Day 8: He Still Sends Forth His Word

Some were sick [rebellious, fools]…
    and they drew near to the gates of death.
Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble,
    and he delivered them from their distress;
 he sent forth his word, and healed them,
    and rescued them from the grave.
 Let them thank the Lord for his steadfast love,
    for his wonderful works to the sons of men!

Psalm 107: 17 – 21 (ESV and NIV)

   This morning…

I am praying about this post today, a story to tell about the beautiful promise of the Lord Almighty to send His Word of healing… how He loves to speak his Word into being.

Let there be light…  and there was.

Let us make man in our image… and He did.

Let there be healing… and we are healed.

And how he sent Jesus, THE Word, to take our place in paying for our rebellion, to become the new Adam and restore us to His intention in the Garden of Eden…

Yet the Enemy is still whispering… You can’t believe it.  It isn’t restored.  I am king.  Hah!

Then I recall something beautiful someone was teaching this week from the Word… pointing out how we have inherited our love of creating and being creative from our Father God.  I love that thought.  And that He has formed us to be a people after His own heart, to create with Him.

And I’m thinking… if God uses words to speak life into being, and He intends us to live in His image, what if He intends for us to be sending out His Word for healing in His name?  And we are too often just settling for the curse, mistaking it as coming from his hand…

I remember how He created man to rule and reign with Him, how Adam forfeited it but Jesus bought it back for us…  What if we are too complacent, and God is calling us to speaking His Kingdom Come into our lives and world here and now…co-speaking with Him, as Jesus taught us to pray… Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done, on earth, as it is in Heaven…?

Not waiting till we get to Heaven.  But now.

That maybe… just maybe…we are meant to be guarding that trust… declaring His sent word of healing over ourselves and others in the face of the Enemy who has come to steal and rob us…  That our speaking out His Word is to the devil like water was to the wicked witch…   His Living Water…  And conversely, pronouncing negatives and doom and gloom can be just as powerful for the Enemy’s goals… the Enemy who really holds no more power since Jesus’ death and resurrection conquered it, but is still keeping us bound by lies that make us think he does…

In the midst of all these swirling thoughts, I sit down to finish a heart-stirring novel the author (D. E. Stevenson) says truly came out of her real life diaries as a WWII regiment wife in Scotland and England of the ‘40’s.  Written in diary style, some things fictionalized, but all of it (according to D. E. herself)  literally lifted from actual events, people, thoughts and feelings in those moments she lived – this story enthralls me with how real it is.  And when I read of the feeling that came over British citizens during that time… of standing guard against the Enemy over the land they cherished… I can’t help but think of the parallels between Hitler and Satan… between how these valiant but everyday ordinary people took up their shields…  And more than that, the parallels of how God wants us to stand guard over the spiritual “land” He has given us in Him.

See what you think… in this excerpt from Mrs. Tim Carries On, in a midnight  scene between the young mother and war wife and her husband’s older uncle.  She is visiting, and asks to go out with him on air raid patrol one” glorious night, clear and frosty, and the moon is so bright that only the planets are visible in the dome of heaven.  The moonlight sparkles on the crystals of frost; the shadows of the trees and walls and hedges are black and sharply defined.  It is very quiet and peaceful…”  

“I like the moonlight,” says Uncle Joe in a reflective voice.  “The world is very beautiful clad in moonlight… Glad you came?”

“Very glad,” I reply.

“Nobody but a fool wants war but it’s good for people like me to be shaken up… We were in a rut.  We did the same things at the same hour and were upset if anything happened to disturb the routine.  If it wasn’t for this war I should be sitting before the fire toasting the soles of my slippers…Instead, I am prowling about my fields looking for an enemy.”

“Sometimes, I can’t believe it, Uncle Joe.”

“Neither can I,” he admits.  “I’ve soldiered all over the place…but here, in England, the idea of an enemy seems unnatural…  It isn’t new of course. England’s been threatened with invasion before…and there have always been men to guard her shores…just like we are doing today… We’re guarding England.  We’re part of England’s history.  It stirs the blood, doesn’t it?”

It stirs me too as I read this, especially knowing these words came from the author’s real life.  And how they speak to me of our Divine assignment here, in our own… for such a time as this.   Standing up against the enemy who has come to steal and rob.  Standing guard to God’s word of Life… on shores of our own.

Continuing in the passage scene above, out on a midnight patrol of their own home grounds, the author’s uncle shows her a little house built by his great grandfather.  A place too tiny to live in, and always a mystery to its use.  But he has just figured it out, he confides now, showing her how the one window is in direct line out over the sea where invasions once took place.  How he now knows his great grandfather built it as a lookout point, to stand guard there.  He thinks he will repair it…

“I think he would like you to have it repaired,” she responds.

“Do you? I believe you’re right…as a matter of fact, I have a queer feeling when I come up here at night…a feeling I’m not alone,” says Uncle Joe a trifle shamefacedly.  “I don’t believe in ghosts or anything like that…it’s a pleasant feeling, mind you.  I’m an old campaigner, and pretty hardened, but I never did like visiting outposts in the dark by myself. The old boy comes along [with me now, I think] …” 

And as I’m come to the end of this scene, picturing these two out on this long ago frosty night, a feeling shivers over me… how, sometimes I can’t believe it either.  This standing guard at our posts, with the Word as our sword.

But I am with you, He whispers… and I have already won.  The Enemy is only bluff, if you will stand watch with Me here and now in this garden of your life…and send out My Word of healing with Me…

  A true story

The news came that this one I prayed so long for had just done what he called “a foolish thing,” though well meaning and out of not wanting to disappoint others… Something that had damaged his throat so badly that it threatened to rob him of singing, possibly of ever even talking above a whisper again.  In fact, doctors did not allow him to speak for many many months.  Lifting him up, I prayed earnestly, unceasingly, for his restoration.  Prayers that stretched out over a year… not really knowing any details of what was happening…just looking to God’s word to lead and fill my intercession.  That’s when God began to show me so many words of promise and healing in the Bible, speaking so directly into this situation, I often found myself praying through tears in my throat at God’s heart for us.

“The blind will see, the lame will walk, the mute will shout again for joy!”  He poured into my hand and led me to lift back to Him.  “The battle belongs to the Lord…stand in praise…” He enjoined and showed me how to sing out as prayer.

And one of the most beautiful of hundreds of such words was Psalm 107:20.  “I send My Word of healing” to him… He infused into my prayers… leading me to step out more boldly than I ever had before.  To share those words with the one lifted up.   There in the midst of the prayers and still unknown answers… and again, when the wondrous healing restored him greater than before.  And so I sent those words out on a postal wing and a prayer…

Light and life and healing, He led me to send out as His Psalm 107:20 word to this one, like the Christmas carol of heralding angels and the One risen with healing in His wings.   Showing us both His wonders…His rescue… His steadfast love.  And stirring the heart of one maybe lost along the way, back to Him… through healing word multiplied.

   Prayer:

Lord,

Help me [Fill in Your Name] to stand guard with You in the spiritual “lookout point” you have placed me in.  The place where I hold up Your word as banner against the Enemy. Give me that sense of “blood-stirring awe” that You have made me part of the history You are writing today.  Of You…calling me to take Your hand and keep guard with You in all the ways You want to make Your Kingdom Come…

You astound me with Your Word.   That you literally send us Your word of healing and make it come to be!  And you ask us, enable us, to send it out to others as well.  To show forth Your victory…

Everywhere I look in Your word, I find sickness is part of the fall, the curse.  In Deuteronomy 28, it is clearly part of the curse and you enjoin us to choose blessing.  In Job, it is clearly the work of the Enemy.  Along with lies in the mouths of Job’s friends. In Galatians 3:13 you tell us Jesus took that curse to give us back the blessing.

Then why do we so often believe You have sent it, like the world that blames every bad thing on You?

Yes, I believe You can and do work beauty in the midst of sicknesses and death that enter our lives… but I don’t see anywhere in Your word that says You are the author of these, or that you want us to just endure them.  Instead, I see where you are always calling us to deepened faith for healing and restoration from Your Hand.  The woman who turned to Elijah, sent from You, when her son died.  The man who ran to you and said, “Only say the word and my servant will be healed.”  And so many many more.  Not once did you say to those who call on You, I want you to stay sick and die.

Because You have truly sent the Word to heal!  Not just for that man and his servant, but for me and all who will turn to You.

You make me dare to ask…Make me the messenger of the word of healing You send.  I don’t know why some have not been healed in the past, but I believe healing is your desire and You want us to continue in believing for it to the end.  That You want to move in healing in us that shines forth to a seeking, crying world that You are the true God.  Most of all… it is WHO you are.   In Your Name, standing with You, I want to send Your word of healing to [fill in the names of all you pray for, including yourself] today and every day.   For everyday moments that need your touch of wholeness and restoration.  For what seems to us mighty miracles but for You is simply Your sent Word...  And with the psalmist, I thank You endlessly for Your steadfast love.

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 Thought to ponder…

Who do You want me to “send your word of healing to, Lord?”  What does that look like in my life?

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©   Pam Depoyan

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