A Hockey Model Of Healing

We have been looking at healing from the perspective of a hockey game. Hockey games are fast-paced and in hockey you can't sit on your laurels of any one good shot/goal. The game goes on and you have to move on with it. The same is true in healing ministry. You can't live on past laurels, you have to keep on seeing what the Father is doing and keep on doing it with Him. Jesus did not heal just one person and then stop. He was always on the watch of what His Father was doing. Each place He went, He looked to see who the Father wanted to heal.

In the old days, hockey was a relatively low-scoring game, and it was not uncommon to see scores like 1-0 or 2-1. But in the 2004-2005 calendar year, the players and owner's association had a disagreement that resulted in a lock-out and we did not have a hockey season that year. The owners were worried that their fan base (which had been dwindling anyhow) would disappear altogether without a hockey season, and that they would not be able to make a profit. So they decided to change the rules of the game to make it more exciting. I won't go over the specifics of rule change, but the overall effect was that it is now a lot easier to score goals and the games have gotten very more high scoring.

In the old days, a two goal lead was such a big lead that the other team probably had no chance at all of catching up. Now a two or three goal lead can evaporate quickly. Scores are more like 6-4 or 5-3 or at times one of the teams may even score 10 or 11 points in a game. As a result of the rule change, most of the teams are scoring a lot more goals than they used to.

The same thing seems to be happening in the spirit. In the old days, the enemy often just needed to make a person sick once, because there were so few believers who knew they we even in the game, and they did not know how to shoot the puck at the net (e.g., pray for the sick for healing). But that has been changing. More and more believers are learning that they can pray for the sick, and that God will heal through them, just like Jesus promised. So now we are shooting more pucks at the net. That means the enemy has to step up his game as well--he is no longer able to "sit on his lead." So the game gets more high-scoring, where both teams are shooting more goals. The enemy's goal is getting someone sick. Our goal is seeing God heal them.

Let's look at the dynamics in the life of a friend of mine. He had an accident and seriously hurt his leg. The doctors were not able to piece it back together correctly and he needed to walk with a crutch. Also, from the process of the multiple surgeries, his leg became 2 inches shorter and he was now lopsided with one longer leg and one shorter leg. He was in constant pain and his range of movement was very limited. The enemy scored the first goal in his life.

A healing evangelist from Argentina came to our church and prayed for the sick. When he prayed for my friend, and the leg was lengthened and strengthened. Now he could walk without his crutch and we all viewed this as a big miracle even though he still had pain and a limited rang of motion. God's team scored a goal! Then a few days later my friend came to the healing rooms at our church. By the end of the healing session, the pain was gone and his range of motion was almost normal. God's team scored another goal and took the lead. We were all very excited about this and we acted like the game was over and we had one. But the game wasn't over in my friend's life. One of the three periods in the game had ended and it was a period break. (In hockey they have three periods that are each 20 minutes long).

Anyhow, we celebrated our win, thinking the game was over, and we forgot to get back on the ice for the next period. That made it possible for then enemy to score an unhindered goal (because no one was trying to stop him). That goal took the form of complications arising from infection. The infection caught us all by surprise because it was so much later than the initial surgeries. We began to pray and my friend underwent a medical procedure where they took muscle from his abdomen to replace damaged skin and muscle tissue in his infected leg. We jumped back in the game, thinking it was a whole separate game, and began to pray regarding the leg and recovery from the surgery. Well, the leg healed up nicely and the infection got under control and our team scored another goal to tie the game again.

Again we took it as "game over" and stopped, but again the enemy's team kept playing. They scored another goal. This time the stomach area where the skin graft had come from became seriously infected.

Now we did not understand what was going on. We are all standing around staring at each other and asking God, "What happened?" We did not understand why God would heal his leg so miraculously and then let his stomach get so bad. Why? Because we viewed healing in any one person's life as a one-shot deal. We did not realize that this was only one score in what can be a high-scoring game for both teams. We stopped contending for his healing and continued health, but the enemy continued contending to bring sickness into his life.

There is a saying I like. I heard one of the "big name preachers" say it in a sermon once, but I don't remember who said it. However, the saying has stuck with me. "What is gained in prayer must be maintained in prayer." If we take ground from the enemy and then abandon that ground, the enemy will simply move in and take it back. In fact, he will probably bring reinforcements with him so that he has a better chance of hanging on to it should we decide to try and regain it again. We see an example of this from Luke 11:24-26:

24"When an evil spirit comes out of a man, it goes through arid places seeking rest and does not find it. Then it says, 'I will return to the house I left.' 25When it arrives, it finds the house swept clean and put in order. 26Then it goes and takes seven other spirits more wicked than itself, and they go in and live there. And the final condition of that man is worse than the first."

I think there is sometimes a similar dynamic that goes on in healing. Not all sickness is caused by the same thing, so we don't have to work to maintain all healings. Some are caused by simple natural things. For instance, you get around someone with the flu and you are exposed to their germs and you catch that flu. Once you are away from the contagious person, there is nothing operating on you to try and make you sick again. So if God heals you of the flu and you are smart enough to stay away from people who are contagious, you are going to stay well.

Some sicknesses are caused because the person does something to make themselves sick. Maybe they eat wrong, take drugs or overindulge in alcohol. Or maybe they don't take proper care of themselves in other ways. For instance, people who eat a lot of high-fat and high cholesterol foods are likely to develop some type of circulatory or heart problem because of the way they eat. If God heals them of that heart condition and they continue to eat like they used to eat, they will eventually get sick again. They are doing it to themselves. When that type of healing occurs, the person who was healed is responsible to maintain their healing. They need to make lifestyle changes to stay healthy, and their continued good health is basically their responsibility. I like to use this example to illustrate this point:

Say I stick my hand in the fire and get burned, then God heals me. I am fully/totally healed, right? (The answer to that question is yes.) But what happens if I stick my hand in the fire again? I get burned again. The previous healing does nothing to protect me from the second injury if I were to to stick my hand back in the fire.

If the sickness was caused because of bad lifestyle, the healed person needs to work with the Holy Spirit to change their life style. If it was caused by unforgiveness, the healed person needs to work on releasing and walking in forgiveness. If the sickness was caused by repeated sin, the person has to stop sinning. If they don't change their behavior, they will get sick again.

The third cause of sickness is enemy attack. This can take a few different forms. Some attack is caused by a spirit of infirmity (a relatively weak demon, free-loader with no legal right to the person). You cast out the spirit of infirmity and the person gets better. Most spirits of infirmity just leave and don't try to come back. Some make token attempts to return but are easily shoo-ed away by simple authority prayer. If you pray for someone who was healed by casting out a spirit of infirmity, teach them how to rebuke it if it comes back. The person can usually take care of that by themselves once they have been taught to do it and they can easily maintain their own healing.

But there is a second/higher level of demonic attack that causes sickness. (Well, really there are several different levels which each have separate dynamics. But I am going to lump them together into one category for this discussion.) This is that hockey game I have been talking about, which can be high-scoring on both sides. Both teams need to keep shooting at the goal until the Lord decides the game is truly over. If some form of spiritual attack is making the person sick, you can't just stop praying for them when you see a healing, you need to maintain that ground that you took in securing the healing. This is where the defensemen, the intercessors, come in real handy. They many need to have sustained prayer for the person for months after the healing in order to prevent the enemy from scoring another goal against their health.