A Hockey Model Of Healing

Questions About Healing

A lot of healing-related questions recently came up in my life and started to really perplex me. Of course, I took them to God and began asking Him about them. It took a few weeks before He answered me, but when He did, God used a hockey game (of all things) to answer my questions. Before I explain the answer, let me share what some of the questions were.

The first question had to do with why a friend of mine with lung cancer was not getting healed. We had prayed for her and seen a noticeable improvement in her condition. I took that as a demonstration of God's desire to heal her. But a few days later she had a relapse and ended in the hospital. The doctors were able to stabilize her and send her home. But since then she has been in and out of the hospital multiple times and her condition is slowly getting worse instead of better. I believe God has already demonstrated His willingness and desire to heal her and I was very perplexed as to why He wasn't completing the healing and allowing her condition to get worse.

Another friend's husband had a bad accident where his leg was seriously injured. He had to have a skin graft from his stomach as part of the surgery to restore the leg. Unfortunately, the surgery was not very successful. He ended up on crutches and could hardly walk with those. He attended a service a healing evangelist from Argentina prayed for him and his leg was miraculously healed. He could walk without his crutch, the pain was greatly reduced and he got back almost his full range of motion. But shortly after the healing in his leg, his stomach began to develop complications from the skin graft. He has been in and out of the hospital with infections and he has had one surgery after another he keeps getting worse instead of better. That has been really bothering me--why would God heal his leg and then allow those problems to surface on his stomach?

Then there is the dilemma of inconsistencies in my own healing ministry. There are times when I pray for the sick and everyone in the meeting is healed. There are other times when I pray for people and hardly anyone is healed. Those times when few are healed really frustrate me. I have seen God do all sorts of amazing things that have grown my faith--growing back missing body parts, opening blind eyes, opening deaf ears, crippled people walking, people healed of cancer, etc. So I feel like my faith has grown so that I truly expect to see God heal when He tells me to pray for the sick. But those healings don't always come.

I spoke at a retreat a few days after Christmas, and there were a lot of healing needs there. The Lord instructed me to schedule a special meeting during an afternoon break to pray for the sick. Many came for prayer and some came to help pray. Hardly anyone was healed, even though had God told me to schedule this special prayer time, which was a big disappointment for me. In fact, one of the people who wasn't healed had the flu, and when I prayed for her, I caught that flu and was very sick for two weeks.

Another question was related to why I get sick so frequently after having a healing meeting where others are healed. I have come home very sick from most of my missions trips and from some of my in-country speaking engagements. Often when I pray for the sick, I get counter attacked in the area of health where there have been the most healings. Over the past few years, my own personal health has not been that great. That is a dilemma for me--how come God will heal others through me but then not guard my own health?

Then there was one more question that may sound like a trivial thing, but it was a biggie to me. I had been suffering from what is called "old eyes" where the lens continues to grow and after a certain age it becomes harder to focus on certain things. I was at the point where I needed reading glasses to read small-to-medium print. The power of God came on me in a Todd Bentley meeting in July of 2003 and my vision was completely restored. I could read fine without glasses--but it only lasted about a month or two and then my vision began to deteriorate again. In fact, it is so bad now that in dimmer light, I have to put on reading glasses to read just about anything. And I need them for an alarming number of things in bright light as well. Why would the power of God come on me for healing two and a half years ago and then only last for a few months? Why wouldn't the healing have a lasting effect? Not everyone my age needs reading glasses--my husband is 4 years older than me and his reading vision is still perfect. Why would God heal me only to let me get worse again?

These questions were perplexing me. Perhaps some similar ones have perplexed you as well from time to time.

I knew the "standard" explanations, but they did not seem to suffice or to cover the situation. I knew that when you cast out a demon, it will usually try to come back and the healed person may need to command it to leave again. I knew that things like unforgiveness or un-repented sin or willful disobedience can short-circuit a healing. I knew that we need to change certain behaviors that made us sick in the first place because we will just get sick again if we keep doing the things that made us sick in the first place.

I also knew that some things are harder to heal than others. I remembered the passage from Matthew 17:14-21, when Jesus came down from the Mount of Transfiguration and discovered His disciples could not heal the boy with epileptic seizures. The disciples had asked Jesus why they could not heal the boy and Jesus had answered (verse 21), "This kind does not go out except by prayer and fasting." In other words some demons (and their related diseases) are harder to get rid of than others.

But that information did not satisfy me. I was starting to feel discouraged and I wondered if I really belonged in ministry praying for the sick. I brought my discouragement and my questions to God and I began asking Him what was going on.

God is an amazingly faithful God. He has this incredible way of meeting us when we are down and encouraging our faith. I suspect you have experienced His hand of encouragement in your own life from time to time. He starts doing a string of "neat things" in your life. Any one of them might be a "coincidence," but He strings far too many of them together to be random chance. Then your spirit begins to realize that God is working on your behalf and you begin to feel encouraged. That is what God did with me over a three or four day period. Then He brought it all together one evening when I was watching a hockey game on television with my husband.

It was a very exciting game where our team was playing on of the top ranking teams in the NHL, and both teams were playing very well. It was fast paced and action packed game, and it was very exciting to watch. It was also a low scoring game with excellent scoring chances and outstanding goal tending by both teams. The game was pretty close. My team was in the lead but the other team was famous for end-of-game comebacks.

When there was only 53 seconds left in the game, the phone rang. It was all call from Hong Kong, so I took the call and missed the end of the game.

One of the things we talked about in the call was a lady who I prayed for when I was in Hong Kong 4 months earlier. She had lung cancer. She attended a different church but she had come to my service for prayer-- God healed her. That healing made a big impact on the people in the service. It has been almost four months since that healing and the lady is still doing quite well.

I had forgotten about that healing until the pastor from Hong Kong mentioned it. (Funny how we can tend to forget the victories in healing and focus on the apparent failures...) I had been so caught up in my other friend's lack of healing that I had started to think that maybe I did not have authority to pray for lung cancer. It really helped and encouraged me to be reminding of that healing in Hong Kong and to hear that the lady was still doing very well. I had a sense of God saying "See, I told you so!" in my spirit, and I knew that I am called to keep on praying for the sick.

When I got off the phone, the game was over. I wanted to know what happened in the game I had been watching so I asked my husband about it. Did our team win? (Yes they did.)

It was right at that instant that God spoke into my spirit and used hockey as a model to understand the dynamics of praying for the sick. The answer He gave me seemed to put most (if not all) of my pressing questions into a meaningful perspective. I am going to share it with you the following lessons. Since I send one one lesson a week, that will give you a week to think about and prayerfully ponder your own questions about healing. I am hoping the model that God gave me (a different way of looking at healing prayer) might help you with your questions as well. (Smile).

Defense Men

As I explained in the previous lesson, I was starting to have a lot of questions about healing and began seeking God for some answers. The model He gave me a new model to put things into perspective for me. That model was based on the game of hockey. I know that hockey is a popular sport in Canada, the north east part of the USA and in some parts of Europe. But there are a lot of people who live in other parts of the world and don't know much about the game. So I am going to share a bit about hockey in these teachings in order to explain the model the Lord gave me.

In hockey there are two teams. Each team has six players. Three of them are "offense" positions (called the "forwards" or "front line") and the other three are defensive positions (two "defensemen" and the goal tender or "goalie"). The goal of the game is to get the hockey puck into the opponents goal (sometimes referred to as a "net") as many times as possible, and at the same time to keep the opponent from putting the puck into your goal.

Even though there are definite offensive and defensive positions, everyone on the team (except the goalie) plays both offense and defense, depending on where the puck is on the ice.

The ice is divided into three sections. There is your "end" (the area where your goal is located), "center ice" and the opponent's "end." The strategy is to keep the puck in the opponent's as much as possible so you have more opportunities to shoot the puck at their goal to score. (Of course, their goalie and the rest of the opponent's team are going to try to stop you, so putting the puck in the net is not as easy as it sounds.)

When you are on the offensive (shooting the puck at their goal), then everyone on the team (except the goalie) plays offense. The three forwards will be more aggressively attacking the net and the defenseman's main job is to keep the puck from leaving the attack zone. If the puck crosses the blue line that separates the attack zone from the center ice zone, then all off the players on your team have to leave the attack zone and cannot reenter it again until the puck first comes back in to that zone. For the most part, defensemen hang near the back of the attack zone to prevent the puck form leaving the attack zone. But from time to time things line up so that they take a shot at the goal, and sometimes they score goals for their team.

In fact, some defensemen score a lot of goals for their team. The last time I checked, the highest scoring defenseman in the NHL (National Hockey League) was a fellow named Bryan McCabe from the Toronto Maple Leafs, who scored 15 goals by Jan 13 of 2006. That is a lot of goals, more goals than a lot of offensemen scored during that same time frame. I mention him so that you can know that just because a person is asked to play in a defensive position, that doesn't mean they can't score goals.

The intercessors are the healing parallel to defensemen in the game of hockey. They stand behind those who do a lot of healing ministry and they battle to make it possible for their teammates to score. Their role is critical--they are the ones who make it possible for the "forwards" (those who minister healing) to successfully completing their assignments. The intercessors are the ones who make it possible for us to see the anointing and power of God flowing in healing ministry.

A lot of intercessors do not get many opportunities to minister directly, just like most hockey defensemen do not get to score a lot of goals. Most of the time, interesssors are not the ones who lay hands on the sick and see God's healing power flow through them. However, some intercessors are the Bryan McCabes (or "top scoring defensemen") and they get to minister healing as well as intercede. We must be careful not to make the mistake of thinking that an intercessor who doesn't physically lay hands on the sick to pray for them is not a key member of our healing team.

Those who don't know hockey well might think that the defensemen are not all that important, that "a good defense is an offense," and things along that line. But that this simply not the case in hockey; offense alone is not enough. In fact, my team (the Sharks) recently had an embarrassing loss because their defensive line fell apart and their goalie was not playing well. The offense played great, but the other teams goalie was on top of his game and the Sharks did not score very many goals. The other team's offense was not all that great, but because of defensive breakdowns they were able to score six goals against my team. If you have a great offense but you have an inferior defense, you are going to loose more games than you win.

What does the defense mean to those of us who regularly pray for the sick? It means that we absolutely need our intercessors in place, because if we are missing solid intercession, then our healing ministry will suffer. One of the biggest mistakes people can make is to think their own personal healing anointing will cover them so that they do not put solid prayer covering (intercession) into place. It is true that their anointing will cover them for a bit, just like a good attacking drive in hockey. But if they don't have their defensive players in position, that "puck" will eventually cross the ice and end up in their end. Then they will be in great trouble without a good defense.

There are different types of intercession, any one of which can cover us effectively at a given moment that we minister. Let me talk about three different types of intercessory coverage. First, there are the "dedicated intercessors" who pray for a specific ministry (or minister) and cover it regularly in prayer. They and release the Lord's anointing on the ministry or person, they fend off some of the spiritual counter attack, and they do spiritual warfare to remove certain obstacles the enemy tries to put in the way of the healing flow. These are my favorite type of intercessors to have, because their intercession is consistent and long-term. They cover you no matter what type of healing activity that the Lord assigns you to do or no matter where He sends you.

There are also the intercessors who are not assigned to a specific person or ministry, but the Lord assigns them to cover a given area. It may be a neighborhood, a city, or even a state/providence. They are the ones who break through the darkness and enemy oppression over an area and gain an "open heaven" over that area. When there is an open heaven over an area, it is much easier to operate in God's power and anointing; you see all sorts of quick/easy results. If you minister the same way somewhere else that does not have an open heaven, then you have to work much harder to get smaller results. The difference (the ease in ministry and quick results) comes because these intercessors have secured an open heaven, they have removed the obstacles and enemy resistance that blocks the anointing and healing flow.

The third type of intercessors are those who cover specific events rather than being assigned to a given area. They may cover a healing conference at their church and break through the open heaven for this that meeting. Or they might they cover an on-going meeting, such as a weekly healing room or a monthly healing service. The event they cover seems to have the anointing and open heaven, but other events in their same area may not have that open heaven.

When I was in Hong Kong and in India last September, the local believers had put a great deal of prayer and intercession preceding my trip. The intercession in Hong Kong was specific to the conference and meetings I was holding. As a result of their prayers, it was very easy for me to minister there. There was such a strong anointing on the meetings and the power of God flowed freely. That anointing came from the intercession support for the specific set of meetings I spoke at.

There was also a strong anointing in India, but it came from a slightly different source. There is ongoing concentrated and continuous intercession for the State of Andhra Pradesh by a group of intercessors who live there. They did not do a lot of concentrated prayer for my meetings (though they did some). But they had secured an open heaven over the area from the constant prayer and intercession and spiritual warfare over their area. As a result, there was an open heaven and we saw a lot of miracles.

In both cases, Hong Kong and India, prayer and intercession had created an open Heaven so that God's will for healing (and for the prophetic) could go forth unhindered. In once case it was intercession specific to the meetings I was holding and in the other case it was blanket intercession over the area. Both types of intercession produced the same results for me, making it relatively easy to see the power of God flow freely.

Let me share another story, to help you better understand the significant role that intercession can play. Someone from the meetings in Hong Kong recommended me to a friend of theirs in Canada, who needed someone to speak at her church's winter retreat. The people who came to that retreat were mostly immigrants from Hong Kong and mainland China. They had the same cultural and ethnic background as the people in Hong Kong, and they were just as open to the Lord and just as hungry for God as the group in Hong Kong. But the anointing for physical healing just was not on this retreat. In fact, it felt like there was some cloud or oppression over the area, making it very difficult to minister. I saw much less healing than I normally do when I speak somewhere and I found the experience frustrating.

What was the difference? I did not know at first, but God explained it to me when He gave me this hockey model of healing. The difference had to do with prayer and intercession covering for the meetings. I had not mobilized any intercession from my end (just after the holidays and it being a small private retreat instead of a GodSpeak outreach). The group who invited me did not organize much intercession for this retreat either, so we did not have adequate prayer coverage. The ground they gained over their local area from their ongoing prayer/intercession not seem to help much because this particular retreat was held at a location that was a four-hour drive away from their church.

The bottom line is that there just was not an adequate under girding of prayer support and we did not have the open heavens that I normally enjoy when I minister.

Intercession is what made the difference in the level of power and anointing in these meetings and that is why I did not see very many people healed when I prayed for the sick. In short, I only brought the offensive line to the game and that simply was not enough. If we want to "win" (to see the power and miraculous healings), then we need the full team in play. We need the defense. We need our intercessors.

Perhaps that is why the Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 6:18-19:

18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints.
19Pray also for me, that whenever I open my mouth, words may be given me so that I will fearlessly make known the mystery of the gospel.

The Front Line

As I explained in the previous lesson, I was starting to have a lot of questions about healing and began seeking God for some answers. So the Lord gave me a new model to put things into perspective for me, and that model is based on the game of ice hockey. Some of you are already very familiar with hockey, but many are not. So I am going to explain a bit about the game in order to explain the model of healing that the Lord gave me.

Half of the team is the front line, also known as the forwards or offensive line. There are three positions on the front line: the center, the right wing and the left wing. The main job of the front line is to carry the puck into the "offensive zone" and attack the other team's net, trying to shoot the puck into the net. That would be easy if the other team was not trying to stop them from doing that. However, every player on the other team does their best to prevent that from happening.

I think that is the piece that was missing in my previous thinking on healing. Jesus sent us out to heal the sick, cast out demons and preach the Good News. He wanted to advance God's kingdom through our spoken word and through our demonstration of His power (healing the sick and setting people free from the devil's oppression). That is like shooting a puck into the net--scoring would be the equivalent of a demonstration of His power.

The thing we sometimes forget when we are doing healing ministry is that the other team is trying to stop us. They don't believe that they have already been defeated on Calvary and they are doing their best to win. The devil wants that person sick, just as much as God wants them well. Many times God does not force His absolute will on a situation, He allows the devil to fight for his way. In short, God allows "spiritual warfare" to exist. That is why we have Ephesians 6:10-20 about the armor of God and the attacks of the enemy. Let's look at the first three verses in that passage: "10Finally, be strong in the Lord and in His mighty power. 11Put on the full armor of God so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." There is a battle going on and there are two sides in this battle: God's and the devil's.

God wants to advance His kingdom. He wants to heal the sick and destroy the works of the devil (1 John 3:8b). That is why Jesus said, in Acts 1:8 "But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." He also said, in Mark 6:15-18, "15He said to them, "Go into all the world and preach the good news to all creation. 16Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will be condemned. 17And these signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; ...; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well."

When we step out to obey the great commission, we are playing on God's offensive line and we are trying to score goals by "making disciples." I.e., we are trying to bring people into a saving relationship with God and to train them and help them grow in Him, so that they, in turn, can mature and go out to "make disciples."

Yes, God wants to advance His kingdom through us, but the devil wants to keep God from doing that. So he opposes us. We are not given clear shots at the goal, the devil's team is doing their best to block our shots. Sometimes things line up so that we have an unblocked shot and we can score a goal. Sometimes we take a shot at the net and the other team blocks that puck. After the puck is blocked, then there is a scrimmage for the puck. The players on both sides struggle against each other to gain control of the puck. If the offensive team gains control, they can take another shot at the goal. If the defensive team gets control, they want to clear the puck out of their zone. That way the offensive team has to leave their zone and can't come back to shoot at the net until they once again bring the puck over the blue line.

The bottom line is that not all shots go in but you have to keep shooting at the net.

It is the same in healing ministry. Not everyone you pray for is healed the first time you pray for them. A lot of people come for healing prayer once and if they are not healed, they say "I guess it wasn't God's will to heal me," and their level of faith for healing goes down. They are not aware that the healing prayer is like a shot at the goal and the other team is doing their best to block that shot. Most of the time, healing is not a "one shot" deal. Not all shots go into the net. Many get blocked, so you have to keep on shooting the puck at the net. You may have to shoot multiple times to win a goal.

Sometimes when you shoot the puck, one of the players on the other team puts their body between the puck and the net to deflect it. Your shot does not get close to the goal and it looks like nothing happened when you prayed.

Other times the other players don't block the shot and it gets through to the goalie. The goalie stands in front of the net and his job is to block goals. He will either try to catch the puck with his glove or to deflect it with his stick or with part of his body. If the offense makes a good shot and the goalie stops it from going into the net, that is called a "save." When the goalie makes a good save, the television or radio announcers calling the game will usually say something like "The goalie robbed ____ of his goal." And the devil wants to do his best to rob us of our "goals," to block the healings that God is willing to release through us.

(Personally I don't understand why God allows this to happen, as He is much more powerful than the devil. He has already defeated the devil on Calvary, so why allow him to continue to kill, steal and destroy here on this earth? If it were up to me, I would have God lock away the devil now and not allow anyone to ever be tormented by Him again. But I am not God. I don't always understand God's motives, but I am sure that God knows what He is doing. He sets the rules and I should not stop playing the game just because I don't like one of the rules.

I would like to see everyone I pray for healed with no exceptions. I do not like it that the devil is allowed to block some of my shots. I am not sure why the Lord permits this. I am not sure why God allows there to be spiritual warfare. But God does allow the warfare and He has drafted us as soldiers in His army. He has given us His armor to defend ourselves as we fight the battles He calls us to. He will give us the victory as we obey Him and follow Him and do the things He commands us to do. But for the time being, there is a war still going on and the devil is allowed to oppose the plans and purposes of God. That means the devil has a goalie in net, trying to prevent the very healings we pray for and not everyone is healed the first time we pray for them. We need to keep praying, to keep shooting the puck at the goal.)

As I already said, when we do healing ministry, we are not shooting at an empty net. The enemy goalie is in place, trying to prevent us from making a goal (seeing a miraculous healing.) Even the best of the best of the hockey offensemen will have to take multiple shots on the goal in order to score. The same is true in healing ministry. Even the people who walk in the strongest healing anointings don't see everyone healed at every meeting.

So don't be shocked or surprised when you pray for someone and they are not healed. Don't decide that you "don't have the gift" and stop praying. Keep playing the game but God's rules and you will eventually score.

Playing On The Front Line

We talked a lot in our last lesson about how there are two teams involved in healing, God's and the devil's. Part of Satan's job is to make people sick. John 10:10 says that the devil "comes to steal and kill and destroy." When we pray for the sick, we are in the offensive against the devil's plans, we are tying to advance God's kingdom. In short, we are trying to take ground away from the devil, score a goal against him by making someone well who he is trying to make sick. The devil doesn't like that. He doesn't just sit back and watch you take his territory away from him; he fights back. He has his defensive line in place to block our shots. He has a goalie in place to try and prevent us from scoring.

In a sense, we do spiritual warfare every time that we pray for the sick. Some of the battles are very minor, like when you pray for a friend at church who has a sort foot or a headache. If the devil doesn't have a lot invested in that, he won't put his best resources against you. It is sort of like beings "sent down to the minors" to play against a less skilled defense. That is where NHL hockey teams start their players, to train them in a setting that is not quite as tough. They build their skills in the minors and then they come up to the majors to play the big games against the more skilled opponents.

It is the same for us. God will usually start us in the minors, with little things like headaches and colds and flues. He wants us to build faith in His ability to heal on the relatively easy things before He puts us in the big games. God is not being mean to hold us back from the "big action." Instead, He is developing us and helping us to build the skills we need before we are ready for the "big stuff." Don't be afraid that you will be left out or passed by. Allow the Lord to develop you, to cause your faith to grow, to give you the ability to develop experience moving with Him in His healing anointing.

Another thing you need to know about hockey is that it is not a one-man show, it is a team game. When you play on the offensive line, you are not out there by yourself, you are part of a team and you must be a team player to do well in the sport.

When they track player statistics in hockey, they track of total points a player scores. A player can earn points in either of two ways: by scoring a goal (goals) or by assisting another play in scoring (assists). The person who sets up the play and passes the puck to the shooter gets just as many points for the goal as the one who actually shoots it into the net. In fact, hockey will allow up to two players to get a points on an assist, plus one point for the goal shooter. It all depends on how many people are involved in making that play happen. Since there are three offensive line players on a team, if they work well together, they can all three get a point (e.g., credit) for scoring a goal. Likewise, if one of the defensemen helps set up the goal, that defenseman earns a point. In short, hockey is set up so that credit for the goal is freely shared with many people, not just the person who actually shot the puck into the net. Therefore in hockey, they really understand the concept of teamwork.

That is a good model for us. Teamwork is important in healing ministry as well. We don't want to have just one superstar who has anointing to heal, we want to see many believers working together to use their gifting and anointing to pray for the sick. That might be team prayer where many pray for the person at the same time. Or it might be a ministry situation where there is an open altar and many are ministering at that altar, each praying for some of the ones who come up for healing. Or perhaps it is a soaking prayer situation, where the person receives prayer from multiple people on multiple occasions until they are fully healed.

Remember that God is the scorekeeper in the game, the one who assigns the points to the players. He gives just as much value to the person who was involved but did not see the healing as to the one who actually got the final healing when he prayed. Healing ministry should never be about seeking personal glory or keeping statistics on how many more people God heals "through you" than He does through someone else.

In hockey, the most valuable (and highest paid) players are not the ones who personally score the most goals. They are the "play-makers," the ones who cause their teammates to score a lot more goals than they would otherwise score. Recently one of the hockey "superstars," a guy named Joe Thornton, was traded to my team. He is an awesome player and he can control the puck better than anyone else on the team. He specializes in battling for the puck, gaining control of it, then passing the puck to a teammate who is "open" and who can shoot/score a goal. He has accrued 33 points on the Sharks since being traded to us about a month ago, but only 8 of those points are goals. Our whole team is playing better because he is making good opportunities for his teammates to score. He is building their confidence because of how he helps set them up and as a result, they are starting to play better even when he is not on the ice.

What Joe Thorton is doing is pretty much what you expect any hockey "superstar" to do. Yes, he himself is extraordinarily talented and plays very well. But his real strength is in making his teammates play better.

That is what God is looking for in His healing superstars--He is looking for the ones who can make assists, who can get others in the body of Christ to begin moving up to their full potential with Him: to heal the sick, to cast out demons and to do with God the things that God is doing in His power and anointing.

For those of us who are not healing superstars, God wants us to be good team players and to work together well with the others that God has put on the line with us.

Taking Hits

There is one more thing we need to know about playing offense. There is a rule in hockey that basically says, "when you have the puck, it is legal for other players to 'hit' you." A hit is where they slam their bodies into you body to try to knock you down, get you off balance, and cause you to mishandle the puck. Those hits usually hurt and occasionally they can even cause serious damage. That is one of the ways they try to take the puck away from the person who has it. In short, when you are the person on the team who is carrying the puck, you are open to be physically attacked.

The same thing happens to us in healing ministry. When you are the one who God is using powerfully in healing ministry, the devil is going to throw some hits at you. When God allows His power and glory to flow through us, it is not unusual to come under even heavier counter-attack from the enemy. Why? Because our enemy wants to stop us, to shut us down, to make us loose the puck.

Look at the Apostle Paul. He said in 2 Corinthians 12:11-12, "11 ...for I am not in the least inferior to the 'super-apostles,' even though I am nothing. 12The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance." In short, the Apostle Paul did a lot of healings and miracles. But Paul also took a lot of hits.

One time when Paul was defending himself against some accusations, he shared what some of those hits were. He said, in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, "I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked."

Paul moved in a very key role in God's plans and purposes, but he also had to take a lot of hits for it. That is why Jesus said, in Acts 9:15, "...He [Paul] is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." Putting that in hockey terms: For Paul to make the big plays, he also had to take the big hits.

The same holds true in our lives. Some of us have mistakenly come to believe that if we are in the center of God's will, we will be exempt (or totally protected) from enemy attacks. But that is not in the Bible. Sometimes we ask God to use us, and He does, then we get attacked by the enemy and we can't understand it. But it is perfectly logical, it follows the rules of the game and it is to be expected.

Have you ever prayed for someone and they get healed, but you get sick? Guess what? You have just been hit. Don't let it take you out. Shake off the hit and keep playing the game. All players get hit when they play. But if a player gets unusually shaken up when he is hit, then that player becomes a "marked man." The players on the other team realize that it is easy to "take him out" by hitting him, so they hit him hard every chance they get. Don't become a "target" for more hits by over-reacting when the devil gives you a hit. Keep playing your game and keep doing your best.

Realize that that you are going to get hit from time to time, it is part of the game. But at the same time, don't set yourself up to take needless hits by being careless. In hockey people are usually it hear the boards and they are pressed into the boards or knocked down along the boards (that border the ice). Those type of hits are to be expected and you have to deal with them when they come to you. But sometimes when a player is in 'open ice' (e.g., not near the boards) they can also get hit. They are probably skating the puck from their zone to the offensive zone when this happens. If they have their head down (looking at the puck) and are not watching what is going on, they can get a pretty nasty hit. But if they keep their head up and watch what is going on around them, they can see the player coming towards them. They can change direction to either avoid the hit all-together or to deflect it to be just a little nudge instead of a big blow. Or they can pass the puck to another teammate and duck out of the way.

Likewise, we need to be watchful in prayer, asking God to reveal enemy strategies against us. We also need to ask God to give us His strategy to counter the attacks of the enemy, and we need to be sure to put on the full armor of God.

Even when you are watchful and playing your best, hits will still come. That is part of the game. I am not sure why the Lord allows the devil to counter-attack us, but He does. He allowed it with the Apostle Paul and He will also allow it in our lives. Sometimes those hits fall into patterns and other times they are random.

One of the patterns the enemy uses against me is that I tend get more counter-attacked when I pray for Asians than when I pray for other ethic groups. I take that to mean that God has great plans for me in ministering to Asians, so the devil wants to try and make me afraid to pray for them. For a while, it was almost like Asians get healed when I prayed for them, but I automatically got attacked with whatever they had. For a short while, I was a bit skidish about praying for healing for Asians...the hit had shook me up a it. But I am over that now and the Lord is opening all sorts of key ministry opportunities for me with Asians.

One time I prayed for a lady, an elder in a Mandarin-speaking church. She had such tremendous back pain that she could hardly move. I came over with the pastor and a few elders from the church. She got healed. The next day I started having tremendous back pains. I kept rebuking them but they would not go away. I went to a healing-conference a few days later and got prayer. The prayer did not help. A few days after that, I asked my pastor to pray for me. That brought some temporary relief, but the pain came back. I was almost totally unable to function, and this was shortly before a big missions trip to India.

I was being shaken to the core and wondered if I should cancel the trip. I knew a demon was causing this, but when I rebuked the demon, it seemed to have little/no effect. I began to question the authority I had in Christ. I began to think that maybe I really did not have authority over demons and could not command them to leave. I prayed and asked God about it. I asked Him to show me what was going on.

In response, God showed me a picture of a bunch of demons, all spirits of infirmity, standing in line beside me, just to my left. There were literally hundreds of them. Each time I rebuked a spirit of infirmity causing the back pain, it had to leave. But the next demon in line would instantly jump on me and cause the same condition. The net result was that I did not think that it was working when I commanded the demon to leave. Yes, they were causing me a lot of physical pain for a whole week. But the real nature of this hit was mental, then enemy was trying to convince me that the authority Jesus gave me over demons did not work. It was a particularly nasty attack. The devil does not play fair.

I am not sure why I waited a whole week to ask God to show me what was going on. But He showed me in a vision the instant I asked. I got mad at the demons, turned to my left (where the demons were in the vision) and rebuked the whole line of them, commanding them all to leave. They did, and the back pain went away.

There is one more concept in hockey that I want to talk about and draw a parallel. That is the concept of "finishing your checks." In ice hockey, you are only eligible for hits while you possess the puck or just after you have passed it. That means that when you see a defenseman skating towards you with the intent of taking the puck away from you and you pass it to one of your teammates before he gets to you, that other player can still take a shot at you. The hockey rule is that they are still allowed to hit you for a second after you pass or shoot the puck. In fact, a good player is expected to deliver that hit, it is part of the game. They hope that the hit might shake the player up a tad, making him less effective if that puck is passed back to him. The "finishing check" hit cannot effect the player's shot or pass, as they no longer have the puck. However, it might shake him up a bit to effect him in subsequent play. In fact, if the hit is hard enough, it might make that player a bit tentative the next time they posses the puck.

The devil uses the same strategy in healing ministry. Sometimes the counter attack does not come immediately after the heading takes place. It may be a week or two or even three later. We don't want to be too shaken by these "finishing checks" the enemy throws at us shortly after the healing event. So often we pray in anticipation of the healing. We pray personally, we line up intercessors to pray for the healing session or for the healing meeting, or for the appointment we have to go pray for someone who is seriously sick. But we don't always think about after the prayer time. For me, most of the counter-attacks on my own health come on the flight home or maybe a week or two after the ministry. We want to stay in a prayerful and watchful place after we minister. We also want to get our intercessors covering us for a few weeks after some sort of healing event. Also we want to keep the intercessors covering the person who was healed for the first few weeks after their healing.

Playing In A Fast-Paced Game

We have been looking at healing from the perspective of a hockey game. Hockey games are fast-paced and in hockey you can't sit on your laurels of any one good shot/goal. The game goes on and you have to move on with it. The same is true in healing ministry. You can't live on past laurels, you have to keep on seeing what the Father is doing and keep on doing it with Him. Jesus did not heal just one person and then stop. He was always on the watch of what His Father was doing. Each place He went, He looked to see who the Father wanted to heal.

In the old days, hockey was a relatively low-scoring game, and it was not uncommon to see scores like 1-0 or 2-1. But in the 2004-2005 calendar year, the players and owner's association had a disagreement that resulted in a lock-out and we did not have a hockey season that year. The owners were worried that their fan base (which had been dwindling anyhow) would disappear altogether without a hockey season, and that they would not be able to make a profit. So they decided to change the rules of the game to make it more exciting. I won't go over the specifics of rule change, but the overall effect was that it is now a lot easier to score goals and the games have gotten very more high scoring.

In the old days, a two goal lead was such a big lead that the other team probably had no chance at all of catching up. Now a two or three goal lead can evaporate quickly. Scores are more like 6-4 or 5-3 or at times one of the teams may even score 10 or 11 points in a game. As a result of the rule change, most of the teams are scoring a lot more goals than they used to.

The same thing seems to be happening in the spirit. In the old days, the enemy often just needed to make a person sick once, because there were so few believers who knew they we even in the game, and they did not know how to shoot the puck at the net (e.g., pray for the sick for healing). But that has been changing. More and more believers are learning that they can pray for the sick, and that God will heal through them, just like Jesus promised. So now we are shooting more pucks at the net. That means the enemy has to step up his game as well--he is no longer able to "sit on his lead." So the game gets more high-scoring, where both teams are shooting more goals. The enemy's goal is getting someone sick. Our goal is seeing God heal them.

Let's look at the dynamics in the life of a friend of mine. He had an accident and seriously hurt his leg. The doctors were not able to piece it back together correctly and he needed to walk with a crutch. Also, from the process of the multiple surgeries, his leg became 2 inches shorter and he was now lopsided with one longer leg and one shorter leg. He was in constant pain and his range of movement was very limited. The enemy scored the first goal in his life.

A healing evangelist from Argentina came to our church and prayed for the sick. When he prayed for my friend, and the leg was lengthened and strengthened. Now he could walk without his crutch and we all viewed this as a big miracle even though he still had pain and a limited rang of motion. God's team scored a goal! Then a few days later my friend came to the healing rooms at our church. By the end of the healing session, the pain was gone and his range of motion was almost normal. God's team scored another goal and took the lead. We were all very excited about this and we acted like the game was over and we had one. But the game wasn't over in my friend's life. One of the three periods in the game had ended and it was a period break. (In hockey they have three periods that are each 20 minutes long).

Anyhow, we celebrated our win, thinking the game was over, and we forgot to get back on the ice for the next period. That made it possible for then enemy to score an unhindered goal (because no one was trying to stop him). That goal took the form of complications arising from infection. The infection caught us all by surprise because it was so much later than the initial surgeries. We began to pray and my friend underwent a medical procedure where they took muscle from his abdomen to replace damaged skin and muscle tissue in his infected leg. We jumped back in the game, thinking it was a whole separate game, and began to pray regarding the leg and recovery from the surgery. Well, the leg healed up nicely and the infection got under control and our team scored another goal to tie the game again.

Again we took it as "game over" and stopped, but again the enemy's team kept playing. They scored another goal. This time the stomach area where the skin graft had come from became seriously infected.

Now we did not understand what was going on. We are all standing around staring at each other and asking God, "What happened?" We did not understand why God would heal his leg so miraculously and then let his stomach get so bad. Why? Because we viewed healing in any one person's life as a one-shot deal. We did not realize that this was only one score in what can be a high-scoring game for both teams. We stopped contending for his healing and continued health, but the enemy continued contending to bring sickness into his life.

There is a saying I like. I heard one of the "big name preachers" say it in a sermon once, but I don't remember who said it. However, the saying has stuck with me. "What is gained in prayer must be maintained in prayer." If we take ground from the enemy and then abandon that ground, the enemy will simply move in and take it back. In fact, he will probably bring reinforcements with him so that he has a better chance of hanging on to it should we decide to try and regain it again. We see an example of this from Luke 11:24-26:

24"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' 25When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."

I think there is sometimes a similar dynamic that goes on in healing. Not all sickness is caused by the same thing, so we don't have to work to maintain all healings. Some are caused by simple natural things. For instance, you get around someone with the flu and you are exposed to their germs and you catch that flu. Once you are away from the contagious person, there is nothing operating on you to try and make you sick again. So if God heals you of the flu and you are smart enough to stay away from people who are contagious, you are going to stay well.

Some sicknesses are caused because the person does something to make themselves sick. Maybe they eat wrong, take drugs or overindulge in alcohol. Or maybe they don't take proper care of themselves in other ways. For instance, people who eat a lot of high-fat and high cholesterol foods are likely to develop some type of circulatory or heart problem because of the way they eat. If God heals them of that heart condition and they continue to eat like they used to eat, they will eventually get sick again. They are doing it to themselves. When that type of healing occurs, the person who was healed is responsible to maintain their healing. They need to make lifestyle changes to stay healthy, and their continued good health is basically their responsibility. I like to use this example to illustrate this point:

Say I stick my hand in the fire and get burned, then God heals me. I am fully/totally healed, right? (The answer to that question is yes.) But what happens if I stick my hand in the fire again? I get burned again. The previous healing does nothing to protect me from the second injury if I were to to stick my hand back in the fire.

If the sickness was caused because of bad lifestyle, the healed person needs to work with the Holy Spirit to change their life style. If it was caused by unforgiveness, the healed person needs to work on releasing and walking in forgiveness. If the sickness was caused by repeated sin, the person has to stop sinning. If they don't change their behavior, they will get sick again.

The third cause of sickness is enemy attack. This can take a few different forms. Some attack is caused by a spirit of infirmity (a relatively weak demon, free-loader with no legal right to the person). You cast out the spirit of infirmity and the person gets better. Most spirits of infirmity just leave and don't try to come back. Some make token attempts to return but are easily shoo-ed away by simple authority prayer. If you pray for someone who was healed by casting out a spirit of infirmity, teach them how to rebuke it if it comes back. The person can usually take care of that by themselves once they have been taught to do it and they can easily maintain their own healing.

But there is a second/higher level of demonic attack that causes sickness. (Well, really there are several different levels which each have separate dynamics. But I am going to lump them together into one category for this discussion.) This is that hockey game I have been talking about, which can be high-scoring on both sides. Both teams need to keep shooting at the goal until the Lord decides the game is truly over. If some form of spiritual attack is making the person sick, you can't just stop praying for them when you see a healing, you need to maintain that ground that you took in securing the healing. This is where the defensemen, the intercessors, come in real handy. They many need to have sustained prayer for the person for months after the healing in order to prevent the enemy from scoring another goal against their health.

Remember that we can't stop playing as soon as we score a goal, because the other team will keep shooting at our goal. If we are not actively in the game, the other team will outscore us and that person will end up seriously sick again. We need to stay in the game until it is over. How do we know when it is over? Our coach (God) has to tell us.

The Dynamics Of The Game

We have been taking a look at healing ministry using the model of an ice hockey game. We have talked about defense, offense, taking hits and the fast pace of the game. We will continue this model in this lesson.

I had mentioned before that there are three offensemen (front line) and two defensive (back line) players and one goalie on the ice. But what I did not mention was that no one player (except for the goalie) stays on the ice the whole time. A typical team will have 4 offensive lines and three defensive lines. Each line plays in shifts--they spend part of their time on the ice and part of it on the bench. The best line gets a bit more ice time and the weakest line gets a bit less. The reasons that they don't keep the best line on the ice all the time is because the players expend their full energy when they are on the ice, and they get tired. It is also because the coach needs to talk to them while they are on the bench, to give them strategies and directions for the game. A good coach will send his team out in shifts, where any one shift is playing full force while the other three shifts are resting and being coached. That way the players will all be able to give him the best when they are on the ice.

I believe God does the same thing with us. He knows that we can't just be out there ministering for Him all of the time. In fact, we need to spend more time in intimacy with Him than we do ministry time. We need to come into His presence to get filled and "re-charged. We need to draw near to Him, to learn to hear His voice more clearly, to worship, to be saturated in His nearness. That is because the anointing and empowerment for ministry comes from that place of intimacy with Him. If we get so busy that we don't spend our relationship-building time with God, then we get worn out and drained and we begin to loose the power that we had gained in intimacy with Him.

God understands that. That is why He gives us "off" time to simply rest in Him and recharge in His presence, so that we will be ready for our next shift. That is where He speaks to us and gives us direction and strategy. Even Jesus drew away from the crowds to have intimacy time with His Father; even Jesus needed to recharge by lingering in the Father's presence. Look at Matthew 14:20-22, which takes place just after Jesus did a big ministry where He fed the 5,000:

20They all ate and were satisfied, and the disciples picked up twelve basketfuls of broken pieces that were left over. 21The number of those who ate was about five thousand men, besides women and children.

22Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of Him to the other side, while He dismissed the crowd. 23After He had dismissed them, He went up on a mountainside by Himself to pray. When evening came, He was there alone.

Sometimes we can get confused about what the goal is. We begin to think that the goal is to do ministry instead of to draw closer to God. But Jesus knew the goal, to be close to the Father, to watch and see what He is doing, then to do it with Him. That is why Jesus said, in John 5:19, "I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can do only what He sees His Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does." Jesus was not "on" 100% of the time, nor did He minister 100% of the time. The New Testament records many instances where Jesus pulled aside from everyone to be alone with the Father and pray. I believe that is where He got His ability to be able to see what the Father was doing.

Even though a hockey player is not on the ice the whole time, he is still in the game the whole time. It is the same for us. Most of us have a wrong attitude about our "bench time." We tend to think that if we are not on the ice, we are not in the game and we don't have to pay attention to it. But the more skilled offenseman will be on the ice only 1/3 of a game, and the others even less. The same happens for us. While we must always be available to the Lord and obedient to His promptings, He is not going to prompt us for ministry 100% of the time. He will put us out in shifts. Therefore we need to view our "bench time" as still being a part of the game. A lot of people think "God is not using me, I am on the shelf, I am not accomplishing anything for God's kingdom." That is a wrong attitude.

Every player on the team is in the game 100% of the time, even though they are not on the ice 100% of the time. They watch what is going on, they listen to their coach. We need to see our "bench time" as time to get close to the coach (God) and get His strategy for the game. We need to use our non-ministry time to draw close to God, to be refreshed in His presence, to allow His anointing to overtake us and saturate us, etc.

Along that same line, a player needs to stay in good shape in order to be able to play well on the ice. We need to keep up all aspects of our Christian walk, to make sure we are walking in personal holiness, that we are maintaining our intimacy with God, that we are quick to forgive and slow to take offense, etc. If we want to keep moving in God's anointing in healing, we need to keep our spiritual disciplines active--prayer, bible study, worship, etc.

There is an interesting dynamic about getting out of shape. It sort of sneaks up on you. At first you can get by with being a little out of shape and it doesn't seem to effect your game. But suddenly it catches up to you and you can't make the plays any more. That happens in the spirit as well.

When we first start to slide in our personal walk with the Lord, we usually enjoy His full empowerment and anointing for a season. I think that is because the Lord is so gracious and patient. But over time, if we don't come back into that place where we belong with God, the level of power and anointing we move in will often begin to decrease. That is why we should not use our current level of anointing as an indicator of how we are doing in our spiritual walk with God. Instead we should actively and aggressively pursue Him, pushing into deeper intimacy and relationship with Him.

Finally, have to find the balance between listening to their coach and taking initiative on the ice. Yes, the coaches call the shots and the game strategy. But when an opportunity presents itself, the players need to recognize it and take advantage of it before that window of opportunity goes away. Every now and then the other team will make a mistake and one or more players will get a break-away -- a relatively unhindered shot at the goal. It is basically a split-second lead in ice position over the other team. If the players stop to look at the coach or discuss the opportunity with each other, the other team will get in place and the opportunity goes away. The players have to take initiative and make the best of any scoring opportunity when it comes up. In other words, the player has to both listen to the coach and use his own good judgment. He has to know how to read the plays.

The same holds true for us. There are times when God tells us in advance what "play" He wants us to make. He may send us to minister to a specific person or to tell us that He is going to heal people with lung conditions. When He does that, then you want to do what He is showing you to do, and you should expect His power to accompany His command. But there will also be times when you find yourself in a situation. Maybe you are at the airport on a layover and someone near you has a bad asthma attack. You read that this could be a divine setup even though God has not explicitly told you about this encounter. You bring them a cup of water and ask if there is anything else you can do for them. They say "Thank you, no." Then you say, "Would it be ok if I pray for you? I can't promise anything will happen but I have seen God heal six people of asthma this year, so I would love to pray for you and hope that you will be number seven."

They are grateful because you helped them out and they see that you seem to genuinely care for them, so they say, "Sure, go ahead." You lay your and on their shoulder right there in the airport lounge and do a short authority prayer, commanding the asthma to leave in Jesus' name.

The coach did not tell you that this was coming up, but He is standing at the bench smiling because you have recognized and taken advantage of the break-away situation. God is such a healing God and one who loves to win the lost, so chances are pretty good that person will either receive a noticeable partial healing or maybe a complete one. But even if they are not healed, they will walk away from that encounter feeling loved and they will have had a positive experience with the living God, which will more receptive the next time the gospel is presented to them.

Remember, Jesus has given us His authority to heal the sick, and He expects us to use it. He expects us to look to do it the way He did, by seeing what the Father was doing and doing on that... e.g., by knowing how to listen to the coach and recognize and obey His voice. But at the same time, God wants us to be responsive enough to His overall desire (to win the lost and advance His kingdom) that we are able to take our "break-aways" when the opportunity presents itself.

God wants us to be in the game all the time, always listening to Him and always watchful for His leading. Yes, there will be spurts of healing and spurts where you are not seeing many healings. View those non-healing spurts as the time when you are on the bench to rest and to listen to your coach, and be ready to jump back on the ice when the Lord puts your line back on the ice.

Finally, play expecting to win the game. Yes, the enemy is going to try to block your shots at the goal (e.g., interfere with your healing prayer) but that is OK, keep on shooting. Know that the enemy will also take shots at the goal himself by trying to make sick someone that God has already healed. Don't become overwhelmed and don't stop playing the game when that happens. You are on the winning team, so keep playing your game as best as you can and trust the coach to give you the winning strategy.

Revisiting My Questions Via The Hockey Model

By way of quick review, I had been praying for the sick for a while, and some questions came up for me in the process of doing this; questions that I did not know the answers to. At first I sort of ignored them, figuring that I did not need to know everything, all I needed to do was to be obedient to the Lord and to obey His great commission to speak His words and demonstrate His power and advance His kingdom. But over time, the same issue would come up over and over again, leaving me frustrated and with the same type of questions over and over again. Some of these questions began to really perplex me, so I began to really ask God about the--maybe "nag God" would be more accurate than "ask God."

The basic problem I had was that my way of thinking about praying for the sick (e.g., my model of healing) did not adequately address these issues. I knew I was not the first person to ask those types of questions, but I had yet to anyone give me a better way of thinking about healing. So as I began to press into God for a better understanding, He gave me a new way to think about healing (e.g., a new model). My old model saw healing as an event that you worked towards. You might have to do some preparation towards the event, and you might have a few loose ends to tie up after the event, but once the even happened, it was basically a "done deal."

The Lord gave me a new model that is more like a sporting event. I.e., it is not a single "event" but a series of two teams pitted against each other, each team trying to score more than their opponents. When I pray for healing, I am on God's team. Each time I prayed for someone and they saw a healing, God's team scored some points. But the other team is also in the game and they are also trying to score points. Our points looked like healings and their points looked like preventions-to-healings or like making someone sick again. All of the sudden healing became a dynamic thing where you have to keep your eye on the game and be aware of what is going on. You don't just score once and quit, you have to keep playing the game.

My husband grew up in Canada, so naturally His favorite sport is ice hockey. When we first got married, I did not like hockey at all. But because he loved it so much, I also learned to understand and love the game. Now, after years of marriage, I am a true hockey fan. Since hockey is the sport we watch and the sport I know the rules and strategies of the game, hockey is the sport God used to speak to me about this new healing model.

Now that we have a new model, a new way of thinking about healing, lets go back and review the original five questions I mentioned in lesson one, looking at them from the ice hockey model of healing. Those five questions were:

1. Why wasn't my friend with lung cancer healed? We prayed for her and she got better for a while, then she got much worse.
2. Why did God heal my friend's husband's leg and then allow there to be serious related complications on his stomach?
3. Why is it that sometimes when I minister almost everyone is healed and other times almost no one is healed?
4. How come I frequently get sick after I minister healing to others?
5. Why did God's healing of my own vision only last a couple of months and then revert back to the original problem and keep getting worse?

The first two questions are really variations on the same theme. In both cases there was a healing event that I took as an indication of God's desire for the person to be well. The first was a substantial improvement in the friend with cancer's health. It was not a complete healing but since it was such a significant improvement, I took that as an indication that God wanted to heal her completely. The other case was where a person was healed of one serious thing but developed very serious related complications in another area.

In both cases, I thought that one goal would win the game; but in both cases, the game went on. The enemy kept shooting at my goal by trying to make the person sick again. But it was like the defense and offense on God's team considered the game "already won" and stopped playing with full force.

Let's look at my friend with cancer. She lives across the country from me. I had prayed for her on the phone. In fact, I had brought my cell phone to a meeting at my church where a very anointed healing minister was the guest speaker. He had a word of knowledge that precisely described her condition. So I stood up and held up my cell phone. We telephoned her and he prayed for her over the phone. She had some improvement. As the service continued, I went in the back room and prayed for her some more, still over the cell phone. She had an even greater level of healing. I called her again on the cell phone the next day and she told me about how she slept peacefully for the first time in ages, how the pain had almost left, how she was breathing easier. I told her that this partial healing was an indication of God's will to heal her. I believed it was just a matter of time until she was completely well.

Yes, I continued to hold her in my private intercession type of prayers, but I stopped ministering healing to her over the phone. I expected her to just keep getting better and better. (Do you see how had basically stopped playing the game because we scored our goal?)

I was shocked when she suddenly got much worse a few days later and ended in the hospital. I mobilized my whole church to pray for her again. I guess you might say the defense jumped back on the ice after the other team scored a goal or two. The doctors said that they found an infection and that the problem was the infection and not the cancer. So they treated her and she slowly got better.

We told ourselves that was just a coincidence and God had it all under control. We did not realize that the enemy was still shooting at our goal. She had a series of ups and downs and they were very puzzling to me. Why? Because in my mind we had the event (the significant partial healing when she was prayed for over the cell phone at the service.) I don't think it would have been nearly as confusing for me if I viewed it as a game with both teams still trying to "score goals" towards her recovery/relapses.

The good news is that even though we stopped trying to score new goals with fervor, our defense never left the ice again. There was constant prayer each time she was attacked, each time she had a relapse. Things got progressively worse for her because even the best defense won't stop all of the goals all of the time. At one point the doctors only gave her a few weeks to live and sent her home. But prayer and intercession continued.

God was at work behind the scenes to gave us a breakaway and a good shot. Recent tests indicated that the cancer was decreasing in size instead of increasing. That doctor gave her a prognosis that she would be well in a year. A big improvement from "only a few weeks to live." Since then she has continued to have ups and downs. It is like both teams are fighting for the puck and my poor friend sometimes feels as battered as the puck might feel. The game is still in progress, so we have to keep shooting at the goal until we see sustained 100% recovery for her.

My friend's husband (question 2) was the same situation. We scored a goal (the leg healing). The enemy then came in and scored another goal--the unexpected infection in the leg that required another skin graft from the abdomen. Then we scored another goal (seeming recovery) and we thought of it as "over" and stopped playing. Then the enemy surprised us with a breakaway and scored another big goal--the terrible infection and complications in the abdomen. That caught us off guard because we did not realize we were still in a game and the other team was still playing. Since then we have jumped back in the game but we have been scrimmaging for the puck and we haven't really scored another goal yet.

The third question was, "Why is it that sometimes when I minister almost everyone is healed and other times almost no one is healed?" The answer to that comes with how the defense (prayer and intercessory support) is implemented and playing. If we just have an offensive line and no defense, there is no one to hold the point (keep the pick from crossing the blue line and leaving the offensive zone). All the enemy has to do to keep us from scoring is to "clear the zone" or to knock the puck to the other side of the blue line, back to center ice. In other words, if we don't have an open heaven, created primarily by prayer and intercession, it is so much harder to score goals (e.g., to see healings). Prayer covering can come from different sources. It might come from intercessors dedicated to pray for you whenever you pray for the sick. Or it might come from intercessors who pray for a given event (say a healing meeting or a healing conference or a specific appointment to pray for a sick person). Or it can come from local intercessors taking their territory and creating an open heaven over the territory.

It is always easier to see healings when the enemy resistance has been removed. I learned a lesson when God explained this model to me. I had been careless in the past about assuring that adequate prayer covering was in place before I go to minister. Sometimes it was in place and other times it was not. The enemy can still mount a spectacular defense at any one game and keep you from scoring as much as you would like to. But for the most part, when the defense (adequate intercession and prayer covering is in place, it will be much easer to score goals.) In short, you always see more anointing and more results when you minister under an open heaven than in the midst of spiritual warfare.

Question four was about why I would often get counter attacked with sickness after the Lord used me somewhere to powerfully minister healing. The lord reminded me that forwards are often hit by the opposing team when they shoot the puck at the net. The other team's defense is going to "finish their checks," they are going to hit me just after I pass or shoot the puck. Getting hit is sometimes a part of the game, it happens.

However, there are things a good forward can do to lessen the impact when he knows he is about to be hit. He can turn or angle his body a certain way to make the hit less severe. So now that I know that I am going to be hit from time to time, I an beginning to ask God for strategies on how to lessen that hit so it doesn't have the full intended impact. I already know some of the more obvious ones, like having prayer covering for four weeks when I come home from an international trip, etc. I also learned that I am less likely to get sick if I break an exceptionally long flight into segments with an overnight stopover in route. That is only a piece of the strategy. I am now at the point where I have to go sit near the coach and listen to Him for additional strategies. Each of us has to do that, we have to get strategies from God on how to avoid or lessen the impact of the hits that we will naturally take in the game.

The fifth question, about my own person vision healing could fall into either of two categories. My guess is that it is alone the same lines as questions one and two, where the team stopped playing after they scored a single goal and the enemy took another shot at my vision. That would be the same as the stuff I talked about earlier, except that I was on the receiving end instead of on the ministering end. Perhaps the ministry that I was healed under also needs to set intercessors in place to defend the healings that they earned at one of their meetings?

Or perhaps the relapse was simply a hit that the enemy threw at me to try to shake me up and make me less effective of playing my game? I don't know for sure, but I do know that the game is not over yet, and my failing reading vision is not "set in stone." I am still fighting using reading glasses and I am still praying and asking God to restore my reading vision.

Healing is a dynamic game and we need to keep on listening to our coach for direction and keep on playing the game until He tells us to stop. Yes, we will experience some joyful celebrations when we score a goal (see a healing) and we will experience the letdown that comes when the other team scores a goal against us. It doesn't matter which team is in the lead at the moment, we need to keep playing the game to the best of our ability until the clock runs out and the final whistle is blown.

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