After the last trip to Melbourne, and after the recent ‘outings’ in Mexico and Colombia, it’s been so good to be able to see God do something a little different this time. This morning, I was at Plenty Life Church – that’s not a grammatical error, England readers! – it’s a place called called Plenty, which I think is rather lovely! – and Plenty Life Church is a church that over recent trips here, I’ve got to know a bit. They’ve got a great pastor, Craig Ogden, and during the week he asked me if this morning, I’d be willing to ‘pass on’ some of the experiences I’ve had in beginning to move into a healing ministry way back in 1987, and since. It was wonderful to do it: something I think I’ll want to repeat elsewhere, as one of the great desires of my heart is to see a whole army of people rise up and take Matthew 10:7 literally – heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, freely you’ve received, freely give….
The church, in my experience in many places, is ravaged with the fear that ‘it might not/won’t work’…. of course it never will if no one tries. So today I talked about failures as well as ‘success’ – and Craig seemed delighted with the end result. I want people to think ‘If he can do it, I can do it’…. when I take people away with me, normally for their first time(!), I tell them that I want them to go back home, not relaying stories of what they’ve seen me do, but with their own victory stories, and even their attempts that didn’t seem to work. What’s the point in spending a lot of money to go with me just to watch…?
Of course, it goes without saying that both Robert and I, and the prayer ministry team from the church, prayed for quite a few people afterwards: no mind-blowing miracles, no instantaneous healings – but a lot of ‘feelings’ in people that God had started the process of healing. One lovely lady, who has a horrible affliction where the fat cells in her system swell, become inflamed, and don’t get ‘used up’, so it results in a weight problem that is nothing to do with diet/obesity, just a cruel disease invented by the enemy. She also has osteoarthritis in her knees, and – I expect I’ll spell this wrong – something called ‘clawy’ – which is caused by both the crippling illnesses mentioned, and results in her toes bending under her feet – especially the left one – and she effectively walks on her toe nails. Man alive, that must be so, so painful. Today, while praying for her, she told me that she felt her toes, still inside her shoes, begin to un-claw…. humanly, impossible, because of the way chiropodists (or whatever they’re called these days!) have designed cushions for her toes that are tight in her shoes… so, beginning at the bottom, God is just likely to work upwards….
Other people experienced heat, tingling, throbbing, in afflicted parts of their bodies: in a (strange) way, it was lovely to see a whole host of ‘little’ things happen rather than the fireworks! It’s good for me, too, as it keeps my feet firmly on the ground, at the same time as passing the baton I have (for what it is worth) on to other people. That is a REAL privilege…..
Tomorrow, back at Diamond Valley Baptist Church, 7 pm: and looking forward to seeing if God’s going to carry on with the same as the first week, or if he chooses to do some spectacular things! I bet for that lady this morning, just to have her toes unclaw a bit was pretty spectacular though. Despise not the day of small things….!
