When I was in College, I attended a Prayer and Praise Group on Friday Nights. There was a lot of earnest God-Seeking there, and much compassion to share. There was a lot of freedom to explore and emulate what Christ did and become his priesthood.
However, after a few months, it was clear that the group as a whole was not making much head way with some of these issues, as we seemed to revisit them week after week. So our leader taught us something I find valuable to this day: "As you follow Christ and are transformed by His Holy Spirit, exercise the disciplines of holiness so that you arrive on Friday Night with your spiritual tank full or fuller, ready to serve. then see what happens!"
I took the teaching to heart, and began asking God to make me more useful. At first, I just arrived at the meetings feeling less needy. Next, I began to pray for some people by name who came to the meeting. Then, I began to ask God if there was something I could do for him before, during and after the meeting.
Then one evening, as I left the restroom and strolled happily back towards the rocking praise booming out of the meeting room, God asked me if I was ready to be utilized by Him. "Uh... okay!", I replied naively. Nothing noteworthy occurred for a while, so I settled back down until the worship leader called for a spontaneous prayer time, and in particular, healing for chronic or long standing issues. Now my heart skipped a beat even as my spirit raced. His Spirit already began the infilling.
One of the leaders had come forward, he suffered from chronic back pain following a wrestling injury during his college days. As others gathered round to continue praying faithfully for him, I was given words to say to him, words that I didn't want to offer as it went something along the lines of: "Tonight, the Lord will demonstrate His Faithfulness and bring you a measure of healing." Yikes!
I waffled on obeying for a bit, but then took the plunge. I approached him and whispered in his ear. And he said he embraced the word, and was experiencing faith to believe. So he told the other leaders what was said to him, and they invited me to pray. I was not expecting that part. So I stammered out a really polished: "Uh, okay Lord--Your turn now, do as You said..." Nothing happened... for a while. The other leaders were very respectful and did not look at me, it was likely obvious that I was feeling intimidated.
Then Brett got on all fours and began to twist. He reported that he felt some relief that wasn't there before. As he continued to move, he reported a range of motion. "Yes, yes... I haven't been able to this for a while now." After a few tantalizing minutes, it became clear that he "...experienced a measure of healing." that was unprecedented. Glory to God!
I was so surprised that I did not know how to feel and behave, so I hid myself back in the crowd.
~ Shien, Yahweh-rapha--"The Lord who heals"
