The Practice of Prayers of Lamentation – Healing 2023

Summary

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Peter Herbeck’s talk introduces the practice of prayers of lamentation, highlighting a four-step process. This practice encourages a deeper, more authentic connection with God amidst life’s challenges.

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Reflective Study Guide Questions

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“My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”

Ps.22:2.

1. By looking at prayers of lamentation in Scripture, we can see four steps characterizing them. The first step of a prayer of lamentation is turning to God, as a son or daughter to a loving Father. How can you work on turning to God in this way when you suffering?

2. The second step of a prayer of lamentation is bringing our complaint to God from the depths of our being. What complaints might you bring to God in your life right now? Are there sufferings in your life that are too heavy for you to carry on your own?

3. The third step of a prayer of lamentation is petition, crying out to God who loves us to ask Him for what we need. What can you specifically ask God for in this way right now?

4. The fourth step of a prayer of lamentation is surrendering to God in trust. This means that we choose to trust God even when we don’t feel like trusting in Him. Do you ever have difficulty trusting God? How can you choose to trust in Him despite how you might feel?

Text: The Practice of Prayers of Lamentation

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Hello friends, this is Peter Herbeck. It’s a joy to be able to be back with you for this Pray More Healing Retreat. We talk today about a topic that I haven’t talked about too much in my lifetime, and an important thing, that is, understanding prayers of lament as part of the normal Christian rhythm of prayer, but also as a means of engaging God the Father, our loving Father, in the healing process of our lives. Let’s just begin with a simple prayer. 

Opening Prayer

In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Father in Heaven, we come before you in the name of your Son, Jesus, your precious, beautiful Son, who, by his passion, death, and resurrection has brought life to us. In establishing the kingdom and pouring out the Holy Spirit, He’s released a power for healing that was so clearly demonstrated in His life and His ministry, and that He passed on to the apostles and all those who are baptized into Him. We thank you for the precious gift of Jesus. 

We thank you for the gift of the Holy Spirit who empowers us to live the life that Jesus Himself and you, Father, have called us to. We pray as we give simple reflection today, Lord, on some fundamental aspects of seeking healing and wholeness in our lives. That your mercy and your love, your Holy Spirit, would move among us and bring healing to areas that aren’t even going to be addressed maybe in our talk this morning. But whatever areas, our friends, our brothers and sisters, who are tied into the meeting today, who’ve joined us, that the burdens they bring you would lift, Lord, that their heart cry would be heard in heaven. And that you’d release the power of the Holy Spirit and bring the power of the kingdom upon us. Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus, we invite you to move among us and bring healing of mind and heart, healing of emotions, healing of memories, healing of our bodies. As we speak of Jesus and your wisdom and your work, Lord, we pray that the kingdom would break out among us for the glory of your name, Father, and the glory of your beloved son Jesus. Amen and Amen. 

Four Step Process That Characterizes the Prayers of Lament

Prayers of lament, as I mentioned, like a third, over a third of the prayers in the Psalms. You know, the heart of, you know, the prayer in the Bible are prayers of lament. And I just want to break them down to kind of bring an understanding, kind of a simple four-step process that characterizes the prayers of a lament. And then we’ll look at one Psalm in particular, a famous Psalm from Psalm 22, the Cry of Jesus. 

So, each step is a key part of expressing the cry of lament. So, there’s three, there’s four of ’em. First turning to God, and then, from the core of our being, you know, bringing to the Father our complaint in the name of Jesus. Third, the request, the asking for help, and finally the surrender in trust to God. 

Turning to God

So, the first thing is, and it’s pretty obvious and pretty simple, but just turning to God with what’s going on in our lives, like we are. This is distinctively a Christian prayer. It’s not just a random heart cry, it’s the cry, it’s the heart cry of a son or a daughter. And we’re turning to a loving God, right? And we can do that with confidence because we’ve been established in a relationship with Jesus. We’re sharing in the life Jesus has from all eternity with God the Father, because of what Jesus has done for us. He’s given us power in the outpouring of the Holy Spirit and reception of that spirit of baptism. He’s given us power to become children of God. And the love of God has been poured into our hearts and we’re brought into a relationship with God, the Father, that’s real. And God knows our frame. God knows our humanity, and he made us, you know, he made us with our emotions and our minds and everything that makes us up. God created it and it’s good. 

So, there’s different ways in which we communicate with God. You know, we give praise. Sometimes we’re in silence before God. There’s also times when we lament, when there’s a deep heart cry, and the sheer weight of emotion, or the sheer weight of the burden or the battle that’s going on in life weighs down on us heavily, and we just can’t, can’t seem to be able to carry it on our own. And there’s quite a bit of that in human life, isn’t there? Whether our circumstances would be, you know, financial crushing burdens or sickness or family breakup, or, you know, diseases of various kinds. 

Maybe you’re living in a country, maybe in Ukraine. I wonder how many heart cries of lament have gone up from Ukrainians and even Russians and people who are sit, you know, right in the middle of this horrific war that’s going on, and so much pain and so much harm, and their whole life is essentially passing before them. And everything they’ve built, for many of them, is just completely gone. It’s collapsed. And so very, very difficult circumstances. So, we turn to a God who is love, and God understands fear. God understands anxiety, God understands anger. God understands all these human emotions and we’re meant to turn to God. You know, it can be difficult for Christians to be able to see and embrace part two of this. We all know and we all understand clearly what it means to turn to God. 

Form the Depths of Our Being

But the second is to, from the depths of our being, to cry out to God in complaint. Now, it’s important to understand a couple things. One is this seems contradictory to other aspects of the scripture. And so people get troubled by this, and they feel like, well, this is kind of an Old Testament way of relating to God. That’s not really true, but it’s understandable because you think of passages like, you know, “Rejoice always, pray constantly and give thanks in every circumstance,” right? So this seems like a contradiction, and somehow it doesn’t fit. You’re failing to walk in faith or acknowledge God as your Father, or you’re acting like an orphan or something like that. That’s not really true. 

We talk about, you know, the cry of lament and part two being, you know, communicating the complaint that’s in our heart. It’s not just a whining or, you know, maybe that’s clear enough of a way to say it, to show the contradiction. But really, we’re crying out to God because we’re recognizing we’re living within the effects of living in a fallen and a broken world in the reality of sin and demonic power at work in the world, and sometimes our conniving with it or our yielding to it, or are coming under the pressure of it in such a way in the circumstances of life that we find it overwhelming. And it’s not just like a complaining of our situation. What we’re doing is we’re bringing our deepest heart cry, the deepest distress that’s in us before our loving Father and expressing it in a distinctly human way, right? It’s to say that, you know, again, the fallen world is weighing in on us and the circumstances of it. And we might say, Lord, this is too much. This is too much. And it’s a proclamation to God, really, that something’s wrong and something’s broken, and most importantly, that it’s too much for me to carry on my own. I can’t do it, you know? 

Petition the Lord

And so the third thing then is to ask, is to petition the Lord. So there’s the turning to the Lord. There’s the articulation of the complaint and what’s weighing down. There’s the request, the asking, the petition, trusting God, right? That he wants to bring healing and wholeness to us. And so, you know, again, we can’t fix ourselves, but we ask God for help. And we realize our situation, and it’s a distinctively Christian prayer in this way that we know he’s a loving God. That question is absolutely, totally answered in the life of Jesus Christ who reveals the Father to us, and the Holy Spirit that’s in us, that reminds us, that strengthens us, that whispers to us the reality that we’re children of God. And once we cry out to God as our Abba and as our Father. So the heart cry and the prayer petition are not, they presuppose that we know God and we know God in a personal way, and we know that God is good, that he wants to hear from us in different ways, and he wants to know exactly where we are, right? And sometimes we can, in the context of it, even express anger, right? And that’s an emotion that people, “No, no, I can’t really ever do that.” The scripture says, “Be angry, but don’t sin,” right? There’s sometimes this anger and this frustration and there’s fear, and there’s anxiety and all these emotions that are present, that it’s good for us to, it’s healing to be able to say them out loud. That’s part of the healing process, really. 

Trust the Lord

And then, finally, the fourth thing is trust. We trust in God and what it means that we believe that God is a God of provision, that he’s our Father, that he’s a loving Father. The promises of Jesus are true for us, you know. He’s brought us into His relationship with the Father. Jesus said, “I’m with you always till the end of the age.” That means that the Father’s with us always, and so we know we can trust. So again, turning to God, bringing your complaint, asking boldly and choosing to trust God. Those are the four characteristics of it. Now, let’s look at a famous psalm that kind of brings it to light for us. So, I’m taking some stanzas from Psalm 22, which is a famous prayer that Jesus prayed on Calvary, right, on that whole. Really, it’s a summation of what was happening on Holy Thursday night, you know, in the garden and Good Friday, and the cry of His heart. And it begins this way. 

So, turning to God, “My God, my God.” Can you hear the heart of Jesus, the heart cry. “My God, my God. Why? Why have you forsaken me?” I mean, that’s the experience, the emotional experience and the emotional reality. You must be because the circumstances are so hard, they’re unbearable, and it might be totally unjust what’s happening to me. And so that’s the emotion and the feeling that’s present. “Why art thou so far from helping me from the words of my groaning,” right? So you’re turning to God and you can feel and sense that emotion. I remember St. John Paul II said at one point that on Calvary, Jesus, in His humanity, experienced Godforsaken-ness. He experienced something of the power of sin and darkness of a world that’s alienated from God and isolated. 

And so in some ways, Jesus, you know, He’s like us in every way but sin. So He can experience and feel those realities without yielding to them in a way that’s inconsistent with God’s love and God’s purpose for Him. So, there’s the turning to God again in verse two. “Oh my God, I cry out by day.” “I cry out by day.” But He’s also experiencing, “But thou dost not answer, thou dost not answer.” Verse 14. Now, here’s the complaint. “I’m poured out like water and all my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax. It’s melted within my breast. My strength is dried up like a potshard, and my tongue cleaves to my jaws. Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.” 

Psalm of the Messianic Figure

So, this is, obviously, in the broader context, this psalm is the psalm of the messianic figure who a lot of people didn’t fully understand, but Jesus is the one. What’s the destiny of the Messiah? That He was to come and die and lay down His life, right? And He was doing it. Jesus did it, understanding the broader context, out of love for God and love for us, obviously, right? But here’s the human experience that He’s crying out from His heart. “My strength is dried up. My tongue cleaves to my jaws. Thou dost lay me in the dust of death.” And so He’s expressing the depth of His circumstance and the depth of His complaint. “Here’s my situation, God,” right? And then He asks. Verse 19, “But thou, oh Lord, be not far off. Oh, thou my help hasten to my aid. Deliver my soul from the sword and my life from the power of the dark. Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen.” 

So, there it is, “God save me from this situation. God save me from these circumstances that are so difficult and so painful.” I mean, I think about some of the testimonies I’ve heard over the years of brothers and sisters who spent time in jail, whether it was on video or in person, people I knew, many I didn’t, you know, of Christians in China who spent time in prison, were beaten and, you know, forgotten in their mind. They had this experience of being abandoned by God at times. And they went through this on such a deep level, you know. Catholics, who in the former Soviet Union were imprisoned and some were able to meet over time and the suffering that they endured, you know, in an extended way. Some in prison for six, nine, 10 years even, you know? And this prayer would surface once in a while in the cry of their hearts. 

So, they ask, “Save me from the mouth of the lion, my afflicted soul from the horns of the wild oxen.” And finally, trust. Trust is that turning to God and saying, “God, you’ve heard my cry. I trust in you.” And there’s an authenticity, friends, to the depth of the cry. There’s a deep communication of the reality, of the depth and the comprehensive reality of the experience. And it’s a deeply human experience. And God the Father cares deeply about our entire human, our whole life, right? 

Beauty of the Psalms 

So, then you turn to God in trust, and we lean on, despite the fact that we don’t feel it, right? And in some cases they might, but many times in difficult circumstances, it’s not a feeling that carries the day, just the opposite of what we’re crying out here. But instead, what it is, is it’s a decision to trust. It’s a decision based on God and God’s promises. God’s character, God’s promises, God’s power. And so here’s the Lord, He said, “I will tell of thy name to my brethren. In the midst of the congregation, I will praise thee. You who fear the Lord, praise him. All you sons of Jacob glorify him and stand in awe of him, all you sons of Israel, for He has not despised or abhorred the affliction of the afflicted. And He’s not hid His face from Him. But He has heard when He cried to Him, but He was heard when He cried to Him.” Isn’t that beautiful? There’s just something so deeply human and whole and healthy about this kind of prayer. Thanks be to God that there’s so much of it and it’s worth doing, friends, to take up the Psalms. 

A Story About My Friend

A friend of mine years ago, actually a guy I’ve gone to China with a few times, and a tremendous brother who God has used in very significant ways to bring life to brothers and sisters in China, difficult ways. And God working with him in very powerful ways in signs and wonders. He’s a professor, not a theology professor, but a scientist. But he had a moment in his life where his, one of his little children, one of his little babies drowned. And he was absolutely crushed and with agony, he didn’t know how to respond to it. 

So, what he did is what a lot of men do, or just a lot of people do sometimes when that happens, he just drove himself deeper into his career, to try to achieve more, because that was a place where he was receiving rewards and recognition. And he just could control that environment. And then a year and a half later, he and his wife separated and divorced, which was initiated by his wife, which was unbelievably painful thing to him, and a total surprise. It happened just like that one day. 

But he shared this publicly. That night when he put the other kids to bed, he had two little ones, I think, still at that point, and his wife had left. And he said he walked into the living room and he just felt like someone had kicked him in the stomach and he fell to the ground and he was curled up in a fetal position. And he almost like heard this voice, like, take your life. Your life is over. You’ve ruined it completely. And he said he was laying on the floor, and he looked, and across the room, on the bottom shelf of the bookcase, he saw a Holy Bible. And he was not a regular Bible reader at all, you know? And he went over and he took up the Bible and he said he hardly knew what to do when he was paging through it. And at a certain point he came upon the Psalms of lament, one of the Psalms of lament in the Old Testament. 

And some of ’em come in a series, they’re in the Psalms. And he started reading them and reading them aloud. And he said he read ’em again and he read ’em again. And most of the night he was up until he fell asleep, if I remember it correctly. But he said the lament Psalms just grabbed his heart, allowed him to speak his heart cry. And he said that was a glimmer of light that came through them, and they were very powerful and very transformational. 

Bring Healing to the Heart

So friends, I’d encourage you to just, you know, dive in. There’s different books. There’s things you can find easily on YouTube that describe, you know, the lament and how to pray the Psalms of lament. But those four things, I think turning to God, you know, articulating the complaint from the heart, asking God, you know, to hear your cry and to bring freedom and healing and deliverance in whatever’s needed. And finally, a prayer of entrustment of yourself to God, ultimately declaring His faithfulness despite the circumstances that’s in our life. It’s such a precious thing, so. So that in itself, for instance, it brings a healing to the human heart, and it’s a very important aspect of healing. And so there’s also ways we can gain ground in healing and internal healing of mind, of memory, on getting free from the oppression of the enemy. And I just want to touch on two things briefly because I don’t really have the time to do too much. I came across a while back a healing prayer by Padre Pio. 

And it’s so important for us as, you know, children of God to take authority over our lives. This is one thing we can do. You know, we’re under attack by the enemy, the pressures of the world, the darkness, our own weakened flesh, you know, our fallen nature, you know, our inherited, you know, our generational sins and pains and struggles that are there. 

Padre Pio’s Prayer

So, the devil’s got a lot of ways in which he comes at us and he can attack us. And I thought this prayer, you could find this, you probably just go Google, you know, Padre Pio’s healing prayer, and it’ll probably come up, if you’re interested in it. But let me just read it to you. It’s so beautiful. “Heavenly Father, I thank you for loving me. I thank you for sending your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, to the world to save and to set me free. I trust your power and grace that sustain and restore me.”

See how he begins that first paragraph, “Father, I thank you.” This is different now, this is not a lament, this is a prayer for inner healing. “Father, I thank you for loving me.” Boy, that’s a good start, friends, to be able to have, to articulate that truth, you know, and the more we know it, the more we know in our heart, the more we can receive what God wants to give us. “I trust in your power and your grace.” Paragraph two. “Loving Father, touch me now with your healing hands. For I believe that your will is for me to be well in mind, body, soul, and spirit. Cover me with the most precious blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, from the top of my head to the soles of my feet.” Paragraph three. “Cast out anything that should not be in me. Root out any unhealthy and abnormal cells. Open any blocked arteries or veins, and rebuild and replenish any damaged areas. Remove all inflammation and cleanse any infection by the power of Jesus’s precious blood,” oh, the power of Jesus’s blood, friends. 

Paragraph four. “Let the fire of your healing love pass through my entire body to heal and make new any diseased areas so that my body will function the way you created it to function. Touch also my mind and my emotions, even the deepest recesses of my heart. Saturate my entire being with your presence, love, joy, and peace, and draw me ever closer to you every moment, Lord, of my life. And Father, fill me with your Holy Spirit and empower me to do your works so that my life will bring glory and honor to your holy name. I ask this in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

And that’s a prayer we can pray with some regularity. You know, it’s a way, you know, the scripture talks so much, friends, about our being alert, you know, to the attacks of the enemy, to live with a kingdom mindset, that the Lord wants us to live and walk in freedom. And he wants us to pray for healing for ourselves and obviously for other people. And I think just being comfortable with praying these kinds of prayers for ourselves will help us grow and be comfortable to help other people pray these very same kinds of prayers. 

And then to pray with other people as well for healing in their lives. I mean, if you prayed, you know, something like this, you know, in our ministry, we do a lot of praying for healing, our team’s all over the world, and we pray these kinds of prayers. And, you know, one of the things we do when we’re praying for physical healing, we just ask the Holy Spirit to come. And sometimes our team members will get words of knowledge, you know, they’ll pray first and get words of knowledge for areas that the Lord wants to heal, let’s say, in a crowd of people, or, you know, in a conference, something like that. And we begin there, you know, we end up praying for healing for everybody. But we begin there, where the Lord is prompting, you know, and it might say, somebody might get a word about a tumor or something broken in their body, something like that, a distinct word or words. And then have people raise their hands, you know, who are doing that. Who the words apply to directly. 

And then we ask the Holy Spirit to come, you know. We ask them first, sometimes do a little interview beforehand. Like what’s the nature of what, you know, you may have a tumor, but what kind is it? What’s the source, I mean, the reality of it? You know, how big is it? Where is it, just practical things like that. Then we just lay hands on the person. Sometimes we don’t even do that. We just pray and ask the Holy Spirit to come and then just pray for a little bit, for a few minutes and allow the Holy Spirit to work. And then, you know, sometimes people feel manifestation, sometimes they’ll feel something like heat or something on there. And if people are experiencing something after a few minutes, we ask everybody who’s being prayed with who thinks that they’re experiencing some kind of movement, some kind of healing, to raise their hand and to indicate it. And so when they do that, we ask them, you know, what was it like before, you know, we prayed with you? What is it like now? You know, what’s the difference between? And, you know, is it 50%, 75%, 100%? Does it feel like it’s 100% healed? Like sometimes people get their eyesight. We’ve done, 

A Healing Experience 

I remember doing, first rally we ever did internationally in the former Soviet Union not long after the wall went down. I was in the middle of a conference. We had our team members praying with people, had, you know, an American and then a Lithuanian on a team together, you know, one interpreter and one standing there supporting each other, praying as people were coming forward. And a young man who was 23 years old, had his eardrum blown out by standing near a tank cannon when it went off a few years earlier, blew out his eardrum. And an architect from my hometown here was there praying. And his entire hearing was restored. 

Brought tremendous kind of electricity went through the place. His parents were there and everybody was overwhelmed and celebrated. But it was just a simple faith, you know, the people getting words and knowledge, people getting clarity about it, and then praying and asking. In this case, boom, it just happened. So, there wasn’t much progress. But sometimes there is progression and there’s just a lot of good material out there, friends, where you can learn more about praying for healing for people. 

Some Helpful Resources

Dr. Mary Healy’s written a wonderful book on healing that I’d highly recommend to you. There’s some information on our website at Renewal Ministries. I think it would be very encouraging to you. I encourage you to go to Encounter Ministries. They’re very helpful. And then, of course, for different kinds of prayer, like getting prayers for freedom, for deliverance, sometimes we need help from others in prayer. Unbound Ministry is Neal Lozano, Matt Lozano, and their work in Unbound Ministry can be very, very helpful. 

A Prayer of Renunciation

I just want to end by something that’s been very helpful for me, and that is, almost on a daily basis, not always, but very regularly, I will pray a simple prayer of renunciation. You know, like the devil’s always trying to lie to us. He’s trying to keep us, you know, stuck in dark emotions, dark feelings, thoughts and things we can’t seem to break through. And it can get us into a place, we’re kind of in a pit, right, where we can’t get out. We’re just not living in the freedom of the sons and daughters of God, is mainly what I’m saying, and the freedom that the Lord wants us to have. And so sometimes we can be very passive about it. The devil gets us to feel like it’s our fault, we’re guilty, we deserve this. Whatever kind of lies he tries to bring along the way. And I just pray these simple prayers. And I thank God for the people who, you know, encouraged me to do it years ago. 

And it’s really worth doing. I do it at night, you know, a few times a week when I’m laying in bed praying, I just put my hand on my heart. because I wake up in the middle of the night now I’m older, so I get up, you know, go to the bathroom, whatever, excuse me, come and lay down. I had a problem a few years ago, not being able to get back to sleep just because of anxiety of mind and stuff like that, that I needed, the Lord needed more healing and bring more healing to my life. And I would just put my hand on my heart, because I felt like that’s what the Lord told me to do. Just put your hand on your heart. And Jesus said, “Don’t let your heart be troubled.” 

And so I started there and just praying simply and saying thank you to the Lord. Just simple prayers and welcoming the Holy Spirit. And then if I was aware of things that I was under, that I was yielding to, that I was getting, you know, beat up by, I would just start praying this kind of a simple prayer. In the name of Jesus, I reject any spirits, for example, of fear, anger, or darkness. You know, in the name of Jesus, I command you to leave. You know, just go away, you know. Take authority. And remember the devil assigns demons to people, right? And he tries to find us, you know, he tempted Jesus in the desert, remember? And then it said he, you know, Jesus resisted him with the word of God, with the truth. Jesus exposed the lie, right? He renounced, He resisted the devil’s lie, He spoke the truth, right? And the truth was there as a weapon, you know, the word of God, which is so beautiful. But we know that, it’s said at the end of that passage, the devil left, but he was going to come back again. He was going to try to find the place and the moment. 

So, there’s places of vulnerability and weakness, and this is why we have to be alert, be attentive, take authority over our lives, live with a renewed mind, claim what belongs to us, what God has given to us. Say what God says about us, not what, you know, maybe our historic generational family experience spoke about us, or what, you know, the devil is trying to get us to believe about ourselves. So other areas, I’d say “In the name of Jesus, I reject any spirits of anxiety, stress, and worry. And in the name of Jesus, I command you to leave. I renounce you and I command you to leave.”

So that’s a normal part of the Christian life for us to be alert, to be awake. And whenever those dark, discouraging kind of emotions come upon us that take away, you know, sometimes the Lord allows certain things to happen to us like that are different than what I’m saying. Sometimes there’s things like the dark night of the soul, which is a different reality I don’t want to get into, and there’s trust where the Lord wants us to just be strong in our faith, strong in trust, get some good counsel with people, and to move through what He’s doing in us. This leads to tremendous grace and freedom. That’s different than just the attacks of the devil in these dark moments, dark emotions and the rest of it that are present. And so being able to make a habit of being on the alert, you know, be alert, be sober, St. Peter said. 

The devil, your enemy, you know, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking someone to devour. You do not have to fear him at all, right? If you’re baptized into Christ and you’re living in the Lord, you know, you haven’t left the state of grace, you’re living in the Lord. You don’t have to be afraid of him. You have authority over the works of the enemy. Why? because it’s not you. I mean, one of the problems is we don’t trust God. We don’t rely on the Lord. It’s the commands, the words of the Lord that scared the devil, that caused him to go. It’s the presence of the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us giving us strength as children of God to step into the authority of the King and living in his kingdom, right? And the devil wants us to stay in those emotions. And no, I don’t have enough. You know, I’m too weak, you know, all of that. No, my strength comes from the Lord and God’s power is made perfect in our weakness, right? So don’t let the devil steal the joy of the Lord. 

Don’t let the devil steal your confidence, your faith, your stability, your hope in the plan, your confidence in the plan and the purpose, the great purpose that he has for your life. Well, friends, I feel a little bit inadequate. There’s so much to talk about in the area of healing, and I just thought I’d touch on a few of these things for you to be able to chew on. And if this is a new area for you, I’d encourage you to go to, you know, places like Encounter Ministries or, you know, Unbound Ministry or whatever. Go to these places if you feel called to step more deeply into, “Hey, how can I get equipped for this? How can I learn more about getting free and walking in the freedom of the sons and daughters of God?” You know, embracing, coming deeper into my relationship with God in fullness and exercising the gifts that the Lord has given me. Not only help myself, you know, be free in the Lord, but to help others get there, too, okay? God bless you, friends. I’m so glad you could join us. 

Closing Prayer

Let’s end with a prayer. Lord, I thank you for these few moments we’ve had together, and I ask you to send your Holy Spirit again and again to our brothers and sisters who are listening. In the name of Jesus, we stand together with one voice and we resist the works of the devil, and we command you to be gone in Jesus’ name. And we pray for the outpouring of the kingdom and the healing power of the kingdom of God to be upon us. And I pray for the brothers and sisters who are here, Lord, that you would awaken in them, Lord, the faith and the conviction, and the awareness of the anointing that we have walking in you and your authority to bring freedom and healing to men and women around us, especially at this broken time, such a broken time of spiritual combat in the world. May we be a light now to the nations. 

God bless you, friends.

About Peter Herbeck

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