The Holy Spirit ‘shows
up’ very unexpectantly sometimes...
BATTLING a
prideful, ambivalent spirit at a pastoral retreat, we were asked if we needed prayer. (“I don’t want to do this, Lord,” was my
heart.) Then it was asked of others who had not opted to be prayed for, if they
would gather around and pray for those who needed prayer. I said, “Okay, Lord,
I’ll do it.” I prayed for a pastor who’d been in pastoral work twenty years — double
my time; someone I also look up to in the blogosphere.
I prayed, and I
prayed words that were not mine. Immediately the
hardness inhibiting my soul was replaced with a spirit of peace, if not, levity.
Soon it was a case of euphoric laughter at the funny things the speaker was
saying. I felt like I was even laughing like I’d taken laughing gas. I didn’t
even care if I was silly so long as I wasn’t laughing inappropriately, because
normally I’d laugh in some sort of reserve.
The Holy Spirit worked to heal me even though
it was my pride that predicated my willingness to pray for this man of God. Isn’t
God good?
The next day, in a better frame of mind, I had the privilege
to pray for a pastor who I have enormous respect for. God has been working
powerfully in his soul for what seems a
millennium of months. His life has been tropical. Again, my words were not my
own, praise God. Prayer works.
The Holy Spirit can do anything He wants, despite us at times.
***
These two examples of simple,
ordinary obedience, even in the mode of sinful pride in the first case,
illustrate that God is never far away from healing us if we’ll let him.
The Holy Spirit, through the laying
on of hands — mine on another person — healed me! It is most usually the other
way around. Rarely, if ever, have I encountered such a transaction of God’s
power coming through a person to me as I prayed for them.
Believe!
Even in the case of aiding in another
person’s healing through prayer, the Holy Spirit can heal us, who are praying
for them.
The power of prayer is such that the
laying on of hands becomes the conduit for God’s healing power.
God’s Spirit is doing the unexpected.
There is power for healing through prayer.
***
Power comes through and
lands,
Healing by the
laying on of hands,
The simple faith of
prayer,
God’s power through rarefied air.
Awesome experience
of wonder,
Splits all of hell
asunder,
Prayer breaks Satan’s
yoke,
God makes Satan a joke.
But there is no need
here for pride,
Just let the Spirit
by prayer to ride,
No fear that Satan
will steal,
When the Spirit gives power to heal.
© 2015 S. J. Wickham.
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