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A few weeks ago a group of CWOW Prayer Ministers had the opportunity to head up to Bethel, a church in Redding, CA. Bethel has a deep heart for the power and work of the Holy Spirit and Jesus’ desire to heal. We learned a lot, about ourselves and about what God is doing in our community here in Berkeley.
Over the past several years, God has been stretching our faith for healing prayer: different folks have experienced physical healing and our desire to press further into God as Healer has grown. We’ve seen some amazing things and we’ve had some profound, heart-wrenching disappointments.
It was good to be at Bethel and participate in their Healing Rooms. This is a ministry time that happens on Saturday mornings and is primarily focused on physical healing. Everyone who went had the opportunity to request prayer for something and many shared about good experiences. There were a couple things that really stood out for many of us:
Focus on how God is working, not how He isn’t
At times we get so focused on how we would like to see a situation resolved or what complete resolution looks like, we lose sight of what has already happened. The Bethel community is very quick to be thankful for what has happened and not discouraged at all by what hasn’t. One woman shared a story about praying for someone who had a large area of un-pigmented skin on her arm. The woman prayed and nothing happened. Fast forward to a year later and that person ran into this woman and showed the un-pigmented skin, which now had many small dots of pigment. The woman praised God for the work He had begun and prayed for more. There was still a lot of surface area where there was no pigment and she could have focused on that, but instead focused on the small dots of pigment. The fact that it took a year and wasn’t complete could have been discouraging, but that’s not how this woman took it at all. Her prayers were heard, God is faithful, and wants to heal.
People stepping into authority/action
A number of folks received prayer and got words about stepping out or stepping into a new thing. More than one person was encouraged to physically take a step forward while praying as a prayer in action. Many of us resonated with this word, not only individually, but corporately as a church community. Our church is in a season of opportunity. Yes, there’s a lot of change and transition, but this is a time to notice how God is moving. If you heard Erin Schweng’s sermon (listen here), she spoke about how task and relationship interact as we moved toward a goal. As a community we are in relationship together and as God’s people we have been set with a communal mission (our purpose statement). Erin highlighted that as the importance of the task and the relationship increase, we can engage with each other and God to accomplish it. This is the Kingdom of God breaking through to earth.
Let’s try to see how and where God is moving and calling us and be quick to acknowledge the work He’s doing. We know God has called each of us together in this time to accomplish the mission of our church, so in this season let’s step in, as individuals and together and see what God will do.
By Loretta Matty
