Today, before church at Hidden Valley, I chatted with a friend. He mentioned that his lower back was bothering him, and almost immediately I felt the increasingly familiar urging from the Holy Spirit rising within my heart to put my hand on his shoulder and tell him to be healed. And I didn't do it. The flow of conversation was such that his acceptance of his pain offered me a convenient out . . . and I'm not proud to say that I took it.
I thought about that all through the service, along with a word of knowledge I was given that another friend's back would be totally healed, to the point that the rod placed along her spine would be removed supernaturally. That God would speak, and it would disappear. I didn't tell her that when I first heard it (a few minutes before I felt nudged to heal), and I meditated on that through the length of the service as well. As I kept those things in mind, I felt distinctly that my opportunity to heal that lower back had passed, but that I would get a chance to share that word of knowledge.
At the end of the service the pastor did an altar call, calling up anyone who had a bulging disc. My friend with the lower back pain raised his hand with a grin, and went up front. He had hands laid upon him, and his back was healed.
As I think over those events, and the distinct messages I received about healing today, I can see that with my friend's lower back, I was hearing in the spirit the same thing that the pastor heard at the end of the service: that God was going to heal him. Even though I didn't rise to the occasion and do it, he was still healed. And I had a tremendous learning experience about the validity of God's word, and the fact that my own weaknesses will not frustrate His work within the body of Christ . . . but that I will have plenty of chances to learn in the spirit, to practice, without major calamity.
After the service, I found the second friend, and delivered the word about her back that God had given me. And I can't wait to see it fulfilled . . .
