FOR THOSE TOO BROKEN TO CLIMB THE STAIRS

He Still Makes House Calls

4/17/02

Hi Loved Ones,

Recently I visited a building and viewed rooms that are lovingly set aside to pray for the sick. Through no fault of anyone, the only rooms available at this free location are on the second floor up a flight of stairs. That night the Lord came upon me in intercession and I felt the hearts of those who are sick and some of what they have gone through in waiting upon the Lord for their health. I share the following with you in prayer that it will give you hope as to the heart of the Lord in this hour.

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INTERCESSION

Lord, today as I am getting ready for the day, I am asking for extra grace. It is the day of my interview to be on a special prayer team. You know that I have yearned for the time when we can lay hands on the sick and where the sick could come to be prayed for. Lord, I need a lot of help, because even though I have the many wonderful gifts You have given me, and even though I have Your anointing, and even though I have spent years training to pray for the sick, I am weak in body. And Lord, today I found out that the interview is at the top of the stairs on the second floor. You know that my foot has been in a lot of pain lately and I just don’t think I can make it up those stairs. In fact, even if I got up the stairs I don’t know if I could get down. And tonight when I am in bed I will feel the effects of that climb and wonder if it was worth the pain. Of course it will be, I have waited a very long time for this. I think I can do this Lord if You help me.

This afternoon Lord as I am waiting to go to that interview, I keep thinking about those stairs. I wonder if I could call them and ask them to hold the interview downstairs. Now that would be really something: "Hello, I am coming for my interview to be able to lay hands on the sick, but I am too sick to climb your stairs, so would you mind meeting me downstairs?" What a sad parable of the condition of the body of Christ!

Tonight Lord as I lay here in bed and look back upon my day, I thank You for helping me climb those stairs. My foot hurts, but not real bad. I think I can get to sleep without the cramping distracting me. But Lord, my heart feels like it is breaking. I found out that the only rooms available for praying for the sick are also upstairs! I can feel Your Spirit upon me and I think You too are crying. Lord, for years all I can see is stairs. The body of Christ is sick and dying and they are surrounded by stairs.

Everywhere there are stairs. Stair flight one is when we find out that healing has come to town. No matter if it is the most famous healer on earth or a team of great ones, or if it is Your wonderful moving in the meetings, we climb just to get there. It is a climb because deep inside I think we wonder if You will pass us by one more time. Consequently, some have to find the courage to even come at all. Some are just too sick to come.

Stair flight two is like sitting by the pool of Bethesda. We make it to the meeting and then we wait for Your angel to stir the healing waters for only those few who can make it into the waters. Most of the time, I see the sick waiting through the songs, through the offering and announcements, through the long sermons. Oh God, they are suffering and in pain and sick and tired and they want to go home to their beds, but there is a glimmer of hope that it might be their night, and it will be worth the pain and sacrifice to sit and wait. Dare they hope that this be their night oh Lord?

And even in the hoping, there is pain and another flight of stairs just thinking about it. As one word of knowledge passes another, will they read mine tonight? Only a few left, for it is getting late. No, not tonight. Now I have to climb down those stairs, and retreat to the life I know, the life of grace to get through another day. Only this time as I descend, I wonder if there will come a day when I cannot go back, do it all again, to hope one more time. And this time as I descend, I pray I wont fight depression and despair like last time. It hurts to hope Lord.

Next time, the climb will be tougher, I have to have the faith, they told me I had to have the faith. So Lord how do I have faith, when all I have known is Your grace to get through another day… one day at a time while I wait for Your Word to come to pass? They told me the problem must be me, because You are the Healer and You Heal and You do not lie. I believe that Lord. So if I am not healed, then it must be me. So far I have climbed the stairs of repentance. I have climbed the stairs of forgiveness. I have climbed the stairs of holy living the best I could. But faith Lord? I have faith for what I have experienced in You, I believe Your Word, I believe You heal. Faith Lord? What kind of faith do I need to make this special substance that will bring me healing? That You can? That You will? That You do?

Are You mad at me Lord? I’m sorry Lord, I climbed that flight of stairs a long time ago and descended once again. I know you are not mad at me. I am so tired Lord, I don’t think I can climb another flight of stairs. I just don’t think I have it in me. I have been doing this for years. I have sought You, because I love You, I have sought You because You reward those Who seek You. I have knocked, I have run the race, and now I am a broken vessel looking up those stairs. Lord, even my very heart betrays me for I have known Your love, Your grace, Your gifts, Your intimacy, I have known so much from Your loving embrace. Forgive me again for complaining in my brokenness. Lord is there some way up those stairs?

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WORD TO PONDER: I HAVE HEARD YOUR GROANING

My dearest and broken child, how I love Your heart. You have tried so hard. You have so much courage. You have faced every obstacle against you and also disappointment; you have wrestled your self doubts, the evil spirits, the expectations of men, and oh how I love you! You have ravished My heart in your trying. You have ravished My heart in every step as you have sought to climb closer to Me and overcome the obstacles in your life. You think you have no faith, but you dear one have more faith than the healthy. For you have known a closer walk in My grace and known a side of life that few understand while lost in their busy pursuits.

You have forgotten that when I touch mankind, I bend low in mercy and loving kindness. I bend low in grace and everlasting love. It is My passion that stirs for the sick. It is My power that kisses My people. And any loving Father knows that when His child reaches up to be kissed, He must reach down and pick up that child if the two are ever to connect. Precious one, even if you climbed to the top, the stairs are not high enough to reach Me.

I have heard your groanings and I know your brokenness. All My people are groaning deeply under the load. I AM reaching down with a Sovereign move of healing and deliverance that will sweep the earth with the glory of My Love. I am not going to send My army bruised and battered and crippled, into a lost world. I am going to send My army with joy and freedom, for they are to be witnesses of My love, My power, My healing and My deliverance. They have had their tests, now let them have their testimony. They will bring a great witness of what I have done in their own personal lives and will show the world that they know first hand the God Who intervenes from a merciful, loving and gracious heart. So Beloved, do not grow weary in believing. Trust Me dear one, trust Me.

Exodus 3:7-9 NKJV

And the LORD said: "I have surely seen the oppression of My people who are in Egypt, and have heard their cry because of their taskmasters, for I know their sorrows. 8 So I have come down to deliver them out of the hand of the Egyptians, and to bring them up from that land to a good and large land, to a land flowing with milk and honey, to the place of the Canaanites and the Hittites and the Amorites and the Perizzites and the Hivites and the Jebusites. 9 Now therefore, behold, the cry of the children of Israel has come to Me, and I have also seen the oppression with which the Egyptians oppress them.

Ps 102:17-20 NLT

He will listen to the prayers of the destitute. He will not reject their pleas. Let this be recorded for future generations, so that a nation yet to be created will praise the LORD. Tell them the LORD looked down from his heavenly sanctuary. He looked to the earth from heaven to hear the groans of the prisoners, to release those condemned to die.

Thank You Papa for You have heard our prayer. We love you with all our hearts.

Sandy

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ADDENDUM

After I wrote this intercession I spent several days in brokeness and prayer. The Holy Spirit reminded me that He still makes house calls for those too broken to climb. And then as a confirmation the same day, a friend sent me a copy of a dream I had shared with her a year ago. In her letter she also mentioned that the Lord makes house calls. I knew He was wanting to add to this Word of intercession. Here is the dream given to me on 6/1/96:

DREAM

I was in what appeared to be a foreign hospital where there were many antiquated narrow beds lined up along the walls of a long and narrow room. One precious boy was laying there very frail and weak. His Mother was at the foot of the bed and saw me standing at the door and beckoned to me. As I approached, he stirred. I bent down on my knees so I could be eye level with him to love and pray for him. I asked him his name and he said it was Jim. Jim told me, "Thank you! I knew you were coming! I mean it! I just knew it! The stadium is filled with all those waiting people and you chose to come to me!"

VISION

The next morning after my friend reminded me of that dream, I was laying in bed and heard the Holy Spirit begin to share bits of His Word in declaration. He spoke things like, "By His stripes you are healed. Jesus is the King of Kings. Jesus reigns over all. Jesus comes to set you free. He brings healing and recovery." As each declaration came to me, I repeated the same phrases back to Him in agreement, as in an echo. Then I heard, "Do not be afraid." At the exact moment I heard that, I saw a vision of Jesus. He suddenly popped in and was sitting upon my bed beside me. He looked like He did on earth, and had an open jar in His hand. The other hand was dipping into the jar. It was most unusual as His eyes were closed as He did this, and I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, "I have come with a message." The message was that Dr. Jesus still makes house calls, He earnestly intercedes for us in heaven, and He is bringing His balm of healing to those in need. As I shared this with my husband that morning I told him how unusual it was to me that Jesus’ eyes were closed. He said back to me, well what does closing the eyes usually mean? I said, "Blindness???" He laughed and said, "Last night I prayed many times for you that the LORD would pray for YOU, because you were so broken. It was a sign that Jesus was praying for you!"

Ps 41:3 NLT

The LORD nurses them when they are sick and eases their pain and discomfort.

PRECIOUS CONFIRMATION

After I had written all the above, someone sent me the following story. He still makes house calls!

A minister passing through his church in the middle of the day, decided to pause by the altar and see who had come to pray. Just then the back door opened. A shabbily dressed man had climbed the stairs to the doorway then come down the aisle with lunch pail in hand. The man knelt, he bowed his head, then rose and walked away. In the days that followed, daily at noon this man knelt just for a moment then left.

Finally the minister asked him about his visits. The old man said, "I come to God’s house but I can stay only moments because the factory is so far away. As I kneel here talking to the Lord, this is what I say: "I just came again to tell You, Lord, how happy I've been, since we found each other's friendship and You took away my sin. Don't know much of how to pray, but I think about You everyday. So, Jesus, this is Jim checking in today!"

After Jim left, the minister knelt at the altar and he repeated old Jim's prayer.

One day the minister noticed that old Jim hadn't come. As more days passed without Jim, he began to worry some. At the factory, he asked about him, learning he was ill.

As he visited the hospital, he found out the head nurse couldn't understand why Jim was so glad when no flowers, calls or cards or visitors came.

Looking surprised, old Jim spoke up and said with a winsome smile, "The nurse is wrong, she couldn't know, that everyday at noon He's here, a dear Friend of mine. You see, He sits right down, takes my hand, leans over and says to me:

"I just came to tell you, Jim, how happy I have been, since we found this friendship, and I took away your sin. Always love it when you come to My house to pray. I think about you each day, and so Jim, this is Jesus checking in with YOU today!"

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Thank You Lord for this awesome Word of promise that You are going to bow low and come to us on our own level of need. And thank You for making house calls when we can no longer climb the stairs ourselves.

Lovingly,

Sandy