Saturday, March 21

Part of the process taught to The International Order of St. Luke the Physician (OSL) members for praying with others for healing is to “image” the predicament, and pray into it. (Image v. ”to see in one’s mind’s eye, hear in one’s mental ear, etc.” - my definition). I was preparing to write a piece about this, then I read the newest issue of Sharing, OSL’s magazine. Copies of Sharing are in All Saints’ library.

In “Listening at the Gates” Dr. Sheffield writes: “Proverbs 8:34 says, ‘Blessed is the person who listens to Me, watching daily at My gates, waiting at My doorposts.’ Listening is an art in healing prayer... It shows sensitivity for greater effectiveness to actively focus on what they are saying to us. However, I want to focus on the art of listening to the Lord and the many ways God speaks to us.

“At a healing conference, a woman came up to us with a twisted spine. I ‘heard’ the Lord say, ‘Ask her when her back started to twist.’ She said, ‘When I was seven. I was attacked under a tree.’ I immediately asked Jesus to come to the little seven year-­old under the tree. She suddenly smiled and said, ‘Oh my, He is dancing with me all around the tree.’ Then we heard a pop in her back. A nurse praying with us checked her spine, and it was as straight as an ironing board.

“We could have tried to heal her for an hour and nothing happen... But with... a direct encounter with the Lord Himself, she was free... She heard from the Lord herself... We did so by listening. The highest form of love is listening, being attentive, and waiting on the Lord. Blessings flow.”

“Dear Jesus, 

Speak to us, for, like Samuel, your servants are learning to listen. 

Open the eyes and ears of our hearts to receive revelation and wisdom              from you. 

We can do nothing without you. Train our spiritual faculties of sight, touch, hearing, tasting and even smelling so we may freely discern what is of You and what is simply our own works. 

Open to us and the people we minister to the gates of favor and blessing! Amen.”

The Rev. Dr. Jack Sheffield, from San Antonio, TX is North American Director, The International Order of St. Luke the Physician.

Perry White