your prayer request might make it to the person who was responsible for prayer if it passed in the next Board meeting.
Prayer requests often took an insane amount of time to come to fruition and most people (myself included) simply abandoned their request. So we’re in the middle of a workshop getting practicle “how to” instructions for healing prayers and the call goes out for anyone who is suffering with well, anything. There were groups of people who had been given prayers and there were poeple in need of healing prayers. So up I pop from my seat and head to my particular prayers for healing, more instant obedience. Funny how God will lure you with one thing and BAM heal you of something else. I went to a specific group of prayers for healing for these old stiff and achy joints and instead had life of a completely different stream spoken into me.
I went for a second time for healing prayer for a problem I have been having for pretty near 6 months with my jaw and subsequently my ear and once again His healing touch restored me. Once again He spoke words of a different problem and prayer once again renewed for healing in that area of my life. My joints are still a problem, the pain in my jaw was almost instantly better but has actually started to get worse (could be His prompted for me to see maybe a doctor or something). The problem with my ear was gone within a few minutes of the prayer starting and has not returned.
Through all of this I let go of more of me by being immediately obedient by going up for prayer in the first place, not once but twice. He tricked me by using ongoing physical problems in order to bring out heartache and wounds that He wanted to heal. God IS good and faithful in His words of wanting so much more for us, even if He has to trick us into asking.
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Posted by mfriend on 2008-06-04 14:15:43 | Rating: | Views: 38
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