Post # 30 - DEFINING LISTENING and INNER-HEALING PRAYER

What is Listening Prayer?

Jesus said that His sheep would hear His voice (John 10:3-4, 8, 16, 27). He also said He had many things He wanted to say to His disciples that they were unprepared to receive, and that one role of the promised Holy Spirit would be to communicate His truth to His followers at just at their precise moment of readiness to receive it (John 16:12-13). Throughout the Old and New Testament we see God’s people hearing from Him in very personal ways and being deeply affected by these special encounters.

Listening to God is deliberately seeking to hear from God in a personal way. It is essentially a time alone with Jesus where a person quiets his or her heart, and like Samuel in the OT, invites God to speak to them. Often the person listening has a question, a desire for direction, or an area of their life that they are asking God to speak to (See Habakkuk 2:1).

However, the overall long-term goal of listening to God is not guidance, healing, insight for ministry, … – it is part of the lifelong journey to know and experience an ever-increasing intimacy with God and the resulting transformation into His likeness as in 2 Corinthians3:18.

 What is Inner-Healing Prayer?

As Jesus began His ministry, He quoted from Isaiah 61 and said that He came to bind up the brokenhearted and to bring newfound internal freedom to those were held in slavery to practices such as people pleasing, perfectionism, sexual addiction, workaholism, and the like. Healing Prayer is taking Listening Prayer into the realm of theses areas of personal bondage, internal struggles, heartaches, and wounds we’ve all experienced in hopes of receiving inner healing from the Messiah. Inner healing brings about greater internal wholeness, freedom, and an increased ability to love God and one another from a sincere heart.

Healing Prayer can be a useful tool in the reaching and discipling of the increasingly broken people we encounter in today’s world: Discipleship from the Inside Out. It can also be of great benefit to workers in the church to help them experience newfound freedom in areas where they may be struggling (i.e. with such things as drivenness, people pleasing, anxiety, fears, insecurities, addictions, and bondages from past wounds).

Healing Prayer can be experienced in a time alone with God or with another person who can serve as a facilitator. In either context (alone or with someone), the one desiring healing identifies an area of bondage or repetitive emotional pain and listens to God about where the bondage or pain began (roots), lies that may have been unwittingly believed in the midst of the wounding event, unbiblical inner vows, strategies, and judgments that may inadvertently have been made in response to the event (i.e. I will be in control, I will never trust again, I will never be like my father, etc.) etc.

For Inspiration, view ""Beauty for Ashes"

 

Finding God in Your Broken Places

One resource for both learning about and experiencing listening and inner-healing prayer is the book A Guide for Listening & Inner Healing Prayer. Take a look at what others are saying about the book by clicking on either one of these links:

·    Amazon.com reviews of the book 

·    Listening to God Forum reviews of the book

This work is available for purchase in paperback on the Listening to God Forum, NavPress, Amazon, and by electronic download on Kindle, and for iBook via iTunes. Amazon Kindle has a free downloadable reader program for all PC compatible and Mac Computers. The electronic book can be downloaded in seconds. If you have an iPad, the iBook version of the book can be found on iTunes.

What comments, experiences, questions or other feedback do you have about listening and healing prayer?