Listen, Love and Pray. In these three simple words lie a wealth of wisdom; they have become the core of Christian Healing Ministries’ model of healing prayer.
LISTEN
My father never understood my work. He would often ask, “Judith, what is it you do again?”
I would answer, “We teach people how to pray. We have a School of Healing Prayer® with four levels of training, around 13 talks in each level.
Then he would ask, “Is prayer really that difficult?”
I would answer, “In healing prayer, you’ve got to know what you’re doing. People are dealing with difficult issues in their lives.
”We all have a story. When a person comes for prayer, we listen to their story. We don’t listen with the intent of fixing the person, but to be present with them, to value them and honor their experiences. In the School of Healing Prayer® we teach an entire class on listening because one’s natural inclination is to move into judgment or criticism. Our mind starts to formulate what we are going to say next, or to a list of advice we want to give. Neither of these communicate the essence of “Listen.”
Instead, as we interact with a person, we teach prayer ministers to simultaneously listen to the Holy Spirit. With our ears tuned to the mind of Christ, we discern God’s love and care for this individual. How does He see them? What transformation does He want to accomplish in their life?
LOVE
While I was a young therapist, there was a judge in Florida who sent couples to me who had filed for divorce. Before she would grant a divorce, they were required to attend counseling sessions with me at my practice in Clearwater. I encouraged them to talk to each other, to pray together, and to love with the love of God. None of these couples went ahead with the planned divorce.
Some of the stories I heard made it very difficult to love the person in front of me. One man in particular admitted he had beaten his children and committed incest against all five of them. After hearing this, I became so disturbed that I had to leave the room. As I excused myself, I went into our little breakroom, got on my knees and said, “Lord, you’re going to have to love him. I can’t!”
When I walked back in the room, the supernatural presence of God came over me and I was flooded with love for this man. Romans 5:5 came true that day: “Hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.”
Only the love of God heals. I consider myself a loving person. However, I discovered as a young therapist that my love, no matter how wonderful, does not heal anyone. When we teach the “love” portion of Listen, Love and Pray, we concentrate on centering the ministry team on God’s love, seeing everything through God’s lens.
PRAY
Most of us consider ourselves loving and caring people. We listen, we love people with the love of God, and then we pray. It is simple and complex at the same time. What is my part and what is God’s part? What is Jesus asking me to do? Sometimes He gives words of knowledge; sometimes He instructs me to be silent and let Him work.
The book of 1 Corinthians has invaluable wisdom for how to pray with the mind of Christ:
And so it was with me, brothers and sisters. When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.
These are the things God has revealed to us by his Spirit. The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person’s thoughts except their own spirit within them? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. What we have received is not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, explaining spiritual realities with Spirit-taught words. The person without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God but considers them foolishness, and cannot understand them because they are discerned only through the Spirit. The person with the Spirit makes judgments about all things, but such a person is not subject to merely human judgments, for, “Who has known the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ. —1 Corinthians 2:1-5, 10-16
Our goal is to pray with the mind of Christ.
When we operate in the gifts of the Holy Spirit, when we immerse ourselves in the wisdom and power of the Holy Spirit, we will be totally transformed, and God will transform those to whom we minister.
I grew up in a church where we ended all prayers with “In the name of Jesus, Amen.” To this day, I have had people correct me after I say a prayer omitting those words. Indignantly they say, “You didn’t say, “In the name of Jesus!”
I say, “Yes, but I prayed to Jesus. Are you saying that God won’t hear my prayer unless I say ‘In the name of Jesus’?” What we need to understand is that praying in the name of Jesus is not about saying the words; it is praying with the mind and love of Christ.
It is the wisdom of the Holy Spirit that reveals God’s loving heart, and it is the love of God that brings healing and transformation.
Often in prayer ministry, the prayer portion comes in the form of inner healing. Jesus, who is the same yesterday, today and forever, takes the memories of our past and heals them from the effects of those emotional wounds that remain and affect our behavior today. He fills, with His love, all those places that have long been empty and He can drain the poison of past hurts and resentment. In prayer, we ask Jesus to bring to light the things that have hurt us and free us from their negative effects.
Jesus’ love transforms us by taking away the pain of our past and bringing the joy of becoming our true selves. Many of us are encased in our past memories and hurts; we have never experienced the joy of our “authentic self,” as Thomas Merton called it. The Lord Jesus comes and strips away the false self, revealing the true self within us.
I encourage you to pray in simple ways. Start with prayer for everyday problems like healing a cold or having peaceful, uninterrupted sleep. Use simple, honest words to ask God to heal.
Most important in the prayer ministry is becoming a healing person. We avoid being judgmental or critical, and we do not presume to give advice or counsel. When we are attentive to the will of Jesus, He will guide us. We should always convey the love of Jesus and carry His presence, which will attract people in need of His healing and love. Jesus always shows up when we pray! Remember, it is God’s responsibility to heal and our responsibility to pray.
