Do you ever do anything or think anything, and wonder, “Why did I do that?” And it kind of hounds you—this way of thinking or way of acting. Sometimes we need to be set free. Healing prayer can set people free from unwanted thoughts, emotions, and actions.
Truth is foundational to freedom.
Psalm 51:6 says, “Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward being; therefore, teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” Another translation says, “Behold, thou wilt have truth in the inward parts. In the hidden part, thou wilt make me know wisdom.” “But you want complete honesty, so teach me true wisdom.”
Inner healing prayer is God supernaturally moving truth from our head to our heart. The basis of healing prayer is that 1) we all have wounding in our lives, and 2) we want God to come in and do something inside of us that we can’t do inside ourselves.
Inner healing prayer can be helpful when there’s a repetitive unwanted behavior. It can be a bondage or a compulsion. It can be an addiction, drivenness or perfectionism. We may feel like there is something off: It can be a recurring painful emotion—fear, anxiety, guilt, anger, depression, hopelessness. Or it can be an over-reaction to a present difficult event—a reaction that’s not warranted by the actual situation. These can have their roots in something from our past; the current situation just triggered it.
Since God knows us and knows our story, his Spirit can reveal things we need to know. God knows the root issues people have when they come for prayer.
Facilitated healing prayer is a three-way conversation between the “pray-ee” (the one who wants prayer), the one praying with (facilitator), and God.What I want to do as a facilitator is to help, but not get in the way. I don’t want to preach. I don’t want to give my little tidbits of information about what’s being revealed. I basically just want to help the pray-ee and God connect.
My most common prayer before I do healing prayer is, “God, if you don’t come and do something, nothing is going to happen.” I’ve had training in lots of models of healing prayer, but it’s not the training. It’s God. When he comes and ministers, change happens.
It’s so incredible how God will come and work and show up in the most surprising ways.
Here’s a short story that illustrates this.
A sweet, godly, talented, creative young woman—involved in ministry—came to me for healing prayer. And I learned that when she was growing up, her parents never validated her creative side: her art, her poems, anything she did. Nobody in her family did; they just kind of made fun of her. I’m an artist and we have lots of artists in our family, so we just think it’s wonderful! And I felt so bad that she never had that growing up.
We were doing this healing prayer. She was praying, and I was watching—and pretty soon she was smiling, but there were tears going down the side of her face. And after a little bit I asked her, “What’s going on?” And she said, “Well, Jesus is here. And he’s got a refrigerator. And all my artwork is all over his refrigerator.” I loved that. So I said, “Let’s see if Jesus wants to say anything else or show you anything else.”
So she closes her eyes and bows her head, and I’m watching her again. And after a little while she’s crying again, but the smile is bigger. And finally I asked, “What’s going on?” And she said, “He’s taken me to this room, and the room is full of refrigerators.” And guess what’s on every refrigerator? Her artwork.
This is from a workshop on Inner Healing Prayer that Patty Metcalf led at Novo’s World Wide Conference, where she introduced healing prayer and also taught simple ways to facilitate it. You can listen to the audio of the entire workshop here.
If you want to learn more about inner healing prayer, Patty recommends A Guide for Listening and Inner-Healing Prayer: Meeting God in the Broken Places, by Rusty Rustenbach.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Patty Metcalf and her husband Sam were one of four families that began CRM in 1980. Sam has served as president of CRM since 1985, and Patty is equally involved in ministry with a particular focus on healing prayer and mentoring. They live in Southern California and have two children and five grandchildren.