Make Room for Your Miracle (12 page)
This makes it difficult to love God or ourselves or others. We may want to reach out, but if we carry unhealed hurt inside, we do not feel love. We feel worthless. How can we go tell others that the Lord loves them when we do not feel it ourselves?
For God, relationship with us remains the priority even over the manifestation of the promise. Now why is that? Because this life is temporary; He is molding us now in the same way that He picked up a handful of mud in the beginning and made man,
adam
, and breathed into him the breath of life. The Lord is making us into sons and daughters who will reign and rule with Him forever. We will be handed the eternal riches of the Kingdom of God, and we will sit with Christ to reign and rule.
God is after something that is of higher priority than the promise, and that is the vessel, the character, the formation of the mind, will and emotions, the heart, the spirit of the one to whom He has given the promise. Sometimes the promise can tarry and tarry and tarry, and you think,
God, You promised this
forty years ago
. And He says,
Yes, and you’re still jealous—every
time you see Joe Bob with his new truck, you think
I’m still driving this old beat-up Chevy
. That cannot remain in there. That
is what got Lucifer into trouble.
And likewise, on our end, working toward becoming one with the Lord always has to remain the priority over the manifestation of the thing He promised to give us. If we get our priorities straight, a lot of times it takes a lot less time to get the manifestation of the promise.
Carrying the Hurt
When our daughter Anna was working on a paper for her master’s degree in social studies, she needed to do some research on different aspects of her family roots. She called us one day with some questions about our family history.
I, Mahesh, don’t usually talk about my family history much, but she needed some information so I told her various things. She knew that I was the seventh of eight children and that my parents were from India but settled in Kenya, where I was born.
My father died when my little sister and I were very small. My brother—he was about eighteen years old when I was five— took over much of the responsibility for the family. He never married; he looked after my mom and all of us and was very much like a father to me.
Well, Anna and I started talking about what happened to each of my siblings, and it brought something to mind that was very painful for me. That brother died a few years ago from cancer. He had never really asked for anything in all those years of serving the family, but before he passed away, when he was fading, he made one request—of me.
Bonnie and I had been planning key outreaches and evangelistic meetings with a group of pastors in Taiwan for over a year. I was due to go to Taiwan in just a few days, when we learned that my brother was growing weaker. My heart was torn between my desire to go to my brother and the burden the Lord had given me for this outreach. I also realized that if I cancelled, the Chinese pastors would lose face among their people. The servant of God who was to lead their advertised campaigns would not be there and would bring humiliation to them.
We prayed and asked the Lord for direction. I remember we specifically prayed that we would hear from my brother before I left if we were to cancel the trip. The next few days passed with no news from my family. Then, literally hours into my flight to Taiwan Bonnie got the call.
My brother, who was in England, had taken a turn for the worse. He had just one request: He wanted to see me before he passed away. Bonnie called me as soon as I landed in Taiwan. We knew from the timing of the call that it was God’s answer. It was one of the most painful times in my life, but I let the answer from God determine my decision rather than my very real feelings of love and desire to honor and be with my brother in his last hours on this earth. Because I committed myself to be with those pastors, hundreds were getting saved in cities that would normally see maybe one or two salvations a month. I was watching this miracle work of God in the services and outreaches—and yet my brother had said, “I just want to see you.” I had committed myself to do the Lord’s work—and yet my brother was calling me.
I had to make the decision to obey the Lord and not do that one thing for the person who had given everything for me. I did not get to see him. And it hurt. It was not anything bad that I had done, but I felt that I had failed my brother. He lived honorably before me all his life; I failed him. And I carried that deep hurt for a very long time.
One day some time after that, I was conducting a meeting in south Florida. I was praying for people, and suddenly I felt Jesus walk into the room and stand by my side. And then He said something to me. He said,
By the way, Mahesh, because you
could not go see your brother, I went in your place.
It was a word that came from the Presence of the throne. When God speaks one little word, it will totally transform you because it has such explosive power. What it said to me was that Jesus went and took my brother’s hand and took him home. I did not have to be worried. And, honestly, if Jesus had given me a choice, would I rather be there or have Jesus be there? Given a choice I would rather that Jesus be there.
That word brought healing into my soul and my broken heart. It totally transformed the hurt that I had carried. Jesus did not choose on that occasion for my brother to be healed; it was time for him to go home, but without that word from the Lord, I would have carried a deep, unhealed wound. Instead I felt as though Jesus said, “You chose rightly.”
So many of the choices we have to make are not easy, and they can lead to sickness in our souls. We carry these deep wounds inside in the form of hurtful memories or weak or wounded emotions. Often we find that when we pray for people they are not even able to recall the root of their pain or their hurt, or sometimes the wound is so deep they are not able to speak of it.
If we fail to take care of it, if we never allow Jesus’ visitation in there or His word to come, we will find that the effect of it is to walk around with depression or a sense of worthlessness or inferiority. Sometimes it causes fears that have no reason, anxieties for which there is no understanding. Even physical illness can be caused by the hurt that is in the soul. Unless Jesus touches that hurt, it will stay lodged in the memory or emotions.
Sometimes, by the way, wounds can have their source in ungodly acts that occurred generations ago that are affecting your bloodline. Those curses need to be broken—and that is just one of many reasons that Christians ought to run to take Communion. We should be grateful that we believe in the living blessing of the elements of Communion because the blood of Jesus Christ has the power to break even the hurt that is in your bloodline.
Jesus is able to heal the wounds from the inside out, and then not only heal but also fill those vacuum areas with His love. Always remember when dark things are removed to fill that space with the Presence and the love of Jesus Christ.
When Life Happens
Psalm 139: 1 says, “O
LORD
, You have searched me and known me.” First John 3:20 says, “God is greater than our heart, and knows all things.” When we say that Jesus comes and heals that hurt, we are not saying that the past is changed. The past has passed. My brother went on home to be with the Lord before I could go to him. But the Lord wants to touch us in such a way that changes our response to the past and heals the pain. And then according to Romans 8:28, we know that all things work together for good. In that conttx, then, we release the past into God’s hands and ask Him to use it for good in the present and in the future.
For all of us, life happens. We live in a fallen world. Accidents happen. Natural disasters happen. Sometimes we are hurt because people deliberately do things to wound us. Other times people hurt us and have no idea they are causing us pain. Sometimes it is because of mistakes that we ourselves make, our wrong actions, wrong responses. Some of our hurts go way back. Some are recent. See, the devil does not play fair. He comes when we are the most vulnerable. But when you welcome the glory, you can leave things there—concerns about your children, prayers about your marriage or your business. The glory will do above and beyond anything that you can pray for.
This is not just for a few people; God wants all of us to come into that realm. In fact, we do not even need a great store of faith; we just need to welcome the One who wants that kind of relationship with us.
I remember a meeting in Chicago several years ago in which six men walked up with a stretcher and, without saying a word, slipped it onto the large wooden stage where I was speaking.
My eyes fell on the stretcher and the skeletal form it carried. For a moment I thought it was a dead body, but then I realized it was a living human being—although barely living. His body was wracked with cancer, and not only was he terminally ill, but he was terminal as in a few hours or maybe minutes from death. In fact, I found out later that his pastor had already arranged his funeral. But his friends had heard that a healing evangelist was in town, and they said, “Let’s go.” I think they might have smuggled him out of the hospital to bring him to the meeting.
Now I have to confess that on the inside I was slightly irritated! I went straight from the glory realm to my carnal mind as I sat there looking down on that dying body and thinking,
Why did they bring this man up here? He is going to die in the
next few minutes! Why didn’t they ask me before they did this?
I was such a man of faith in that moment that I was worried he was going to die before my meeting was over! It is never good to have someone die when you are doing a healing service.
I went back to my message and then began to minister to some of the people in the crowd. Suddenly I noticed that there was a golden cloud all around the dying man’s body. I just watched as golden waves of light and rainbow colors hovered over his form. I did not know what was happening, but I knew that the glory was there.
The next year I was back in Chicago ministering at a large church. One of the “catchers” was a tall, handsome Italian gentleman with dark hair. Wherever I went I noticed he was right there to help catch those who were slain in the Spirit. Near the end of the meeting the pastor said, “Brother Mahesh, do you remember this man?”
I said, “No, I’ve never met him.”
“This is Tony,” he said. “He is the man who came to your meeting on a stretcher last year. I had already arranged his funeral when he got healed in your service!”
God had healed him from the top of his head to the tip of his toes. It had very little to do with me. When I first saw Tony I did not immediately exercise faith. But he and his friends had gotten into the realm of the Presence of the Lord where nothing is impossible. Because of the blood of Jesus, they became carriers of the glory.
The Presence and glory of the Lord changes everything. Second Corinthians 3:18 says, “We all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.” God wants to impart His glory into each of us, transforming us, healing us, delivering us and restoring us. The key is His Presence. The more we recognize and honor His Presence, the more we will behold His glory and the more we will begin to reflect that glory in the earthly realm.
Arise, shine, for your light has come, the Word says. The glory of the Lord is risen upon you. Jesus said to the sisters of Lazarus, “If you believe, you will see the glory of God.” And the glory of God then raised a person who had been dead for four days. That is the glory.
Today is the day of salvation. It is a day of restoration, of wholeness, of healing. As Jesus comes, He heals not just our bodies but our hearts and souls as well. When we give ourselves to the anointing and welcome the Lord of glory, He calls us to that room of miracles and speaks a word that heals deep wounds, breaks curses and transforms us in the process. The Shunammite received her promise, and in the process she was healed from the inside out.
Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show
them that they should always pray and not
give up.
Luke 18:1,
NIV
The Shunammite Speaks . . .
Five years of grace. Each moment was like a draught of living water as I drank in the wonder of that child, my promised one with dates for eyes and hands and feet that appeared replications of his father’s. At times I thought I saw his grandfather in him. And I forgot myself because I had him to care for.
It was the time of cutting the firstfruits. I watched from the rooftop as Habakkuk went into our rich harvest with his father. Our firstborn beside him, Joktan would cut the select fruit of our fields, and the harvesters would begin their work.
The crops were as bountiful as we had ever seen them, producing the best of every fruit. There would be barley and wheat in abundance both for our own provision and to sell at the market. I did not doubt that some of it would make its way by ship down to Egypt. It was the day after Shabbat of the feast of unleavened bread, and as if in tribute the heavy heads of grain ripened quickly in the hot sun.
I had noticed wisps of clouds building from the west; rainfall this time of year would be an occurrence both unseasonable and unexpected. A movement caught my eye. I saw a field hand laboring upon the path through the fields toward our house. The scene before me stole the air from my body. I gasped.
“Habakkuk!”
Down the stairs and out of our gate I flew. The slumped heads of the standing grain beat against my knees. Fear washed through me as I reached our servant. Habakkuk was burning with fever.
“He complained of his head,” the servant explained. “Master ordered him home to you.”