|

Beauty in Obedience

“Whoever obeys His command will come to no harm, and the wise heart will know the proper time and procedure.” Ecclesiastes 8:5

In my last blog post I mentioned something that is low key amazing and shocking at the same time–that the Lord used me to heal one of my teammates. Well, sometimes beautiful things come out of the obedience of following where the Lord leads us.

Here’s how the night played out.

It was a Saturday night, the last night of September, and the day after receiving some pretty encouraging words from family and friends about silence being a place of trust and intimacy with God (if you don’t understand this reference head on back to my last post to get the whole shabang). It was after team time, so about 10:30 at night, and I was about to FaceTime my younger sister to have some quality time; and I was planning on that time to be the highlight of my weekend. Little did I know that the Lord had some different plans in mind.

One of my teammates, Julia, struggles with some pretty bad arthritis that is directly correlated with her intake of gluten, and in this country there is a LARGE consumption of gluten. No kidding– it’s literally in everything. On this particular night she had a pretty bad flare up and was struggling with bending her right knee (this detail is important) she literally was stuck in between having it not completely straight but was also unable to bend it at all; and it hurt. We were in the English room and I was making tea for the both of us and I had asked her if anyone had laid hands on her and prayed for her pain, to which she responded no.

So I volunteered, and I have no idea why I did, but sometimes the Holy Spirit blurts out words for you and then you have no idea how to respond afterwards. It’s sometimes cool but sometimes like “okay, what the HECK dude I am not qualified for this.” I quickly told her that after she did some yoga if it still hurt then I would pray over her. Fast-forward an hour and she comes into my room while I’m talking to Emily (seester) and asks me to pray over her; so naturally I make my sister hold and leave my phone face-up on the bed…lol

I invited the rest of the team to join in praying over her but all of them were involved in their bedtime activities, so it ended up just being me and then me trying to convince our team leader to join in…mainly because I had no clue what the heck I was doing. She joined.

We sat on the bench at the dining room table and I stared at Julia awkwardly because, again, I DID NOT KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING. I was so nervous because the Lord was calling me into this place totally unprepared, with no experience, and with a hurting teammate that needed to be healed. Michelle kinda knew it was gonna happen. I, on the other hand, did not. So I put my hands (super awkwardly) on her right knee, one on the top and the other on the front, and I started to pray. I was just talking to the Lord, asking her to heal her, declaring that the pain was going to go away because of His faithfulness; and then Michelle asked her how she felt. She said that she still had pain. I started to pray again.

This time something started to happen. My face started to get warm, my neck started to get warm, and my chest got really warm. I got to the place where I wasn’t necessarily challenging God, but was rather calling on His faithfulness and power and love for her to heal her. Then Michelle prayed (and let me tell you, the authority that is expressed in her prayers is pretty dang cool) and asked Julia to completely straighten and bend her knee–she did, and there was no pain. A huge smile broke across her face and she began to hug her knee to her chest and then straighten it all the way out.

I was shocked. Unbelievably shocked. The Lord had just used me to heal my teammate. I was so taken aback. I was unqualified, how the heck could this happen??

God doesn’t call us to be “qualified.” The most amazing things in scripture happen through people who are unqualified. Take a look at John 14:12 :

“Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” (NIV)

Jesus tells us in this piece of scripture that we will do even greater things than HE did. What?! How crazy is that you guys!!!!!!! God loves us that much that He would give us the power and authority to continue to do great works among His children. The blood of Christ runs through our veins as children of God. All we need to do is step out in obedience and trust that God is good and that He is faithful!

My heart rejoices and is blown away by the fact that our God truly is that good. That he lavishes His love upon us in a way that allows us to impact other peoples’ lives, other peoples’ health. This experience taught me that sometimes, even though it’s freakin scary as all get out, obedience can be a challenging yet super amazing thing.

This is a part of the Spirit that I have never experienced in my whole entire life. I have never even seen something like this happen; only through stories of those who have been on the World Race have I heard of these things happening– but here I am, writing this post explaining how I was an instrument in this miracle happening.

I don’t think my period of “silence” was ever really a period of silence. I think that maybe, just maybe, the Father is teaching me to listen to the touch of the Spirit instead of the sound of His voice. Only the Lord knows where He is leading me from here; but maaaaaan oh man am I excited to see how He continues to impact my life.

Live gracefully friends,

Mads

Displaying IMG_0097.JPG

Julia and I at one of our favorite cafes, Stop. 

More Articles in This Topic

Adventure is Out There Pt. 2

Adventure is Out There Pt. 1

Blogging is Hard

Experiencing the Potter