From Doubt to Sacred Partnership: How God Uses Your Brokenness in Prayer Ministry
Woundedness and doubt are not disqualifications for prayer ministry—they are often the pathway through which God teaches us to partner with Him in healing. The journey from self-doubt to Spirit-empowered ministry requires understanding that the point of reference in prayer is not ourselves, but the Spirit of God working through us.
The Miracle That Challenged My Belief
During my missionary work in Brazil, a transformative moment reshaped my understanding of prayer ministry. After a six-hour street meeting where hundreds gathered to hear the gospel, our team entered the host family's home for a late dinner. There I noticed their teenage daughter wearing a walking boot on her broken foot.
The Holy Spirit prompted me to pray for this young woman. With permission from both her and her parents, I knelt beside her and placed my hands on her injured foot. What followed challenged everything I believed about my limitations. As I prayed for her foot, she provided feedback:
"It feels hot, like it is on fire," she responded after the first prayer.
After continued prayer, her sensations shifted: "It feels cold, like my foot fell asleep". Finally, after a third prayer, she exclaimed, "I feel like I can't breathe!"
When I asked if she wanted to try walking, she stood up without hesitation, removed her walking boot, and walked around the room without any pain—the broken bones had been completely healed!
When Healing Meets Doubt
The next morning, when the girl's father came to our boat at the water's edge, I asked anxiously about his daughter's condition. "She is fine, why do you ask?" he replied.
His response to my question revealed my fear: I had doubted that somehow the healing wouldn't last. This doubt stemmed partly from my inexperience and partly from amazement that God would use someone like me. Doubt and unbelief can become significant roadblocks to experiencing God's healing power, both for ourselves and in ministry to others.
NT Wright explains that true freedom in the Spirit is paradoxical: "The more the Holy Spirit is at work the more our will is stirred to think things through, to take free decisions…". This means our doubts and questions are not obstacles to God's work, but opportunities for the Spirit to deepen our trust and refine our understanding.
The Transformative Power of Pentecost
The disciples themselves underwent a radical transformation through their experience with the Holy Spirit at Pentecost. This encounter imbued them with boldness, honor, confidence, community, and contentment. Their perspective on ministry and mission was fundamentally changed, both as a one-time event and in an ongoing manner.
Gordon Fee emphasizes that the coming of the Spirit was one way Jesus fulfilled His promise of His presence with His people. This was not exclusive to only a few, but an inclusive promise that embraced every believer. "They lived differently," Fee notes, "and are empowered to do so because they are Spirit people". This emphasizes that the Holy Spirit's work is to empower believers in bringing His Kingdom.
Paul instructed the church to actively participate in and regularly renew their relationship with the Holy Spirit. In Galatians 5, he explained that genuine freedom means consistently choosing the Fruit of the Spirit. Fee pointed out that this concept goes beyond individual holiness to demonstrate how we live in community with each other.
The Path to Freedom Through the Spirit
There exists a clear path to heal the lies, wounds, and sins in our lives so we can experience the fruit of the Spirit manifest in daily living. The power of the Holy Spirit can free us from reactions flowing from our woundedness, enabling us to act and react in ways that advance God's Kingdom.
When actions stem from woundedness, they conflict with what the Spirit wants to achieve in and through us. Paul's list in Galatians 5:19-20 includes a phrase, "things like these," meaning we can include in the list things that oppose the Spirit's work in our lives, including our pain and struggles when they stifle the Spirit’s presence. The fruit of the Spirit—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control—offers a representative (not exhaustive) picture of life marked by the Spirit's presence.
Wright's perspective illuminates this transformation. He noted that true freedom is the gift of the Spirit and the result of grace. The freedom that we have in the Spirit means that we can make a choice about whether we stay in our woundedness or not. This freedom confers agency over emotions and reactions, providing us with the consistent ability to nurture the Holy Spirit's presence.
Choosing Kingdom Reality Over Inner Struggle
When we focus on what brings the Kingdom of God rather than fixating on specific negative behaviors or thought patterns, we gain a different lens for examining our inner struggles. One question we can ask ourselves is, “Do we experience freedom to choose what is right?”
Freedom means having agency over emotions and reactions in our lives—the ability to consistently invite the Holy Spirit's presence. Fee underscores this point: "The essential nature of the 'fruit' is the reproduction of the life of Christ in the believer and the believing community". Paul consistently encouraged Christians to a deeper walk that included moving past whatever was impeding the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Walking in the Spirit provides the power to move forward in our faith to the next level.
There is a decision for us to make to turn away from the attitudes working against what the Spirit wants to achieve in our lives. When we confess that we have allowed others to define us through the sins they committed against us, the way they wounded us, and the lies they told us, we begin to break the power of shame, fear, and anger in our lives.
Growing in Effectiveness in Prayer Ministry
People effective in prayer ministry normally demonstrate three essential capacities: they can experience God's presence, hear God's voice, and steward moments when the Holy Spirit manifests His presence. This isn't about perfection but rather about learning to partner with the Holy Spirit despite our limitations.
The insight from my experience in Brazil continues to guide my ministry: God wants to use us to help others through prayer ministry, but He also wants us to realize that the reference point for ministry is not self, but the Spirit of God. Like the doubting disciples whom Jesus invited and commissioned to join Him in ministry, our woundedness becomes the very place where God demonstrates His transformative power.
When we embrace that the Spirit works through our brokenness to bring healing to others, we step into the freedom Paul described: freedom to follow the Holy Spirit and freedom to love others through the leading of the Spirit that can create a new way of life.
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This article is part of a five-part series on cultivating healthy prayer ministry. Together, these posts trace a pathway for learning to minister from wholeness rather than woundedness. Each installment builds on the last, offering frameworks, practical insight, and practical steps for experiencing the Holy Spirit’s power in your everyday life. You’ll find links to previous posts in the series below.”
Why I Want to Share a Path to Healthy Prayer Ministry
Breaking Free: How Inner Healing Prepares You for Healthy Prayer Ministry
When Hidden Wounds Block Your Prayers: Understanding Guilt, Shame, and Fear
