Are you blocked? Do you find yourself stymied despite prayer? Are you butting your head against a wall?

This especially happens when we seek to be healed. We just can't shake whatever it is that afflicts us. It doesn't seem to occur. Or, in our work, in our families, in our general lives, we seem predisposed to failure.

There is such a thing as redemptive suffering (please underscore that), but there are many times that we block ourselves by believing our affliction is inevitable and that it is always God's Will. In fact, there are many times -- perhaps the majority of times -- that it is not God's Will and instead comes from the enemy.

God is a healing God. He is the Lord of miracles. Much of our affliction comes from Satan. Time after time, Jesus cast demons out of those He intended to heal and this makes us know that many diseases as well as other problems are dealt with once we realize that we are being blocked by a lack of faith, unconfessed sin, grudges we hold, and thus by the devil.

Sound farfetched? Then the Bible does also. In speaking of healing, James 5:14 tells us to "confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, so that you will be healed." In Psalms (107:17) we are told, "Some were fools, suffering because of their sins and because of their evil." In Jeremiah 5:25 we hear that "your sins have kept these good things from you."

Sin blocks God's blessings!

Notes writer Bill Banks, when we sin or lack love, when we harbor anger, "unforgiveness," or bitterness, when we have pride or an involvement in such things as pornography, materialism, and the occult, "we expose ourselves to the agent of Satan, rather than to God, by such action." We give the enemy a "legal right" to attack, to gain a "stronghold" in our lives.

That can manifest physically.

As it says in Ephesians (4:26-27), "Be ye angry and sin not; let not the sun go down upon your wrath: neither give place to the devil."

Through such things as anger and especially pride we block God's blessings. In so doing we invite in the evil spirit, who, as Christ showed, is the destroyer -- a murder from the beginning, the spirit of affliction.

Name him. Cast him out by description. Throw the devil out in the Name of Jesus!

If there is an intractable problem in your life, don't despair. Don't give up because prayers haven't "worked." You don't always have to be sick. It is not "inevitable." What you need to do is pray to the Holy Spirit to reveal what is blocking you and then cast that blockage out!

There are spirits of failure and spirits of distress and spirits of loneliness and phobias and just about anything negative. If you are in a snare and going around and around, if you are on a treadmill -- if you can't break out of a negative cycle -- cast away the personal force that may be blocking you. Often this is crucial before there can be a healing.

Do so during Mass. Do so while praying the Stations of the Cross. Do so especially while receiving the Precious Blood. If it is a severe case, do so under the guidance of a priest.

We all die, yes, but God wants you whole and to have the fullness of years. He doesn't want you wasting away. When that happens, especially in youth, the focus must be on casting out the spirit of sickness  or whatever spirit may be afflicting you.

As Scripture indicates, such spirits can come in countless ways -- through family lines, through our own darkness, through the course of worldly interactions. The prince of this world is Satan and Jesus came to defeat his works (among them infirmity). That's why we see in Isaiah 53: 4-5 -- in the prophecy of His Coming -- that it says "through His stripes we are healed." His Resurrection showed us the victory!

That victory is encountered during prayer. It is encountered when we fast. It is encountered during the liturgy.

Christ died for our sins and that implies that He also died for our infirmities. He was and is the Great Healer. Says Matthew 8:17, "He did this to make come true what the prophet Isaiah had said, 'He Himself took our sickness and carried away our diseases.'"

Clearly Christ came to heal; it is the devil who was "a murderer from the beginning." The Lord came to give us life and life more abundantly -- which has nothing to do with material wealth but everything to do with well-being.

Such is all but ignored in our times, when the secular has pervaded Christianity and quashed the Spirit. Many Church leaders dismiss the gift of healing! Yet it is time to reflect upon Scripture. "Bless the Lord, O my soul," says Psalms 103:2-3, "and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities; Who healeth all they diseases."

We have to believe even when the devil tries to steal away our faith. To get unblocked it is crucial to address the issue head on and to persist.

It is also important not to fear. Fear too comes from the enemy -- and is faith in him. "And we know that fear is not from the Lord. For God hath not given us the spirit of fear..." notes 2 Timothy 1:7.

"For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me," says Job 3:25.

When we get rid of fear -- which may be the block -- a whole new world opens before us (a world of brightness, a world of healing).

For some, purgatory is suffered here on earth. There are martyrs. Again, there is redemptive suffering. There was Job himself. Paul suffered a thorn in his side. Jesus demonstrated that there is suffering on this earth when He told us to carry our own crosses on a daily basis. When He suffered, it was according to the Will (or "cup") of the Father.

But too often it's a simple block, not God's Will, and we need to get unblocked, believing in the power of God no matter what religious "experts" say.

If bad things keep happening, if there is block after block, if it is piling up, if there is one illness on top of another, if it all comes in the midst of other upheaval, it is probably the enemy at work and remember -- always -- your power in Christ to defeat him!

Is there a block in your life? Is there something intractable?

Cast out the spirit of this world (I command all evil spirits away, in the Name of Jesus, I command all evil spirits away, I command all evil spirits away), persist with that, pray without ceasing, pray, pray, pray, fast -- and watch how the Holy Spirit lifts it.

08/12/05

[Bill Banks has written a book called Overcoming Blocks to Healing, which we will send upon request]

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