It came in a vision. It seems that I was driving this large bus down a highway. In the right rear-view mirror, I saw this white pick-up coming up alongside on the shoulder of the road.

As it got even with me, the truck began crashing into the door of the bus. And it kept doing this, over and over. I realized that it was an attempt to damage the door, so that no one could get on board.

At first, I did not understand what the entire incident was all about. Except, that I saw who was driving the pick-up. I knew exactly who this person was. I had been invited to speak a few days at a small church in the rural part of a particular state.

This came shortly after a period of fasting, praying and deep study of the Word. I lay no claim to being some kind of great spiritual person, but during this time, I had been given a revelation; it was concerning the “gifts” of healing; the plural.

The healing of the body, the mind, and the spirit. God had opened up His word to me and led me to scriptures that I had not seen much focus on before. Some, we all knew. “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart” (Psalm 34:18), and “He hath sent me, to bind up the brokenhearted,” (Isaiah 61:1).

Jesus repeated this in Luke 4:18 as to “heal” the broken hearted. Perhaps, we should insert here, that we have likely lived far below what we were meant to have Spiritually.

The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart. He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds. Another we quote, is that a merry heart doeth good like a medicine: giving little thought to the rest of the verse, “but a broken spirit, drieth the bones.”

We sometimes had long prayer lines for healing of the body. In the old days, a chair was placed on the floor in front of the pulpit and those who needed healing, sat in the chair as we gathered round.

In the first service, I spoke on this as I had been directed. The Spirit confirmed and moved in such a special way. At the end, I said that someone there needed healing for brokenness, in their mind and spirit.

Down the aisle, came a lady minister, her husband and two grown children. They were sobbing so much as they came toward the altar. There had been some terrible indiscretion on one part; it had wounded this family deeply. As they clung to one another in such desperation, I watched the LORD heal them; their lives forever changed.

Once source states, that emotional pain that is severe, can cause “broken heart syndrome,” including physical damage to the heart. Another, writes that a broken heart, is a major stressor and has been found to precipate episodes of major depression.

It could have been the loss of a loved one, a terribly sick child, an awful tragedy or unthinkable betrayal; even a critical mistake that one made. We never had prayer lines for that; it could have been healed. But it just wasn’t.

It was meant that many people board that bus. It was not simply my ministry; it was about the forgotten gifts, that God had placed in the Church. Gifts that would have brought total healing, to those who needed it so badly.

Years later now, the Spirit speaks to those who have been given these gifts; to those whom He will impart them to, even now.

It’s not a catch phrase, but there are broken hearts and broken spirits all around us; on every side. We can leave them as they are, or we can once more use, what the Spirit has placed within us.

 

~ Robert Blackburn

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Robert Blackburn

 

 

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