Praying Medic's Blog, page 119

Why We’re Doing the Atkins Diet (For Life)

I’ve never been one to diet, but during the last five years, I’ve steadily gained weight, though I’m eating much less than I ate 20 years ago. My wife has the same problem. We’re both experiencing symptoms that are common when people hit middle-age; sluggish metabolism due to low thyroid function. When your thyroid isn’t functioning properly your metabolism drops, leaving you with less energy and a larger waistline.

Last year I began to reckon with the fact that my metabolism had simply changed, and I couldn’t continue eating the way I always had, unless I wanted to weigh 300 pounds. My wife has tried a lot of different diets over the years, but she’s never found one that allowed her to eat food she likes, feel healthy and stay at the weight she wanted.

During the last year we began cutting out most of the junk food from our diet in an attempt to correct some life-long bad eating habits. We got rid of all the snack chips and crackers in our house and I stopped baking cookies and brownies. (Sorry Gigi.) We gradually transitioned into a habit of eating more vegetables, and avoiding deserts. But we still didn’t see any changes in our level of energy and we weren’t losing weight.

My argument to my wife has been that I can usually fast for several weeks and lose about 2 pounds a day. But I can’t fast indefinitely. Eventually I have to start eating again. And if there isn’t a healthy eating plan in place, the weight goes back on faster than it came off. My wife made me realize that I needed a long-term plan that would help me keep my weight in a reasonable range for the rest of my life.

Among all the diet fads I’ve heard of over the years, the only one that ever made sense to me was the Atkins diet. While every diet plan has a few benefits, most of them have drawbacks that you don’t see until you actually try them. Through stories from friends who have tried one diet after another without success, I’ve just about settled on the fact that people write diet books just to make money from desperate people. In spite of all this, we knew we needed help.

So my wife bought the Atkins Diet book and we began reading it. The more we read, the more the Atkins diet made sense to me. In fact, I would say that the Atkins diet is actually better than doctor Atkins realizes. If he knew the truth about the cause of heart disease, he would realize that his diet is probably the best diet for maintaining cardiac health. But I’ll talk more about that later.

The basic premise behind the Atkins diet is that over the last century, we’ve developed a different way of eating from how we’ve eaten historically. Modern diets are heavily laden with sugars and carbohydrates, which is a recent trend that causes a number of problems, including diabetes and obesity. The goal of the Atkins diet is to reduce the intake of sugar and carbohydrates to a level more in line with how we might have eaten years ago, in the hope of also reducing excess body fat and lowering blood glucose.

The Atkins diet addresses the problem of how the body stores and burns fat, and how excessive carbohydrate intake messes up that process. I’ll explain below how glucose and fat are burned:

The body has the ability to burn several different things as fuel. Its main supply of fuel is glucose, which is a form of sugar. Insulin is also necessary. Insulin is a hormone that must be present in order for glucose to be burned. As long as there are adequate supplies of glucose and insulin available in the bloodstream, the body will burn glucose all day long.

When supplies of blood glucose  run low, the body can create more by converting glycogen into glucose. Glycogen is as a form of glucose the body can store up in reserve. As long as there is a supply of glycogen available, the body will convert it to glucose for fuel. This is the body’s most efficient way to operate.

Once the stores of glucose and glycogen are used up, the body will switch to burning fat. This is a less efficient way of producing energy, but the body’s cells can burn fat if they need to. Here’s a little tidbit of information for you: If you believe that your body will burn fat simply by exercising, you are mistaken. The body cannot burn fat until all the stores of glucose and glycogen have been used up first, and for most people it takes days to reach that point. Fat will only be burned after glucose and glycogen have been used up.

The reason why most of us never burn fat is because we’re continually consuming carbohydrates that are converted into glucose and burned by the body. You have to actually stop consuming carbohydrates (usually for several days) before your body will begin to burn fat.

The body uses a different process to burn fat than it does to burn glucose. The first difference is that fat burning does not require insulin. The second difference is that fat burning creates ketones as a waste product. You can test for ketones in the urine, but you can also detect it on the exhaled breath of a person who is burning fat. Ketones have a slightly sweet, fruity odor that’s similar to the smell of nail polish remover. (Ketones and acetone are chemically similar and their odor is similar.)

The Atkins diet severely restricts carbohydrate consumption, forcing the body to exhaust glucose and glycogen reserves and begin burning fat. This usually happens within the first few days. I know this was true for my wife, because when she started the Atkins diet, after only two days her breath had the distinct odor of ketones on it; evidence that her body had switched over to burning fat, instead of glucose.

The eating strategy for the Atkins diet is different from most diets. There really isn’t a restriction on calories. You can eat until you feel full. The restriction is on carbohydrates. During the first few weeks, carbohydrate intake is kept as low as possible to get the body switched over to burning fat. After the first few weeks, carbohydrates can slowly be added back in, but the idea is to break the addiction most of us have to things like bread and pasta and prevent the carbohydrate addiction from returning.

Some of the foods you can eat are beef, fish, pork, poultry, eggs, milk, butter, sour cream, cheese, salads (with low-carb dressing)  and some of the green vegetables, onions and peppers. (My wife loves salads and she found a good bleu cheese dressing with almost no carbs in it.) The diet is similar to what people probably would have eaten 100 years ago. It’s heavy on fats and proteins and low on carbs. Most fruits are restricted (at first) due to their high sugar content. Pasta and breads are also off limits, because they’re high in carbohydrates. Atkins recommends checking the label on any food you plan to eat. Look for information on how many grams of carbohydrate it contains. Total carbohydrate consumption should be kept below 20 grams per day.

The reason why I think the Atkins diet could work for me as a long-term solution is because the foods that are allowed are foods I would normally eat anyway. It doesn’t require me to try new foods I’m not accustomed to (green smoothies anyone?)  I’m a carnivore at heart and I love a good steak on the grill, a pan fried pork chop or a nice burger. Bacon and sausage are fine, too. Throw in some cooked asparagus, or snap peas or peppers and I’m happy. Sure, I’ll miss the bread and pasta, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make, if it will help me live to be a healthy old man. My wife is gluten intolerant anyways and she shouldn’t be eating bread or wheat pasta.

One last thing:

Recent findings have pretty clearly demonstrated that heart disease is not caused by high cholesterol, as we’ve been told for the last 40 years. The plaque formations found in diseased arteries are not caused by high cholesterol. They are also not the primary cause of heart disease. The primary cause of heart disease is inflammation of the coronary arteries. Plaque deposits are created by the body in an attempt to heal the inflamed blood vessels. Heart disease is actually an inflammatory process of the blood vessels.  Incidentally, your entire nervous system is made up of cholesterol and doctors are now wondering if diseases like Alzheimer’s might be caused by excessively low cholesterol levels. (For more information on the real cause of heart disease, go here.)

The best strategy for reducing heart disease is not lowering your cholesterol, but lowering the inflammation in your body.

How do you reduce inflammation?

Many experts now believe that one of the leading causes of chronic inflammation is persistently high blood glucose levels; a problem that can be virtually eliminated by following the Atkins diet. If these facts are correct, you can kill two birds with one dietary stone.

Our hope is that by following the Atkins diet, we can lose the excess weight we’ve been carrying around, reduce chronic inflammation and lower our risk of suffering heart attack and stroke.

For me, it’s the only option that makes sense.

Note: If you’re a diabetic or you’ve been diagnosed with insulin resistance, the Atkins diet may be a good choice for you because it addresses these problems by reducing blood glucose. Check with your doctor before starting any diet plan. More information can be found in the book Dr. Atkins’ New Diet Revolution

Why is Healing a Process?

When you read the gospels, it appears (on the surface) as though the people who encountered Jesus were healed of all their afflictions and infirmities in one powerful meeting. I’ve been wondering why instead of a one-time encounter, for many of us it seems like healing is a long, drawn out process that never ends.

Some time ago I asked the Holy Spirit to help me understand why it seems to be this way. I want to share the illustration He gave me about the process of healing so that you might have a better idea of what’s going on and why it seems like we’re in a never-ending battle over healing.

The illustration the Lord gave me came from the time when God led His people across the Jordan River into the land of Canaan. You remember that the Lord told His people His desire was to give them ALL the land that was occupied by the Canaanites. Though He wanted His people to occupy all the land, He told them He would not drive out all of the inhabitants at once, but only a little at a time. The reason He did not drive out all the inhabitants at once is the key element to this story, so you must get this point: The Lord didn’t drive out their enemies all at once because He knew the Israelites would not be able to occupy the land after a grand, sweeping victory. He knew that the enemy would quickly muster a counter-attack and take back the land. The Lord didn’t just want His people to win a few battles. He wanted them to permanently occupy the land He would give them and enjoy all that it could provide.

The book of Joshua chronicles the various battles where the Israelites did war with the Canaanites. In some places they were victorious and in other places, they failed to drive out all the Canaanites and allowed them to remain there, in spite of the fact that God wanted them completely gone from the land. I have no doubt that some of the battles were hard-fought. I’m sure that the Israelites at times doubted that God actually wanted them to have all the land. After all, if He’s an all-powerful God, why couldn’t He just kill off their enemies in one fell swoop and let them have the land? Why did they have to fight these seemingly never-ending battles?

Today, we hear the same kind of question being asked about healing. If God is all-powerful, why doesn’t He just wipe out all of my illness at once?

Just as the Lord said He wanted the Israelites to have all the land, by healing all who came to Him Jesus demonstrated that it’s God’s desire that we would be healed of all our sickness and disease. So why are we not all healed immediately?

Healing is a form of warfare against the kingdom of darkness. The key to understanding why healing is a process instead of a one-time encounter lies in understanding the purpose for war. Lance Wallnau once said:

“The goal of war is victory, but the goal of victory is occupation.”

The spiritual war we’re engaged in over healing is illustrated in the battles the Israelites had with the Canaanites. God didn’t just want the Israelites to win a few wars over their enemy. He wanted them to thoroughly rout the Canaanites and completely remove them from the land so that they could not come back later and cause problems. It isn’t enough to simply win a war against an enemy, only to be defeated in a counter-attack a few days later. God wanted them to permanently occupy that which He gave them. When an enemy returns to take back what you’ve won, occupation means holding on to what you’ve been given.

I’ve met a lot of people who have received healing only to have the symptoms return a few hours or a few days later. God gave these people the victory they asked for but they did not have the ability to occupy their victory. Their lack of understanding of how the enemy works allowed the kingdom of darkness to take back what God had given them.

Some people have enough awareness of their identity in Christ and they’re wise to the enemy’s schemes so that they can withstand these counter-attacks. But most of the time, the person will lose the battle and go right back into their sickness because they’ve never learned how to hold onto that which the Lord wants to give them. Like the Canaanites, we often settle for less than God’s best for us. Our failure to be healed is not because God doesn’t want us to be healed. It’s because we lack knowledge about the ways of the kingdom and the enemy’s schemes.

Gaining understanding about who we are in Christ, and how the enemy works is not an easy process, but it’s something we must do if we ever hope to occupy the victories the Lord gives us. And that is why most of the time healing is a long, difficult process where we take one step forward and two steps back. I’d like to use my wife’s battles over healing as an illustration of this principle.

Soon after we met, my wife needed healing of a frozen shoulder due to a torn rotator cuff and torn bicep. She was healed with the help of a friend and has had full range of motion ever since. If we were keeping score, at that time the score would have been:

My wife – 1 The enemy – 0

Later she developed a problem with her thyroid which has not responded (yet) to prayer.

Score: My wife – 1 The enemy – 1

Later still she developed insomnia and was eventually healed of it.

Score: My Wife – 2 The enemy – 1

Six months later, the insomnia returned and she has not slept without the aid of medications since then. She gave back that victory to the enemy.

Score: My wife –1 The enemy – 2

Recently she developed a herniated disc in her back, which was a battle, though she was eventually healed of it.

Score: My wife – 2 The enemy – 2

Not surprisingly, the enemy returned several times after my wife’s back was healed. A spirit tried to give her back the pain, but because she had a renewed mind, and was wise to the tricks of the enemy, she was able to withstand these attacks and the spirit of pain left.

Currently the score is: My wife – 2 The Enemy – 2

My wife and I are probably a bit more familiar with the dynamics of healing and deliverance than the average Christian, and yet it’s all we can do sometimes to keep even with the enemy. How much harder must it be for someone who hasn’t watched thousands of hours of teaching on these subjects?

When we’re not prepared to fight off the attacks of the enemy, we can’t occupy the territory God gives us. I believe this is one of the reasons why healing is often a long, difficult process. It’s because we must grow in wisdom about how to occupy our bodies and souls and fend off the attacks of the enemy. Many of us are poorly prepared, mentally to defend against these attacks. I suspect that most of our weakness lies in what we believe about ourselves and about God.

The more we renew our minds to the truth that God loves us and wants us to be healed, the more we empower His work of healing. The more we doubt His love, His goodness, and His desire for us to be healed, the more we empower the enemy to take what God wants us to have. We must learn to discern the presence of spirits that try to make us feel sick or injured and we must learn how to make them leave.

The process of healing and how slowly or how quickly it moves is determined mostly by our own thinking. God can do a lot more with a mind that has been renewed to the truth.

The Proof is in the Paralysis

God will sometimes ask us to set aside our understanding of how He does things in order to show us something we haven’t yet considered. When I first ran across this story three years ago it challenged my theology. I’ve taken some heat in the past for not standing against John Crowder, who is featured in today’s testimony. To be honest, I don’t know much about John. I’ve never been to one of his meetings and I don’t follow his teachings.  But in one exchange about Crowder when I didn’t join people who were condemning him, a few people who believe he’s a false teacher became angry with me.

Okay, it was a little worse than that. They accused me of being deceived and one guy said he was going to start his own blog to proclaim the obvious truth that I refused to see. And that’s pretty much how these things usually go.

One of the troubling things I’ve experienced (though it seems to happen more to my friends than to me) is the tendency some Christians have to label anyone who doesn’t agree with them a false teacher or false prophet. Crowder is one of the biggest targets for this type of criticism. So I went to the Holy Spirit and asked what’s going on and this is what I heard:

People who reject ideas that conflict with their own, do so because their identity comes from what they believe to be true. They call themselves Christian, Calvinist, Atheist, Republican, Lutheran, etc. based on what ideas they believe to be true and to some degree what experiences they’ve had.

For many people, these labels become their identity. Instead of taking their identity from God, they form an identity based on philosophies, doctrines, morals and experiences. Because their theology is their identity, when they’re confronted with theological ideas, their identity comes into question. If they affirm a theological idea, it becomes part of their identity. If they reject it, they maintain their identity apart from the idea, and label the idea as false. For these people, every discussion about God or religion challenges their identity, and herein lies a problem:

If we tie our identity to our beliefs, every time we discuss something theological, our identity is at risk. If we don’t want to change our identity every day, we must reject all experiences and teachings that differ from our own. At the start, we must reject ideas. But if a particular individual confronts our identity often enough with “false” ideas, it’s easier to just label the person a false teacher and reject everything they say. This eliminates the need to evaluate each idea, and it reduces exposure of the identity to challenges.

There is a different type of person whose identity isn’t tied to what they believe to be true. They take their identity from what God has said about them. Some have heard Him say, “You are my beloved son (or daughter).” Once God declares their identity it never comes into question again. They believe what God said and that ends the identity debate.

People who take their identity from the Father can be challenged in their beliefs, because their identity isn’t at stake during theological discussions. Their beliefs are a bit more flexible and they change over time as experiences and revelation continually shape them. These people are free to disagree with one another without the need to label anyone a false teacher because they have little at stake personally in theological discussions.

Bearing these things in mind, I’d ask you to consider this rather amazing testimony from John Crowder and his friend concerning a spiritual revival at Walmart that began with the healing of a woman who was paralyzed.

For those who aren’t familiar with what it’s like to be drunk in the spirit, that is what they’re referring to when they talk about getting whacked, juiced, drunk, etc. They haven’t been drinking alcohol. It’s the same thing the apostle Peter defended when he said, “These are not drunk as you suppose…. but this is that which was spoken of by the the prophet Joel.” (Acts 2:15-16)

My Friend’s Healing Testimony

I was blessed (and honored) to share an evening with a new friend named Tom who suffered from multiple sclerosis for many years. Five weeks after his wedding, he was having a normal day when he noticed his foot felt like pins and needles. A few days later the disease had spread to a point where it nearly incapacitated him. The onset was so rapid that his neurologist gave him little hope for survival. The disease progressed and eventually he was confined to a wheelchair.

During the time the disease was progressing, God used Tom powerfully to release healing and miracles for others. He learned about healing and miracles from John Wimber and was one of the original members of the first Vineyard church in Phoenix. He went from one healing service to another and saw hundreds of people healed of every kind of disease. Yet each night he went home and wondered, “Lord, what about my healing?”

The Lord often replied, “It’s not about you, Tom.”

Tom’s father was an alcoholic who verbally abused him, frequently telling him he would rather have someone else as his son. During his time of sickness, God did an amazing work in his heart, healing him of the wounds caused by rejection and abandonment. During this time, the Lord also shaped and molded his identity, transforming him into a new person. One day after a particularly awesome time of worship he confessed, “Lord, I love you so much that even if you never heal me, I’ll still love you more than anything.”

That part of his story really struck me. I wonder how many of us who are waiting for our healing could honestly say the same thing. Is our passion for God greater than our desire to be healed? Is it about us, or is it really about Him?

After seven years of the disease progressively getting worse, Tom finally began to see a reversal of the symptoms. After a while he was able to walk short distances though it was difficult. He found all physical exertion to be exhausting. Climbing a flight of stairs would require him to sleep for an hour.

One day he was sitting in a prayer meeting with a group of guys when they decided to pray for the body of Christ separately. They all went to different parts of the building. Tom was sitting in his chair praying for the church, when suddenly things got a little crazy. A friend said, “Hey Tom, I see the word “mapping” above your head and I think it has something to do with you being healed. Can I pray for you?” His friend prayed and Tom began to feel something like electricity zapping him in the head. Then he felt something like warm, liquid honey being poured over him. The next thing you know, he was up running through the streets of town completely healed.

In a vision, God showed him a dam with a reservoir behind it. He saw water dripping ever so slowly into the reservoir. Every drop of water that fell brought the water level a little higher until finally, the dam broke. This is how the Lord portrayed his healing. “Every prayer ever prayed for you was like a drop of water in the reservoir. Each one made a difference. Not one prayer was wasted. Now I want you to thank everyone who ever prayed for you.”

Tom was healed more than 20 years ago. He’s never suffered a return of symptoms. His neurologist will only say that he is in remission, but Tom knows the truth. I’ve never met anyone who is so enamored with God. His enthusiasm is off the charts. But it wasn’t always that way. He’s been through hard times just like you probably have.

I shared this story to encourage you not to give up on God. He hasn’t given up on you, and He never will. Let Him heal you of all the things you need healing from; both physical and emotional. Fall completely in love with Him and let Him show you the love that He has for you and if necessary, wait patiently for your healing to arrive.

 

Spirit-led Healing

I was asked by a friend whether we should always wait for the Holy Spirit to show us who He wants to heal before praying with a stranger. This is one of the most common questions people have about healing.

Being led by the Holy Spirit is always our goal, and we need to cooperate with Him in every healing or deliverance encounter. While it’s true that He will sometimes highlight certain people for healing that we are not aware of, it is not necessary to always wait for Him to highlight people for healing. The question of whether we should wait for Him to show us certain individuals arises when we are uncertain about whether it is God’s will to heal all people or only certain ones.

It is difficult to pray with faith when we are uncertain about God’s will for healing. We can know with certainty His will toward healing by looking at the New Testament. The gospels give us a clear understanding of the Father’s will through the ministry of Jesus who healed multitudes of people of every kind of disease and demonic oppression:

“When evening had come, they brought to Him many who were demon-possessed. And He cast out the spirits with a word, and healed all who were sick.” (Matthew 8:16)

Jesus never refused to heal anyone who came to him, in fact, it is likely that He spent entire days doing nothing but healing people until He was exhausted. The will of God for healing was further revealed when Jesus commissioned His disciples to heal the sick and cast out demons making no exceptions about who was to be healed:

“Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8)

We see the disciples doing this exact thing in the book of Acts after Jesus ascended into heaven:

“Also a multitude gathered from the surrounding cities to Jerusalem, bringing sick people and those who were tormented by unclean spirits, and they were all healed.” (Acts 5:16)

The scriptures give no indication that there were any exceptions to healing in the ministry of Jesus or the disciples. If it is the will of God to heal all who are sick and demonized, then being Spirit-led is not an issue of who can be healed, but how they should be healed.

Looking at the model Jesus gave us, we see that with one person, He told them to arise and walk. For another it was a touch that healed their blindness. For someone else it was a little mud in their eye and with another, He told their friend to go home because they were already healed. Jesus used different methods for healing each person based on what the will of the Father was for their unique situation. This is what He meant when He said, “The son only does what He sees the Father doing.” (John 5:19)

Being led by the Spirit has to do with the particular method God wants us to use to heal each person. Sometimes it will be a touch, sometimes a command, sometimes we’ll ask them to get up from their wheelchair and attempt to walk. Just as Jesus was led to do certain things to release a miracle, we must learn to cooperate with the Holy Spirit in how He wants us to bring healing to each person we encounter.

Encounter in the Hospital – Anthony Murray

My guest blogger today is Anthony Murray.

It’s 2 am here, but if I don’t write this now, I know I’ll put it off and you’ll all be harassing me like good Christians do, ha ha.  So anyways, as some of you know, last Wednesday a week ago, my 15 year old daughter got very sick. She has diabetes since she was six and a half.

She finds herself operating within different boundary lines and as a result, lets her control of the diabetes go, resulting in her getting ketoacidosis, which put her in intensive care—critically ill and according to the doctors, we nearly lost her.

I get a call on the Wednesday afternoon letting me know this, so I drop everything and head in to the hospital. I begin to pray as I drive and begin to steel myself for the reaction I imagine I’ll encounter from people when I place my God-filled hands on her and pray for however long it takes, seeing as I believe persistence is a key element in breaking through.

In a way that I’ve come to know, I felt the Lord’s hand on my shoulder just as a friend would, and I heard Him whisper in my ear, “I got this! She’s going to be alright.”

Now there’s a tone He uses with me which is both reassuring and informing, and in this case, instructional. He was reassuring me that she’d be okay, and instructing me that there was a bigger picture going on here, and He was letting me know not to do the whole “lay hands on and push till ole death backed off like he ought to.” It’s not the first time he’s tried to take her life, and it’s not the first time he’s gotten a smack on the nose from me, as every good Christian ought to do.

So the Lord told me not to plan on sleeping in the intensive care unit that night as I normally would, but to create space in the unit for kingdom activity. That is, to clear out the room both naturally and spiritually.

When I arrived (in a place of rest by the way) you would not believe the resistance I met and the people who attacked my identity. I put some people out of the room and gave instructions that only her mum and I were allowed in, then I cleared out the room spiritually.

I’d never seen my daughter so sick, hooked up to all kinds of machines. I sent her mum off after a while to get a night’s sleep as I knew I wouldn’t be sleeping. I refused the camp bed the nurses offered and sat in a chair just practicing opening heaven around me, as I do at home. I felt the Lord telling me that He wanted me to be aware of, carry, and release what is normal in a worship setting, a prayer meeting etc., in a real time chaotic and unfriendly environment. He was teaching me the difference between victory and triumph.

So I did not engage in a “battle” or “spiritual warfare” with the enemy who was attacking my daughter and my own soul through the people he sent. Instead, I sat in the chair by my daughter and I rose up in awareness to where I was seated far above the powers that were assailing us, and I reveled in the victory already accomplished. In the midst of the pain, I celebrated with extravagant praise before the throne, triumphing over the enemy I now saw cowering before me , knowing I was aware that he was being paraded before us, whom he thought he could assail without consequence.

I called him to attention to hear me forgive and bless those who’d come against me. He was not happy. My attention was not on him in battle, it was on the one who had already defeated him. All the while I was releasing more of heaven into the room. I placed my baby girl’s hand in mine and I quietly told the enemy he had to leave now and I released the kingdom into her. I sat back and soaked in the very manifest presence of God, my heart oozing with love for wonderful Jesus.

A short time later she threw up a load of black bile like substance, and from that point she became much more relaxed, stable, and the pain she’d complained about in and out of consciousness was no longer mentioned. The nurses would come in every hour to do tests etc, and make sure she wasn’t slipping into a coma. That’s how I know that it was from that point that she shifted into an upward direction from the downward stats she was giving.

During the course of all this I became aware of angelic presence in the room. Now I know that there are always angels around, but for me there are times when I become aware specifically of a presence. Through experience and trial and error I’ve come to know that there is purpose in these times that is initiated by Father rather than me just focusing my attention and becoming aware of the spiritual realm around me. So, I tend to sense beings, presences etc., then I will press in asking the Lord questions. I hear and then begin to feel and see as I yield to what the Lord answers me.

On this occasion I sensed a being at the head of my daughter’s bed. He was leaning over her and had wings which were stretched out forward over her. There were green feathers and I knew this was healing. I have had many encounters with angels, none of which I initiated, and have never seen wings on any of them. This was the first time I’ve ever seen one with wings. That’s why I say “being” rather than “angel.” I understand that there are winged beings, and I’ve seen them in the throne room at times, but I’ve never seen an account in the bible where an angel appeared that was described with wings, so this was kind of new for me.

During the night, the nurses, cleaning folk etc, would come in to do their tests and duties. I could see on some of them that they had beings attached to them, I knew these to be demons. What struck me was, the being covering my daughter would lift a wing aside to allow nurses and doctors to attend to her but remained over her fiercely.The demons were terrified, nearly in agony at the sight and stayed far from the bedside. As soon as the doc or nurses were done, the wing would go back over her.

All the while the being was bent over her, he was whispering into her…like the words were going deep inside of her. I knew this was the Lord speaking life and bringing to remembrance stuff He’d spoken to her. All the while, I was aware that in some strange way, this was all part of the plan and it was orchestrated so that I would be there to cooperate with what God wanted to do in her life. NO, I am not suggesting it was God’s idea or plan for that to happen to her. He’s just always a thousand steps ahead of the enemy’s plots and schemes.

For the record, a friend of mine who is a seer, called me up a couple of days later and told me she was praying for my daughter and she described a being that she felt was the Son of righteousness, who was leaning over her bed with green outstretched wings, whispering wisdom deep into her. (I did not tell her about what I saw until after she told me this, A bit of confirmation is always good, eh?)

Okay, so there’s more. About 3 am I was sitting worshiping , loving on God, and again I became aware of activity behind me. On doing my usual exploration and inquiring of the Lord, I saw six angels of the usual type , with no wings. They were standing in an arc around me. I saw that they each had a bow of fire and an arrow of fire in their bows. I asked the Lord what the story was here. Again, I’d never had an encounter where I saw fiery bows and arrows. I must say also, that though I have encounters like this, I do not shake, bake, rattle, fall down, manifest like people do. I don’t believe the ability to operate in a gift or to spiritually sense things or to have visions is a sign that a person has attained some great thing. I believe these are all part of the normal new creation life.

Back to the six angels with the bows and arrows of fire. Well, I asked the Lord, “What this was all about?”

He replied, “They are waiting for you to give the declarations that they might release their arrows.”

I immediately thought of the word that speaks of “His holy ones who perform His word.” I have long known that nothing is done without a decree being made by His mouth on earth. So I opened my mouth and began to prophesy and decree, just tapping into His flow. A lot of what I spoke were words of destiny, identity, calling etc., but it came out strong with great authority. Then I saw the angels pull back their bows. They seemed to strain to pull them back as far as they could go. I looked at my daughter to see the arrows hit, but to my great surprise, they aimed their arrows up and away from her. I could hear the arrows whiz and the fire crackle as they were releases at great speed. I thought this strange, that they didn’t aim them at her, until I noticed that there were fine cords of fire attached to each arrow, and each cord was attached at the other end deep inside her.

I looked again in the direction the arrows were fired and I saw that a portal of sorts had opened that the arrows had flown through. I knew instinctively that it was a portal to the future. I saw the cords become taut as the arrows flew toward their mark somewhere in her future. The cords snapped tight and the force of the cords pulling was like as the rope you would use to tow a truck. I could almost see my daughter lift as the arrows pulled her in the direction they were traveling. I asked the Lord about this, and He replied, “Those arrows are my words over her. They are sure and true and will hit their mark. The cords are securely attached to my daughter.  They are part of her now and those arrows are going to pull her into her destiny and calling in her future. It is a father who gives identity and has the authority to speak destiny, that is why your own identity and authority was attacked here. You were here for this reason, don’t underestimate the eternal significance of this night.”

As you might guess I was a wreck after that. A joyous wreck. Okay, so do now you see why I needed time to write this? Its 5:30 am now. Yes, it actually takes me that long to write what I can say in 10 minutes. I hope this story encourages someone. All of my encounters have begun with me responding to an impression from the Lord that could easily be missed simply because it was such a faint impression. It is always faith that opens up the encounter and a true encounter always has an earthly application. Anyways, I should get an hour or two’s kip afore I take my wee’uns to the zoo. Good morning and God Bless you all. Thanks for bearing with this rather long story.

Wonderful Jesus

I Have Heard Your Cry

I want to share some of the adventures we had with Jesus on our trip to Washington to meet with friends at The Gathering. This story actually brings the trip to its conclusion. After spending nine days in the Pacific Northwest with friends, we got on the plane back to Phoenix and stowed our bags in the overhead bin. Most of the plane had already boarded. I sat down and soon heard the unmistakable cry of baby coming from the seat behind me. I looked at my wife. “Well, that’s cool. I get to sit in front of screaming baby.”

I had not slept well the night before. The room became too warm so at 1 o’clock in the morning I got up and opened the window then went to the lobby of the hotel for a drink of water. I fell back into a fitful sleep until the alarm went off. I did my best to rest on the plane but the coughing and crying of the child in the seat behind us made it hard and I became more annoyed as time went on.

An hour before the plane landed, I began feeling a vibration in my right leg near where I keep my cell phone. Every two minutes or so I felt as if my phone was alerting me. I checked my phone several times for new messages, but there were none. There couldn’t be. At 30,000 feet my phone can’t receive a signal from a cell tower.

I began to think maybe the vibration was coming from the Lord and He was trying to get my attention. I closed my eyes and saw some images and a few words in my mind, but I didn’t see any clear messages that I could understand. The vibration in my leg continued every few minutes.

After the flight attendants had put away the beverage carts the baby began a tirade of non-stop screaming that was unsettling his parents and getting on the nerves of people around us. I realize that when a baby flies in an airplane it doesn’t know how to equalize the pressure so its ears are going to feel the pain of atmospheric pressure changes. Who could blame him for crying?

I closed my eyes again and this time I saw a clear message from God in my mind. “Pray for my peace to overcome the child.” As I prayed, in my mind I saw Jesus approaching the child and cuddling him and the screaming slowly subsided. Then I heard one more thing. “Tell his parents that I have heard their cries and I will give them everything they have asked for.”

As the plane descended into Phoenix I began to feel an unusual compassion for the baby’s parents that made me my eyes fill with tears. I knew it was the Lord showing me how He feels toward them.

As the plane taxied to the terminal I asked the child’s parents if I might give them an encouraging word about their future. They said they would be glad to hear one.

I explained, “About an hour ago when your son was crying God asked me to pray for the peace of Jesus to overcome him. I began to pray for that and as I did, the Lord asked me to tell you this: ‘Just as all the people on this plane have heard the cries of your child, I have heard your cries and I will give you all you have asked for.’ The Lord’s heart toward you is full of compassion. He has not forgotten you. He will never forsake you. He will bring to pass all that He promised you. So I hope you’ve dreamed big, because the Lord is going to make your dreams come true.”

They thanked me and as I exited the plane I gave the boy’s father a hug.

I wrote this to encourage you to keep your eyes and ears open for opportunities to bless strangers with a word from God. I was not in a mood to bless anyone when this encounter began and it took a lot of prompting from God to get my attention.

If you aren’t hearing the Lord clearly, consider that perhaps He’s speaking to you in a way you haven’t yet recognized. Ask Him to speak more clearly and whatever you sense Him saying or doing; follow the best you can and watch what happens.

I guarantee you’ll be amazed.

Time to Grow Up

A wise man once said “faithful are the wounds of a friend.” I need to tell you something that may hurt a little, because I care about you as a friend.



I think it’s wise to seek prayer from friends for our problems, whether they’re health-related, relational or whether they fall into some other category. Prayer is a powerful thing. But there are problems that cannot be resolved by the prayers of our friends alone.

I have many friends who suffer from chronic aches, pains and illnesses and I have other friends whose relationships have been blown to pieces. When everything is falling apart, it’s tempting to cry out to friends to pray for our problems to be fixed once and for all.

Many of us have not yet learned how to stand against the enemy in our battle against recurring sickness and most of us are responsible for our own relationship problems. Let’s take a look at sickness first.

The battle against recurring sickness is something like how we might deal with a criminal who repeatedly breaks into our home. Jesus used this illustration when teaching about how and why demons return to a person after being cast out of them in Luke chapter eleven. (See Luke 11:21-26)

When a burglar breaks into our home, we have a couple of ways in which we can respond. One option is to stand by helplessly and let them take our property and beat us senseless while waiting for the police to show up. An untrained and ill-equipped believer who relies on friends or the anointed “man of God” to pray for them is like a defenseless homeowner at the mercy of a burglar.

Burglars are opportunistic. They size up their victims and evaluate their defenses, looking for signs of vulnerability. They look for alarm systems, unlocked doors and windows, the absence of a dog, and the likelihood that the homeowner will be armed. They look for homeowners that are the least likely to fight back. Demons do the same thing. They look for points of entry into our lives, through things such as anger, unforgiveness, pride, and emotional wounds.

The first step in defending yourself is allowing the Holy Spirit to remove the things that allow the enemy to have access and influence over you. The second part is to learn how to go on the offensive against intruders when they come around. People who refuse to be trained in spiritual warfare or who never learn how to exercise their authority over the enemy are like homeowners who refuse to secure their homes or fight back against an intruder. They make themselves easy targets for evil spirits. Once word gets out in the demonic community that they’re an easy target, they can expect to be harassed by even more evil spirits. That’s the message Jesus illustrated in His teaching in Luke chapter eleven.

When it comes to healing, many of us are content to let someone else deal with the bad guys. It’s easier to let someone else pray for us than it is to learn how to withstand the attacks of enemy ourselves.  Jesus gave every believer the power and authority they need to defeat the enemy, without going to someone else for help. Recurring problems with sickness and disease are the result of us refusing to take our responsibilities seriously.

You can plead with your friends to pray for your healing all you want, but if you never learn to exercise the authority God has given you over sickness, you’re never going to remain healed. The spirits that bring  sickness will continue to assault you until you learn to take authority over them.

I have a friend who once asked the Holy Spirit “How do you see cancer?”

The Holy Spirit replied, “I can’t see cancer because it’s under my feet. I want it to be under your feet.”

The enemy will continue to beat us up until we learn to put him under our feet once and for all. I’m preaching to myself here as my wife and I don’t always do this, but we’re learning.

My wife was recently healed of back pain when she finally understood that the things she thought about herself , about her symptoms, and about God’s desire to heal her were allowing the enemy to continue to attack her and keep her in pain.

The first problem was that she couldn’t bring herself to believe she was healed as long as she still felt pain. This is a murky problem because sometimes people feel pain in response to a physical problem, while other times the sensation of pain is due only to the presence of a spirit.  To further complicate things, she had an MRI that showed one herniated and two bulging discs. You might think that as long as she has herniated discs, she must resign herself to living with the pain, but we know of people who have MRIs showing herniated discs who had no symptoms of the injury. My wife began to ask, “If some people have herniated discs and don’t have pain, why can’t I be one of them?”

She also wasn’t completely sure at that point that God wanted to heal her. One day she decided to believe that God really did want to heal her and she entertained the idea that perhaps she was already healed. She accepted the fact that it was her beliefs and not God’s reluctance to heal her that was the problem. So she chose to believe that God wanted her healed. She also chose to see the pain she was experiencing as a lie from the enemy. Once she got her thinking straightened out, it removed the power the enemy had over her and the pain left.

One of the major lessons we’ve learned is that the enemy only has the power over us that we allow him to have. Being healed and keeping the symptoms from returning is a battle. Most of the warfare is done on the six inch battlefield between our ears.

Now let’s take a look at problems with relationships.

Many of us cry out to our friends or to God to have our relationship problems fixed, rather than take an honest look at ourselves and admit that we’re the one responsible for our problems. God is not going to take away the consequences of our bad decisions. As we sow, we shall also reap, and many of us are reaping the consequences of manipulation, co-dependency, selfishness, immaturity and a failure to walk in our God-given identity.

Relationship problems are cyclical. The habits we’ve developed over our lifetime create the same dynamics (for good or bad) in all our relationships. When the same problems arise repeatedly, instead of  blaming others or crying out to God to fix the other person, we need to look at why we are bearing bad fruit. The fruit of our relationships is determined by the condition of our heart. It is only by changing the way in which we relate to others that the cycle of relationship problems will end. It’s a sign of spiritual immaturity to blame others for our problems or to expect someone else to fix them. We must be the one to make the change.

Most of us have a lot of growing up to do. It’s time to take the training wheels off and learn how to live as mature children of God.

A Simple Approach to Prophetic Ministry

Brian Fenimore teaches a simple and powerful approach to prophetic ministry.

Brian is the director of the Plumbline Ministries, an organization based on advancing the Kingdom of God. The focus of his ministry is to equip the saints for the work of ministry in schools, seminars and media throughout the World. He is the author of several books and study notes including Foundation for the Prophetic Ministry and Heart Standard for the Prophetic.

Father’s Heart for the Prophetic

Why Forgiving Doesn’t Heal You

Most of us know how important it is to forgive people who have sinned against us. But we often wonder why we continue to feel hurt, shame, guilt, fear or anger after we’ve forgiven the one who hurt us. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard someone say, “I’ve forgiven them, but I’ll never forget what they did to me,” or “I thought I dealt with that a long time ago, but it still hurts every time someone mentions it.”

It’s been said,  “You know you’ve been healed when you can tell the story and it doesn’t hurt anymore.” It’s a simple idea but there’s a lot of truth to it. The barometer of emotional healing is how much discomfort you suffer when you re-live the memory of an event. If it’s painful to recall an event, you may have forgiven the person, but you haven’t been healed of the emotional trauma it caused. That’s because forgiveness frees the other person of the consequences of their offense, but it doesn’t address the wounds we receive from it.

Jesus told His disciples, “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.” (John 20:23)  In this verse Jesus was not speaking of heaven’s power to forgive sin, but ours. Although sin has eternal consequences it also has temporal ones. When we choose to forgive others it frees them of the temporal consequences of their sin.

When a someone sins against us in a way that causes us emotional pain, our soul suffers a wound in much the same way that our body would if they were to hit us with a baseball bat. Forgiving them does not heal the wound. But there is a way we can be healed of this trauma. In the same way that the suffering of Christ makes possible our physical healing, it also makes possible our emotional healing.

Most of us are familiar with the verse in Isaiah 53 that says, “By His stripes we are healed.” This verse is usually connected with physical healing. But this chapter opens with a different emphasis. Verse one says, “Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows.” Grief and sorrow are emotions that need to be healed. In addition to paying for our physical healing, Jesus paid the price for our emotional healing.

Our body and soul do not automatically receive healing. Just as assistance from a believer is helpful in obtaining physical healing, another believer can assist us in receiving emotional healing. (It’s possible to receive any type of healing by yourself, though it is not common to be healed this way.)

Emotional healing may require us to repent of sinful attitudes we’ve been holding. It often requires Jesus to show us the truth about a lie we’ve believed, and it usually involves Him personally healing our wounded soul. It may also require us to forgive ourselves. (Some people find this to be the most difficult part of the process.)

Forgiving the person who wounded us it important, but it’s only the first step in the process of being healed.