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One good sign of God on the move is the progressive development of wisdom and revelation as it impacts prayer. My heartthrob is bringing the miraculous to bear on the emotional and psychological problems that overwhelm people. I was attracted to Christ because the Holy Spirit is alive and well and healing people's lives. That was 1974 and almost from the start God educated me in prayer for inner and emotional healing.
At the same time that I was getting to know the pioneers who discovered prayer that heals and taught prayer for healing in the mainline churches. The Order of St. Luke and the Schools of Prayer are examples of this breakthrough. This generation needed to overcome the mainline doctrine that there are no more gifts or miracles today. The Holy Spirit was yet to be discovered.
Building upon the work of the pioneers there is a vast diversity of second-generation Spirit-filled teachers of inner healing and healing prayer. I learned from: Francis McNutt, Leanne Payne, and John and Paula Sandford. This generation suffered attacks from many parts of the Body of Christ that were resisting the work of the Holy Spirit. But they held on and trained up the leaders of today.
The third generation of inner healing prayer involves the client in an active process of finding healing from Jesus. Listening for God's truth to counteract the lie or misbleief is a trademark of is Dr. Ed. Smith (TheoPhostic or theophostics). I share some characteristics with others working in this generation and yet my teaching is fresh and original in other ways. The best-known name in this third generation
I have used the wisdom of Leanne Payne and others to modify and avoid some of the unhealthy practices in theophostics. I use many fresh and original methods to establish a healing encounter with God. I use, teach and publish a wide variety of methods to bring one into the healing presence of God. These are published on www.HealMyLife.com, taught in Heal My Life seminars and used in my therapy sessions.
Because my approach is not the same as Ed Smith's although incorporating some of his insights and because of my fresh and original contributions to the third Generation of Inner Healing, I need a fresh and different name for my school of inner healing. At this point I use "Listening Prayer Therapy" to name my proprietary approach.
Although I copyright my written materials for publication I also encourage you to use them in non-commercial applications. I would request acknowledgement of your source for academic honesty. I would request a Link back to my web site for material published on the web. I would request feedback and dialogue about the implementation of the methods of Listening Prayer Therapy.
Web site: www.HealMyLife.com, (416) 234-1850
Ó George Hartwell of Agape Christian Counselling, Toronto, Ontario.
Introduction to Third Generation Inner Healing
Ó George Hartwell, January, 2003 (416) 234-1850
God offers life, healing, wholeness, peace and holiness. But we refuse. We chose to perish. "My people perish for lack of knowledge."
Jesus cries out in a heart full of anguish over Jerusalem: "Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem." The city had been offered fullness of life - The Way, The Truth and The Life - and refused the offer.
Our hardness of heart often blocks the offer of love - from God or others. If we are stubborn enough for long enough it becomes impossible for us to soften, to turn, to receive comfort and love and healing of our wounds. It is too late.
God's mercy is to keep offering love, life, peace and healing. His mercy is to offer this in many different ways and means. Inner Healing is an offer from God to you. God says: "I offer you My healing, My love, and My presence. Will you not come to me and be healed?"
God's Real Presence is the Wonderful Counsellor. I am his agent - the intercessor - the one in the gap.
My offer to you is inner healing for you and / or knowledge of inner healing so you can bring inner healing to others.
Are you open to inner healing? What our culture calls 'strength' is not what God calls strength. We value the ability of mind and will to suppress heart, spirit and emotions.
God sees strength in the one who can be weak, vulnerable and needy. "Blessed are the poor in spirit." "Ask and it will be given to you." Come unto Me all ye that are burdened and heavy laden." "Blessed are those that mourn, for they will be comforted."
It brings freedom and healing is to express, admit and confess our weaknesses and sins. See the 12 Step Movements. God responds to this openness with love, forgiveness and restored relationship. "Confess your sins to one another." "If you confess your sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us and cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
When you come to a Christian counsellor who uses inner healing you are participating in a form of confession - bringing your problem out into the open - confession. You step into to Biblical promises just by your act of coming to a Christian counsellor.
The Secret of Inner Healing
The key to inner healing is the presence of God. Inner healing methods bring the person into the presence of God in a way that brings healing to the root problem that needs to be addressed. I use a variety of methods, a variety of encounters with God in "Listening Prayer Therapy" - my school of inner healing.
Healing in God's presence softens our hearts and gives us real strength:
-To be honest, open and real,
-To speak truth with clarity and insight,
-To express and experience one's feelings,
-To participate in personal one to one relationships,
-To listen to, feel with another's experience,
-To stand one's ground in the face of threat, manipulation and control,
-To discern what is healthy, holy, and godly.
What wounded us?
Exposure to the horror of people being killed through gunshots, bombs and battles produces a lasting impact on people that once was called shell shock. Being exposed to sudden and shocking violence can have the same effect now called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. These extreme events seem to penetrate deeply into our consciousness, overwhelm our ability to order and understand them and leave residual unconscious material that seeps into our dreams and waking consciousness.
A traumatic event is characterized by deeply emotional shock or upset that allows an event to be imbedded deep into our memory. This imbedded event, the deep memory continues to influence our life unless there is an effective intervention.
And what LIFE IMPACT does this imbedded event have?
1.It can result in beliefs about God, life, others and ourselves that are not healthy.
2.It can result in a strong expectation of future abuse that then is fulfilled in our life. We become victims waiting for the accident to happen.
3. It can result in deep inner decisions (inner vows) that lock up our future options and block future action. The best intentions of our mind and will are not able to break the deep spell of this inner vow.
4. It can result in emotional reactions that are disproportionate to the event - but we don't know why.
5. It can result in a variety of unhealthy behaviour patterns, personality patterns, fixed family roles, compulsions and addictions.
As children we do not understand adult expressions, humor, and language and because our imaginations are vivid and our emotions responsive we can be traumatized by things adult say that they don't even mean. A young boy refused to get in the bathtub after being taught in swimming class that one can drown in an inch of water.
So children can be more easily wounded than adults. Life events that have emotional meaning to a child can have a deep, lasting and negative impact. The impact of such events is similar to the more extreme events that cause trauma in adults. For example, when a child is spoken to with emotional intensity and words that produce hurt and fear. Emotional abuse is usually the use of our words to undermine and attack a person or their worth or identity. Correcting their behaviour is not abuse; attacking their person is abuse. Traumatic impact can be created by produced by sexual and physical abuse, but also by parental neglect or absence.
The three long-term impacts of trauma
Jesus said: "I am the Way and the Truth and the Life." He is the solution. Each aspect of who He is relates to one of the three different long-term impacts of trauma:
1..Effects on behaviour and character patterns, addictions, bad habits, and inner vows. "I am the Way."
2.Effects on expectations, perceptions, judgments, thinking, attitudes, beliefs and feelings about things. "I am the Truth."
3.Effects that require deliverance from an evil energy, feeling, transference of spirits, etc. "I am the Life."
The first impact of trauma
A second and somewhat related impact of trauma is the decisions and behavior patterns that result from the trauma. Specifically a deep decision, called an inner vow by the Sandfords, is made at the time of the trauma. A deep decision that can lead to: negative attitudes, maladaptive behaviour, addictions, compulsions, and personality patterns.
Second impact of trauma
In the healing of trauma it is very important to deal with underlying beliefs. Beliefs include terms such as: expectations, prejudices, bitter root judgments, motivating attitudes and fixed unconscious thought patterns. If we were conscious of all this we could call it our thinking. But we are not conscious of it. We just believe what we believe and we act upon what we believe. We make decisions and choices based upon what we believe. Our negative emotions can be traced back to these beliefs. This unconscious level of thinking that people have said shapes so much: "You are what you think."
Like cognitive behaviour therapy third generation inner healing deals with core beliefs. Cognitive therapy focused on core beliefs has been found to be the most effective form of secular therapy. When third generation inner healing focused the power of God's heard word on negative core beliefs the results can be quite astounding.
Third impact of trauma
Health, wholeness, vitality speak of God's Spirit - the very breath of God breathed into Adam, the very breath of Jesus breathed unto the disciples after the resurrection and called the Holy Spirit. But there is also a negative energy, an evil spirit.
In Listening Prayer Therapy when a memory is partially healed but a strong negative feeling remains attached to the event, perhaps fear, hate, jealousy, shame or guilt.
In some people's lives a particular person in their life is the source of many negative feelings and these feelings seem not to go away. Sometimes negative spirit seems to have transferred. Jesus sets such people free, cuts unhealthy attachments and stops unhealthy transfer of spirits and gives us His life.
Obstacles to Inner Healing
Third Generation Inner Healing introduces the presence of God in different ways. One important way is in listening prayer. Taking time to hear what God is saying - to really listen. But there are obstacles in this and one of them is our head.
The Head obstacles to Hearing God:
1.The refusal to be vulnerable and to listen. 'No. I don't want to listen.'
2.Can't get out of sending mode. 'Just keep talking (or praying).'
3.I already know the answer. 'Why listen when I (head) know the answer.'
4. Confusion between thinking and listening. 'I think what God would say is.'
5.Confusing petition with listening. 'I thought you wanted me to pray (petition).'
6.Making the question complicated. 'Now that we are talking to God I have several other things to ask Him as well.'
7.Thinking it must be harder and take a long time. 'It can't be the first thing I heard, sensed or saw.'
8.Censoring the response. 'I didn't think that was God.'
9.Censoring simplicity. 'That doesn't sound the way God talks in church. Not formal enough.'
10.Censoring sense or vision. 'I don't hear anything. (But I do sense something, feel something or see something.)'
Heart blocks to Hearing
A heart filled with anger and bitterness has trouble hearing from God. The first encounter with God must deal with this anger.
A heart filled with distress and grief. The first encounter with God must deal with grief and distress. Use a form of the Grief and Comfort Encounter.
Spiritual Blocks to Hearing
Satan sometimes blocks hearing as indicated by confused and non-godly or mocking responses. Explore with the person why there is access and pray to block it.
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