I’M HEALING KNEES

One of the most consistent questions I love to ask God is what's on His heart for Sunday. I like to ask this in many ways, but it usually sounds like, "Jesus, what do you want to do this Sunday?” Even if I don't hear an answer immediately, I love posturing my heart to desire His. Just as we see in the letters to the churches in Revelation, Jesus has opinions, desires, and ministry He wants to do. So, may I encourage you to take a risk and ask Him, "Father is there anything you want to do this Sunday?”

At the time relevant to this story, I was in a season of practicing asking this question. I would hear or sense an emphasis in the passage that would be preached or would even hear a fruit of the Spirit (i.e. "peace"), but I had never heard Him tell me what came next. That week, I heard: "I AM going to heal knees." 

I did that look of... “Did I just hear what I think I heard?” I even think I stopped walking. I heard it again, "I AM going to heal knees." I said out loud, “like physical knees?!" I even pointed to and gently tapped my own knee to clarify, "Jesus, we ARE talking about this." I heard "yes." 

It was so new to me that He could do that. Not Biblically, of course, but when you hear that from God for the first time, it carries some awe. Furthermore, I honestly knew no one with bad knees at the church. Our church is mainly made up of young people in their twenties and thirties. One way you can recognize what you are hearing in your mind is God is by acknowledging that you wouldn't usually think that specific thought. 

After I heard Jesu say he would be healing knees that Sunday, I sensed Him tell me that He would prompt me "when to release the healing." Instantly I felt these three things: 

• One. What if He doesn't show up and do it? 

• Two. I started thinking: “Maybe I need a psychiatric evaluation.”

• Three. What if He DOES do it?

I have never seen healing done publicly. So, as I often do, I decided to call Ryan, my friend and pastor, to discuss the above. Our conversation went like this:

James: "Hey… bro… I'm so excited for Sunday! So, …you know how I'm practicing hearing God's voice?" 

Ryan: “Yes"

James: “Well, I think I may have heard something very risky, but I think it's Him. So please, please test this, but I think I heard Him say, 'I'm healing knees.'" 

Ryan was so supportive and wise and said, "let's see if, on Sunday, God leads in us to do it.” I am so thankful for a pastor who wants to do what the Father says but has also walked through ministries that have tried things that God wasn't doing. Risk, for risk's sake, isn't biblical. But to risk when His love is being revealed in guidance is so biblical. In other words, faith partners with God’s heart and risks if there's a prayer revelation of what He wants to do. Showing up to make God do something by ‘taking a risk’ can bring much harm.  

So finally, Sunday comes. We get to the service, and as the band plays the last song before the service ends, I hear in my mind repeatedly, "I'm healing knees," "I'm healing knees.” At that very point, I remembered God said He would prompt me on His timing. I can't tell you how nerve-racking it is to approach the pastor and a large group of people, risk and say, "God is healing knees." UNLESS YOU KNOW, He's doing it. So I walked over to Ryan and said, “I think God is still healing knees.” Ryan looked at me and said, "the fire of God is on me," we both smiled, "well, this is new," I said, "I don't know what that means; you go up there." 

So I put the mic in Ryan’s hands and immediately see this young lady in the front named Kim, who begins to feel God's presence, and Ryan starts to speak over her with so much love about her destiny and her time not being done (you can watch the video of this, below). The whole room could feel the Holy Spirits' love move within and over her as she started crying in His presence. Ryan then walks towards me with haste and gives me the mic, so I walk up to the front.

I closed my eyes (to be honest, half of me was just too nervous to see the potential of nothing, but the other half wanted to get into that secret place with Jesus). I then just said, "God is healing knees." Kim immediately fell to the floor and knew it was a healing for her. I didn't realize she had a bad bike accident seven years ago, derailing her life as a soccer player and runner. She's become a dear friend, and when I asked her if she'd allow me to share her story, she said, "I went to University on a full-ride soccer scholarship and then went on to play professionally in North America and Europe for nearly seven years.” When she crashed off her bike and landed on her knee, it stopped her from playing soccer and gave her daily pain for seven years.

What was more beautiful than Jesus touching her knee that day was what that healing meant to Jesus. He saw her. She told me later, “I was feeling a little confused at that time in my life. "I sometimes wondered if I was disqualified from what God had for me or what he wanted for me. I just generally felt a little unimportant and maybe a little unseen, to be honest. So what happened that day was much more than the physical healing of my knee. It was a healing of my heart, my soul, and my mind."

The healing pointed to Jesus’ work of love. Below is the moment this happened to her. But also the journal entry she graciously released for us to read. I believe that as you read this, the presence of Jesus with Kim can bring the same healing and love into your life.

This is what she shared with our church the following week.