Sunday evening after church and nice nap, I wonder down the mountain to a “Kingdom Theology for Reluctant Charismatics‏” meeting at the Vineyard Boise. The meeting was for those folks who are feeling a tad apprehensive about the move of the Holy Spirit – either because of past hurts, abuses, being a afraid of the unknown, theological misunderstandings or simply because it is new.

The meeting was powerful! One of the pastors shared his testimony about the being unsure about the whole Holy Spirit deal – not because of theology (for he recognizes that God still does miracles today), but because of past abuses and hurts. Having grown up in Pentecostal/Charismatic churches, I can relate to this pastor’s story as I have seen more then one person get beat up and thrown to the wolves due to their lack of ‘faith.’

This is the dark secret of the Pentecostal/Charismatic world. If God’s healing and blessings are contingent on your faith, then when you are not healed or you do not get that ‘thing’ or ‘ministry’ you prayed for – then you must not have enough faith. Therefore, you must somehow build up your faith so that God will answer you prayers. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work, meaning that people are left feeling like losers and second-rate Christians.

Yes – I know that this doesn’t happen at every Pentecostal/Charismatic church in the world. I know I am making a strawman – but I am doing so on purpose because it is a large strawman build on facts that needs to be talked about and addressed.

But, alas I am allowing my fingers to go off topic – back to Sunday evening.

After the pastor’s testimony, we watched a video about Kingdom Theology and living the tension of the “now but not yet” (i.e. living between the Age to Come and this Present Evil Age). Ok – one more rabbit trail, I personally believe that a theology and practice based upon an enacted inaugurated eschatology framework can address the previously mentioned strawman while keeping out of the equally dangerous trap of defeatism, which a lot of Evangelicalism is build upon.

Knowing that theology for theology sake is worthless (i.e. if we are going to study the Bible, we have to let it influence our lives and our practice), the video followed by a time of ministry where the viewers were taught how to pray for each other and then released to do it. And God show up.

On a personal level, earlier in the meeting I had asked God what He was doing that night. The word “kidney” came to my mind right after that – which left me slightly dazed and curious. Pausing for a moment, I asked the Lord, “Kidneys? What’s up with “kidneys”? Are we eating kidney beans later on tonight?”

To my relief, He responded with a vision of a wilted right kidney covered in black goo. Being a tad slow on the uptake – I could understand that vision! Keeping this in mind, I waiting for a time when I could pass the word on to the pastor leading the meeting. He in turn asked the group if there was anyone who had a failing right kidney – no one moved. Crickets started singing…

“Kidney problems of any kind? Left or Right?” – I am famous for mixing up my right and left…so I could have gotten the side mixed up…. The crickets got louder….

Maybe it was kidney beans after all…. Oh well. I did my part. The rest is up to God; it is His responsibility to draw folks to Himself. Not mine.

At that point, I wondered over to some friends and joined them in prayer for something else… after that was done; I turned around to leave only to be stopped by someone with a hurting right kidney.

Yelp. A failing right kidney – I guess kidney beans are off the menu for the evening…

Wading into battle, we (there were a few of us praying) quickly determined that the physical problem had an emotional source. This is the tricky thing about humans; we are complex and interwoven. So much so that sometimes physical issues come from emotional or spiritual sources. As such, we much continue to listen to God as we pray so that we will know how to direct out prayers.

Jesus gave them this answer: “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself; he can do only what he sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does. –John 5:19 (NIV)

After a 20 minutes or so, we felt like God was saying to stop – so we did. I don’t know what the future holds for this person or if their kidney is healed – but what I do know is that for a time, they were held in the arms of the Father and loved for we serve a living, personal King who cares about every area in our lives. May He continue to guide, encourage, heal and bless this person.