His Thoughts are Truer

This spring we’ve been addressing the topic of healing in the School of Kingdom Ministry (SoKM). It follows a very integrated approach, understanding that physical, spiritual, emotional, and deliverance ailments are often bound up together. Facilitating this course in our church has been great fun as it introduces me to God’s stories in people. Last summer a friend of mine recounted his remarkable journey of healing that illustrates what can often be an interconnected and sometimes confusing process.

Eczema had been a minor irritation for Daniel from time to time, mostly in the heat of the summer. Yet the condition seemed to get triggered when he and his wife began a season of focused Bible study with their home group. As their internal worldview and belief systems were being challenged, their hunger for reality in God grew. At each step along the way Daniel’s eczema spread, eventually covering his entire body. What had been periodic and easy to treat was now raging out of control from head to toe. He was a man in motion, constantly scratching all over, often staining sheets and clothes. 

Over the months, he went to doctors many times who prescribed antibiotics and steroids. They gave a few day’s relief, but soon the eczema would return worse than before. Suggested diet changes, various sorts of lotions, baths, and internet solutions yielded no measurable relief. Following the recommendations of specialists, having blood work done yielded no remedies.

All along however, they found their love for Jesus growing, even in the months after their study group concluded. As their experience with God grew, they sought out more opportunities to learn, meeting regularly with their friends, often being the target of healing prayer, yet all the while going crazy from all the itching.

Is something else going on here?

Some months later at a downtown Starbucks, sharing with two friends what the last season had been like, they offered to pray for him. As they did, Daniel described, 

“My entire body felt like it went into a charley horse, my whole body locked up, everything hurt, and all I could say was, ‘Help Jesus!’ Something tangible and physical was gripping my body. Not my normal experience at Starbucks! They prayed for some time until eventually, whatever it was, let loose. I felt liberated and exhausted but different, too, yet the itching remained.”

In the weeks that followed, Daniel had another powerful healing prayer experience with another group of friends. He felt under the power of God for over an hour, but he still wasn’t healed. Something wasn’t finished, but he had no idea what it was.

"He felt prompted to write down what God says is true about him"

In the weeks that followed, Daniel had another powerful healing prayer experience with another group of friends. He felt under the power of God for over an hour, but he still wasn’t healed. Something wasn’t finished, but he had no idea what it was.

Nearly a year had passed since these extreme eczema outbreaks had manifested when Daniel found himself at a conference at a church in the city. He felt curious to attend the breakout season entitled “Identity.” Written at the top of the notes for the session was a question. “Who are you?” A heavy realization lay on him during that entire hour. “I don’t know who I am, God.” At the break he went to his car to pray. There he was prompted to write a list of the things he believed were true about himself. Many of them were negative, things not lining up with what he knew of God’s heart and character, but they felt true to him. Again, he felt prompted to write down what God says is true about him directly across from each item on his list. As he looked at them, he had difficulty believing that these were God’s thoughts of him, but in that moment, he chose to begin to believe it — to believe that God’s thoughts were truer than his own. 

He returned to the conference, scratching the rest of the evening, but shared his journaling with his wife that night before they went to bed. The next morning when he awoke, he was completely healed from head to toe; he had brand new skin! Baby skin, his wife said. It was incredible and hard to believe — no more scratching. “We thanked God and told family and friends, taking great pleasure in throwing away the old stained bed sheets,” Daniel said. It had been almost a year to the day since that first outbreak occurred as they began to study the Bible.

Rusty and Daniel at a recent School of Kingdom Ministry class

Daniel believes that God chose to allow spiritual issues on his inside manifest in a physical way to reveal the fundamental need for healing of his identity in Jesus. 

It sounds odd, doesn’t it, a spiritual issue presenting as a physical aliment? Yet, I think there are many with spiritual and emotional aliments that are suffering with physical symptoms, of depression or bitterness, for example. 

The book of Leviticus depicts a kind of skin condition, which in Hebrew is called tzara’at. Daniel felt it described his own condition. We would translate it as leprosy in our Bibles, but really it was any infectious skin disease with markings that go beneath the skin. To the ancients, such diseases were common, and treatment procedures were detailed. Historically it was understood to be an outward sign of an inward spiritual condition that needed mending. Something hidden that had become obvious and unavoidable. 

Whether it was or wasn’t, it felt true to Daniel’s healing story. Layers of his life were being sloughed off, belief systems were being addressed. Who knew that physical health was so completely tied to proper alignment with God’s thoughts? It eventually brought a whole new identity in Jesus. 

What are you scratching at today? Perhaps it’s connected to something beneath the surface.

Daniel’s story is even better than this. Contact him yourself if you’d like to hear more.