A Hockey Model Of Healing

There is one more thing we need to know about playing offense. There is a rule in hockey that basically says, "when you have the puck, it is legal for other players to 'hit' you." A hit is where they slam their bodies into you body to try to knock you down, get you off balance, and cause you to mishandle the puck. Those hits usually hurt and occasionally they can even cause serious damage. That is one of the ways they try to take the puck away from the person who has it. In short, when you are the person on the team who is carrying the puck, you are open to be physically attacked.

The same thing happens to us in healing ministry. When you are the one who God is using powerfully in healing ministry, the devil is going to throw some hits at you. When God allows His power and glory to flow through us, it is not unusual to come under even heavier counter-attack from the enemy. Why? Because our enemy wants to stop us, to shut us down, to make us loose the puck.

Look at the Apostle Paul. He said in 2 Corinthians 12:11-12, "11 ...for I am not in the least inferior to the 'super-apostles,' even though I am nothing. 12The things that mark an apostle--signs, wonders and miracles--were done among you with great perseverance." In short, the Apostle Paul did a lot of healings and miracles. But Paul also took a lot of hits.

One time when Paul was defending himself against some accusations, he shared what some of those hits were. He said, in 2 Corinthians 11:23-27, "I have worked much harder, been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely, and been exposed to death again and again. 24Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. 25Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was stoned, three times I was shipwrecked, I spent a night and a day in the open sea, 26I have been constantly on the move. I have been in danger from rivers, in danger from bandits, in danger from my own countrymen, in danger from Gentiles; in danger in the city, in danger in the country, in danger at sea; and in danger from false brothers. 27I have labored and toiled and have often gone without sleep; I have known hunger and thirst and have often gone without food; I have been cold and naked."

Paul moved in a very key role in God's plans and purposes, but he also had to take a lot of hits for it. That is why Jesus said, in Acts 9:15, "...He [Paul] is a chosen vessel of Mine to bear My name before Gentiles, kings, and the children of Israel. For I will show him how many things he must suffer for My name's sake." Putting that in hockey terms: For Paul to make the big plays, he also had to take the big hits.

The same holds true in our lives. Some of us have mistakenly come to believe that if we are in the center of God's will, we will be exempt (or totally protected) from enemy attacks. But that is not in the Bible. Sometimes we ask God to use us, and He does, then we get attacked by the enemy and we can't understand it. But it is perfectly logical, it follows the rules of the game and it is to be expected.

Have you ever prayed for someone and they get healed, but you get sick? Guess what? You have just been hit. Don't let it take you out. Shake off the hit and keep playing the game. All players get hit when they play. But if a player gets unusually shaken up when he is hit, then that player becomes a "marked man." The players on the other team realize that it is easy to "take him out" by hitting him, so they hit him hard every chance they get. Don't become a "target" for more hits by over-reacting when the devil gives you a hit. Keep playing your game and keep doing your best.

Realize that that you are going to get hit from time to time, it is part of the game. But at the same time, don't set yourself up to take needless hits by being careless. In hockey people are usually it hear the boards and they are pressed into the boards or knocked down along the boards (that border the ice). Those type of hits are to be expected and you have to deal with them when they come to you. But sometimes when a player is in 'open ice' (e.g., not near the boards) they can also get hit. They are probably skating the puck from their zone to the offensive zone when this happens. If they have their head down (looking at the puck) and are not watching what is going on, they can get a pretty nasty hit. But if they keep their head up and watch what is going on around them, they can see the player coming towards them. They can change direction to either avoid the hit all-together or to deflect it to be just a little nudge instead of a big blow. Or they can pass the puck to another teammate and duck out of the way.

Likewise, we need to be watchful in prayer, asking God to reveal enemy strategies against us. We also need to ask God to give us His strategy to counter the attacks of the enemy, and we need to be sure to put on the full armor of God.

Even when you are watchful and playing your best, hits will still come. That is part of the game. I am not sure why the Lord allows the devil to counter-attack us, but He does. He allowed it with the Apostle Paul and He will also allow it in our lives. Sometimes those hits fall into patterns and other times they are random.

One of the patterns the enemy uses against me is that I tend get more counter-attacked when I pray for Asians than when I pray for other ethic groups. I take that to mean that God has great plans for me in ministering to Asians, so the devil wants to try and make me afraid to pray for them. For a while, it was almost like Asians get healed when I prayed for them, but I automatically got attacked with whatever they had. For a short while, I was a bit skidish about praying for healing for Asians...the hit had shook me up a it. But I am over that now and the Lord is opening all sorts of key ministry opportunities for me with Asians.

One time I prayed for a lady, an elder in a Mandarin-speaking church. She had such tremendous back pain that she could hardly move. I came over with the pastor and a few elders from the church. She got healed. The next day I started having tremendous back pains. I kept rebuking them but they would not go away. I went to a healing-conference a few days later and got prayer. The prayer did not help. A few days after that, I asked my pastor to pray for me. That brought some temporary relief, but the pain came back. I was almost totally unable to function, and this was shortly before a big missions trip to India.

I was being shaken to the core and wondered if I should cancel the trip. I knew a demon was causing this, but when I rebuked the demon, it seemed to have little/no effect. I began to question the authority I had in Christ. I began to think that maybe I really did not have authority over demons and could not command them to leave. I prayed and asked God about it. I asked Him to show me what was going on.

In response, God showed me a picture of a bunch of demons, all spirits of infirmity, standing in line beside me, just to my left. There were literally hundreds of them. Each time I rebuked a spirit of infirmity causing the back pain, it had to leave. But the next demon in line would instantly jump on me and cause the same condition. The net result was that I did not think that it was working when I commanded the demon to leave. Yes, they were causing me a lot of physical pain for a whole week. But the real nature of this hit was mental, then enemy was trying to convince me that the authority Jesus gave me over demons did not work. It was a particularly nasty attack. The devil does not play fair.

I am not sure why I waited a whole week to ask God to show me what was going on. But He showed me in a vision the instant I asked. I got mad at the demons, turned to my left (where the demons were in the vision) and rebuked the whole line of them, commanding them all to leave. They did, and the back pain went away.

There is one more concept in hockey that I want to talk about and draw a parallel. That is the concept of "finishing your checks." In ice hockey, you are only eligible for hits while you possess the puck or just after you have passed it. That means that when you see a defenseman skating towards you with the intent of taking the puck away from you and you pass it to one of your teammates before he gets to you, that other player can still take a shot at you. The hockey rule is that they are still allowed to hit you for a second after you pass or shoot the puck. In fact, a good player is expected to deliver that hit, it is part of the game. They hope that the hit might shake the player up a tad, making him less effective if that puck is passed back to him. The "finishing check" hit cannot effect the player's shot or pass, as they no longer have the puck. However, it might shake him up a bit to effect him in subsequent play. In fact, if the hit is hard enough, it might make that player a bit tentative the next time they posses the puck.