This evening, having had a really wonderful relationship-building day with Marco D’Angelo, Pastor of Cornerstone Church, Laurimar: and Pastor Craig Ogden, of Plenty Life Church, strangely enough in Plenty(!), it was down to Marco’s midweek (normally a) prayer meeting. It had been opened up as opportunity for people to let God loose on themselves again, a lovely number there, and I was in my element, as they wanted stuff about healing, but also stories….
Faith rose in – I think I can dare to say – in all of them. One lovely man, Derek, a farmer for some decades, with a completely wrecked back: discs 3 & 4 herniated and popped out, causing massive pain in his legs, causing hi to only be able to stand up for a maximum of 5 minutes…. he blessed me immensely by telling us that while his trust in God was still rock solid, faith had drained away by a massive onslaught from the enemy with family, bankruptcy, crippling ill health…. he blew me away by saying that this evening, listening to the stories, his faith had risen exponentially…. by the end of the evening, he was standing for quite a long time (maybe 15-20 minutes, though I don’t think he even realised it!), just with one hand loosely on the back of a chair…. that wouldn’t have happened, and as I prayed for the crippling referred pain in his legs, something significant happened.
Robert was over the moon as he got the ‘instant’ healing – miracle actually – tonight(!) – a lovely lady with completely ripped (ripped as in torn, not ripped as in ‘a new six-pack!!) muscles in her right shoulder, the pain went, her supra-spinatus tendon went back into place, and she’s raising her arm vertically – backwards – full movement, it seemed – and she hadn’t had that for a long, long time. Also prayed for rosea, a skin disease, she’d had it all her life, but only recently diagnosed, at an advanced stage: you know what, tonight it went, and tomorrow she’ll look in the mirror and love her face with skin as smooth as a…something very smooth 😉
Chris, a masseur – 5 people in his family died in 6 months last year, diabetes (both insulin jabs AND pills as it was pretty serious), a broken marriage, severe depression (understandable) with little or no access to a daughter whom he dotes on… Chris left with so many lovely things being said in my direction (about me, which I still find very hard), and wonderfully sset free of many of the issues, and the rest in process.
Nat – wrecked knee (oh Lord, how long??!!! But mine are doing reasonably well!!), a possible melanoma right on the tip of her nose, chronic arthritis in her back… whooping as the prayer for her finished…
Maria, Marco’s mum I think – melanoma in her right ear, hugely affecting her hearing – added to be really awful tinnitus… bone spurs on the backs of her feet… what a transformation came over her, and it’ll be the next day or two that determines what’s left for God to heal….
Annaeli – I hope that’s how you spell it – 45 years old, chronically sick from top of head to pretty much the lower end of her torso – a christian-in-waiting (! 🙂 ) – sleep apnea, hasn’t slept for more than 2-3 hours for years, the usual oxygen tank mask at night for that disease, depression, severe neck pain, chronic migraines, decaying and disintegrating teeth, digestion and stomach/intestine/colon issues, hasn’t been able to work for years, and, as you can imagine, just looking exhausted, pained, a real ‘heaviness’ in her face, and immense sadness…. within three minutes of beginning praying for – and bless her, as a christian in waiting, she went first, and didn’t mind being prayed for in front of the gather throng – her whole visage changed, the heaviness went, the depression lifted because of the wonderful sweat blood of Jesus, stomach issues Robert hit hard (not literally – he’s not Wigglesworth yet!!!): a smile was all over her face, and I asked her how she felt. ‘Really lovely, wonderful, peace…’ so much happened for her, she’s going to take a while to process it, I’m sure!
Kirsty – see the blog a couple of days ago! – was back: legs and feet unrecognisable, almost all burn scars disappeared, fading: totally transformed, so much so that I told her she’d be proud of her legs within the next couple of days. BUT THEN…!! – GET THIS! – in the house fire, which should have killed her, as well as skin burns, on her (I think I’m right in saying right foot) ALL the muscle was burned, much of it so severely damaged, it was useless. It’s back…. oh God, you are so, so awesome…
AND THEN!!! – Kirsty’s hands were badly burned, and on 4 fingers, she lost her fingerprints… suddenly, yesterday, she looked at her fingers, and her fingerprints on 3 of the 4 are back, and the circles on the 4th are appearing….
I don’t know how you’d feel after an evening like this, but I’m utterly wrecked, purely and simply because God uses the foolish and the weak – me – Robert – and gives US the enormous privilege and blessing of seeing this stuff HAPPEN, quite a bit of it right in front of our eyes. How do YOU think YOU’D process it? It’s utterly believable, because God is the God who heals ALL of our sickness and disease (Psalm 103), we lay our hands on people and they WILL GET WELL (Mark 16) – and many years ago, I told God I didn’t only want to BELIEVE, I want to be CONVINCED, Paul made that distinction in 2 Timothy 1:12 for a reason: belief is NOT enough. The demons believe and tremble (Jame 2:19) – MEANING… that they’re petrified of the Word of God, the Power of God, and have more Fear of the Lord than many, many (millions?) of Christians?
Sunday Adelaja, pastor of the Embassy of Heaven, Kiev, Ukraine (the largest church in the western hemisphere, I believe) said this: ‘If you don’t have any problems, it means you’ve stopped being of interest to the enemy: you are not dangerous to him.’ Ooooohhhhh God, please, never let that be me…. And the wonderful C S Lewis said this: ‘Affliction often prepares an ordinary person for an extraordinary destiny’.
I look back over the last 12 – no, 40 years of my life – and see affliction, issues, contention, family issues, family tragedies, if I’m honest, a huge cost to be willing to pay, to have the astonishing benefit of seeing God do what he’s done on this trip, in Mexico City last month, in Cali, Colombia in July, in England in June, Colombia again in March/April, and Australia last February…. I want to tell you, from the bottom of my heart, my spirit, my mind, my emotions: I WOULDN’T SWAP THE AFFLICTION, PRESSURE, LOSS, PAIN, SADNESS, DEVASTATION – at times – if it meant losing all this wonderful supernatural, amazing, blessing….through a short, fat, balding Englishman, adopted into Ireland, with some people pressing me on ‘Hey you’re 65 soon. Have you sorted out your pension?’ Pension? I get a tenner a week from the NatWest Bank in just over 4 years time, that should revolutionise my life(!!), BUT – it’s almost 35 years now since my last EVER paycheck (January 18, 1979 – NatWest’s payday), not a a penny salary since, so if God can look after me for 35 years, I’m pretty convinced that on December 14, 2017, when I’m 65, he’s going to say, ‘Well, you’re done now: my commitment to you ends here!’…
I’m going on – in my head and spirit, at least – for another 35 years at least yet, as it’s so so special, and SUCH a privilege….
