A couple of weekends ago I went off mountain biking with my brother. He brought his lean mean mountain biking machine, and I brought my man of war steel clunker bike. We had just started off on our epic 30km ride over the hills and peaks high above Wellington when my front wheel stuck in a mud hole and I went a flying over the handle bars. Nothing unusual about that – just the laws of physics really.
You bike, you crash, you get up and bike some more. This time though my ribs hit a large rock and I heard a snapping sound. I had definitely broken or cracked at least one rib, and maybe two. I didn’t feel too much pain so on we went. We keep going and I sensed God was trying to tell me something – something like, “Slow down, or you’ll break something else”. Of course I didn’t (slow down), but I was mindful of staying on my bike and heading in the same direction it was going.
Later on towards the top of Makara Peak, I broke my flywheel (a bike part, not a body part). I walked the rest of the way to the top and then coasted down hill, slowly. It was very peaceful and quite frustrating. God reminded me how good I was as not listening.
The next day my ribs were hurting something bad, and it was painful to breath. I needed some supernatural help. I had been reading a book on prophecy by Kris Vallatton, who runs the Bethel Supernatural School at Redding, California. He talks about two kinds of prophecy – foretelling or seeing future events, and forthtelling which he defines as seeing a future event, bringing it to the present and activating it. This was a time to practice the prophetic and forth-tell.
I knew my ribs would heal eventually, but it wasn’t soon enough. I placed my hand on my ribs and said a silent prayer. What I experienced next was nothing short of miraculous. If you know me, you’ll know that while I believe in miracles, I have trouble believing in my miracles, even though there are many.
You broke the bonds
And you loosed the chains
Carried the cross of my shame
Oh, my shame, you know I believe it
– U2
So as I prayed I felt my hand weld to my side, and then a feeling of what I can only describe as concrete being poured through my ribs, and then a fusing and knitting feeling. My ribs were healed, they no longer creaked. I still had quite a bit of muscular pain, but that’s disappearing too. So to top it off, I shared my story and had some prayer at church which was really just the icing on the cake.
Mr Google tells me that it takes anywhere from 3 – 10 weeks for ribs to heal normally. God took 5 minutes, shifted my perspective, and healed that which guards my heart.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
– Psalm 147:3
Somehow, I wasn’t surprised, I’ve always served a huge and mighty God and it was the most natural thing that his supernatural healing happening to me. I haven’t really told anyone, because I haven’t really felt the need. God is able, God can heal and He does. All of this points to God’s glory to do abundantly more than we ever ask for or imagine. It is all about God, and not about me or my ribs.
May you this week recall that all authority in heaven and on earth is at your fingertips. Jesus said to us that greater things will we do than he did. Do you believe this? May you experience God’s love and activate that which you need for yourself and for others. Know that this is about demonstrating God’s glory.
Healer of our Heart
You bind our wounds
By you love
You bind those things
Loosed in Heaven above
You heal our hearts
By your might
Your keep up safe
In the depths of night
Through signs and wonders
You showed the way
Greater miracles we’ll do
Through the words we say
All authority from Heaven
Falls in behind you
In each prayer you speak
In everything you do
Healing in of itself
Is one part of the story
What matters most?
Reflecting God’s glory
Poetry in Motion 
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