The spiritual gift of partial healing

A couple of years ago I developed a desire to grow in the spiritual gift of healing. Like many of us, I had always had the false notion that when it came to spiritual gifts, you either had them or you didn’t. If the spiritual gifts lottery went well then you had the exciting gifts – like healing, miracles and so on. But if it didn’t then you were left with the naff ones. Think administration or serving. Don’t judge me lol.

But as I studied spiritual gifts further, I began to realise that they don’t work like that at all. Understanding how they actually work is the key to the church being empowered spiritually. Which does somewhat seem like a good idea.

Before I share what happened in my journey, let’s uncover two key ideas. Firstly, even when someone is given a gift – natural or spiritual – you still have to work to develop the gift. Secondly, even if you are not especially gifted in one area, you can still get better at it.

I like to turn to a gift that I know well and that many people understand to some level – let’s call it the gift of music. With all humility, I am musically gifted. I started learning piano at age 7 and I distinctly remember writing songs from a super young age. I used to make up ‘diss tracks’ round the house to annoy my older brother. Just classic 7 year old stuff. Later on I picked up the electric guitar and taught myself. I had spent my whole life not knowing I could sing and accidentally stumbled upon it as a teenager. Today I write and produce music. You might like these bangers.

I can clearly see in my musical journey that although I have been gifted musical ability, I have still had to invest a significant amount of time and energy into developing musically. Now that I have kids, I can see that at least some of them have a good ear for music. But if they wanted to (said with a hint of parental over achievement) become professional musicians, then they will need to develop their musicality. As a teenager, I used to sit and play my guitar for hours and hours. Today if I pick up a guitar and strum a few chords, you are sitting on the other side of decades of practice. And you can hear it. The chord choice isn’t super basic. The strumming pattern is gentle yet purposeful. The ability to feel the atmosphere in the room and attune dynamics and so on.

For all who are ready to move on from my own portrayal of my musical exploits, do not fear. We are about to. But I think the natural world (including music, sports and so on) can so easily show us a self-evident truth. Gifted people still work hard to develop their gifts.

I spent several years teaching music and still spend a reasonable amount of time in church life developing musicians. As a church leader, I often felt a strange pressure to not be involved in the music as if it was somehow below my station. Now I realise that it’s a gift and I shouldn’t let my ego get in the way of serving others with it. In doing so, I have had the privilege to work with lots of gifted individuals. And I have also spent a lot of time with not so gifted individuals. Because let’s be honest, not every member of the worship team has the same level of skill.

Take singing for example. This example performs best outside of written form but let’s have a go. Singing is literally elongated speech. If you say this sentence out loud but veeeeery sloooowly then you are technically singing. Vary the pitch and the rhythm and we’re almost there. Whilst you’re not going to sign a record deal, the point is that singing can be broken down in ways that mean that everyone can sing, albeit to a different degree.

That’s because although some people are gifted specifically as singers, in actual fact everyone can and should sing. Singing is fun. Singing round the house. Singing as part of a congregation. Singing to your kids. You don’t have to be Thom Yorke to be able to sing or even get better at singing. But if you’re not musically gifted then there probably is a ceiling to your singing.

At the heart of understanding spiritual gifts is an important word that none of us like: practice. Everyone who practises gets better. If you want to get better at singing, then practise. If you want to get better at football, then practise. So let us return full circle to spiritual gifts because of course this is not an article about music or sports. It is my firm belief that spiritual gifts work exactly the same as natural gifts and I believe I can prove it to you.

Some of us are prophets but all of us are encouraged to prophesy (1 Corinthians 14). Some prophecies might involve grand specificities like your mother’s maiden name or historic trauma. Other prophecies are as simple as telling someone that God sees them and cares for them. Anyone can do that. Some of us are spiritual gifted healers, we have unusual faith in God’s ability to heal broken bones, cancer and serious disease. But every single person can lay their hand on a person’s shoulder and say, ‘Be healed in the name of Jesus’.

This is where my healing journey began. I decided I was going to start developing this spiritual gift, despite the fact that I am in fact not gifted in this particular way. I committed myself to practising. No one wants to start at the beginning but I realised I needed to humble myself. I was having conversations with friends after church and someone would mention their ankle or shoulder. And I’d ask if I could pray for them. They would always say yes – so I did. I’d take a moment to get a sense of God’s love for this person. And then I would command healing. Very simply with no hype. Then I’d ask them how they felt and honestly the results were shocking.

A very reasonable percentage of people were healed or partially healed. For an overachiever this is terrible news though. I’m kind of like a 100% only healing kind of guy. What will people think of me? But that kind of mindset was exactly why I never stepped out in healing much before. Isn’t 35% or 15% improvement worth it? Or is it all about me?

It’s our fear of getting it wrong or how we are perceived that stop us from building up the body in love. It’s easier to hide behind the idea that we either have it or we don’t, instead of stepping out in faith. I believe that if we stir up boldness to start practising, we might just see God move through us in a beautiful way.

Now I like to joke that I have the spiritual gift of partial healing. Here’s to growing and learning. I’ll leave you with the encouragement of Paul in 1 Corinthians 14:1 which sums up the heart of this article:

1 Corinthians 14:1:
“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.”