PRAYER FOR HEALING YOUR FAMILY AND YOU
by Fr. Yozefu - Balikuddembe Ssemakula
Abstract:
Strictly speaking, fate and luck may be non-existent. We can only have but a single shot at life, and therefore our lives are treated very seriously before God. This says that our lives are much too important to be left to âfateâ and âluckâ and âcoincidencesâ by God. Most things that happen to us and our families have reasons; we never thought of any real deep ones and simply imagined there were none, just luck or fate. âBad things happening to good peopleâ has been around for quite a while, but never solved the âfateâ question. But supposing âluckâ was actually âblessingâ, and âfateâ was ânon-blessingâ, wouldnât these two seemingly mysterious words have finally lost their mystery by the time you finish reading this article?
In this article we are going to explore a whole system of blessings and non- blessings, all of which are interwoven into our lives. And the good news is that we can influence this system depending on which ones we prefer to have in more abundance, blessings or non-blessings?
Article:
Your family is beset with problems. That is to say, it is a normal family. And since you are a believer in God you have most certainly prayed to God about many of these problems. And maybe you have had the joy of âanswered prayerâ for some, some respite for others, but there are those problems that donât seem to go anywhere! They just turn in circles around you and keep on being re-presented for your consumption! Your image of God is seriously shaken because you donât understand why He doesnât seem to hear you on these particular issues. Your voice feels like a cry in the desert. If yours is this kind of situation this is the prayer for you!
From our families we have inherited blessings. Ps 103: 17-18 says: âBut the Lord's kindness is forever, toward the faithful from age to age. He favors the children's children of those who keep his covenant, who take care to fulfill its precepts.â For these family blessings therefore we must always thank the Lord!
However in the same vein, we have also inherited 'non-blessings'! Jesus once talking to the Jews will say: Mt.23:34-36; (Lk.11:49-51): âTherefore, behold, I send to you prophets and wise men and scribes; some of them you will kill and crucify, some of them you will scourge in your synagogues and pursue from town to town, so that there may come upon you all the righteous blood shed upon earth, from the righteous blood of Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Barachiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar. Amen, I say to you, all these things will come upon this generationâ. The reason Jesus says these things is not because He is in a rage and He wants to punish these Pharisees, no! He is spelling out the trouble that will come to them, not from Him or His Father, but simply from the nature of how things work! Notice too, that the prophet Zechariah that Jesus refers to had been murdered five centuries before Jesus, so surely not by these Jews in front of Jesus right now, but He says â âŠwhom YOU murdered âŠâ. For the Lord there is clearly no difference between those Jews back then and these Jews, because these are the descendant of those. These are those, and those are these. And just like in the first quote above we do understand that we can inherit blessings, from this second one we understand that we can inherit non-blessings. It is all just inheritance we didnât do anything to get either.
So we realize that there is a system somewhere here. A system that we did not make but we found already made. By whom? By the Father. Why did God make the inheritance system? When God first created us, sin was not part of the plan. So He designed us in such a way that all the good things that He had naturally endowed our first parents with would naturally pass on to their children, and for all time until the end of the world, just by the mere fact of having been born by them. A natural automatic transmission.
However satan came in, and by introducing sin into this already made transmission system for the good of our life, sin and its effects began to be part of what is transmitted by the same system! And this is how we got to where we are today, inheriting blessings on one hand, and non-blessings on the other. What was originally designed as a gift to us became a channel of unwanted problems down generational lines.
But God did not change the system even after satan had infiltrated it, He left it as He had made it because it was still the best He had in place to bless us with. But He had to bring an update to it: 1/ to give us knowledge of what had begun going on since satan came in; and 2/ by giving us a Savior. This way the system would still be used to bless a lot of people, once they are schooled into using it as originally intended, (the knowledge), and at the same time applying to it the redemptive power of Jesus His Son the Savior (His death and resurrection). Problem is, that you didnât quite know about these particular things even if you knew about the Savior.
The problem of humans not having enough knowledge of the things of God has always been around. Humans always lived a life where so much else seemed to be going on that they couldnât easily distinguish what was important from what was not, and so ended up missing out occasionally on very important things. This is not a problem only of our technological times. It was already so rampant in Old Testament times that God Himself laments in Hosea 4:6: âMy people perish for lack of knowledge!â And we wonder how much was really going on in those deserts of poverty without computers way back then? Well, humans have always been busy! We then understand that lack of knowledge of the things of God, which knowledge is often seen as âleisure knowledgeâ by many people in our world, meaning by that, knowledge you can live without, can actually be knowledge as critical as your perishing or your survival. Today is your opportunity to have that knowledge!
And so when it comes to our families, what exactly are we talking about? When it comes down to our particular families, we are talking about those negative things which you have persistently seen present in your family history from generation to generation, sometimes skipping a generation, but simply not going away! Eminent examples are in the domain of health, where the doctor asks you whether a certain disease is known to have occurred in your immediate or extended family, normally known to raise your own risk of having it as well. We are so much used to hearing this that we donât think any further. But why should we have been created with disease? Does God make us with disease? No way! Whatever God made was good and very good! - Genesis tells us. And so, disease? Two things are very clear at this point: 1/ hereditary disease is not from God, and 2/ something went wrong. Those two points can be summarized in one word: satan.
satan is the author and then co-owner (with us) of all negativity wherever it is found on the face of the earth, big or small, directly or indirectly. I hope that you the reader are clear about that. There is no neutral negativity. If it is negative then its instigator can only be one: satan. In our world of today we give him all sorts of euphemisms, from bookish names coined by human sciences research experts, but we must know exactly whom we are talking about. A human ailment having a specialized name tag to it doesnât mean then it cannot be satanâs work. And if he is not directly the cause he is indirectly the cause because all evil, sin, and death came from him. The only reason you would exculpate him is when that thing is not negative, then he has got nothing to do with it. The Lord calls him âthe father of liesâ (Jn 8:44), and again him being the thief the Lord also tells us that he knows how to do only three things: âto steal, kill, and destroy â(Jn10:10). This means that wherever you find even the slightest inkling of any of those three things be very clear as to who is around.
This is not to scare us. It is for us to know exactly what is going on, and about who it is, such that we can know exactly when and how to apply that power of the Savior which is given to us for that very purpose, to fight our enemy. Not knowing this is what leads Godâs people even into perishing (Hos 4:6), for if we hardly ever recognize satan, then we cannot fight him. He wins cool battles, without any sweat!
And so when we look into our families and see all these things that steal our strength, our energy and power, our personalities, our talent, our resources; that kill our optimism, our smiles on life, even our very people, or when we see all sorts of destruction happening in our families, we shouldnât have the slightest doubt about whom we are dealing with, or rather the one who is dealing with us? Constant disease, sky-high patience required in your family relationships, addictions, personality problems, divorces, homosexuality, suicide, accidents, your children that never seem to make it anywhere, apparent misfortunes, doors constantly shutting on you and on your family, etc, and especially, when you see patterns of these things happening over and over again in your family, there you have it. These things have a personal cause, in the sense of a person, the evil one. And these things, strangely enough, may just be going on unabated even if you always have prayed about them to God. What is happening? How does satan get all this much power to wreak havoc in my life as if God were not there, and as if I were not praying at all?! Is God Almighty really? And does that Almighty love me really? Then hey, where is He? Napping?
Know this today, that if satan can wreak all this havoc it is because he has been given the power. By whom: By God? No! By me! satan has used my freedom, the only place where God doesnât put His feet, to convince me to hand it over to him, and I did! And while God keeps back for respect because we didnât call Him, satan can be right into the door of my life and my familyâs life, and he can look back at God and tell Him: Look, your uninvited majesty, they called me not you! And you know what? God has absolutely nothing to answer to that! He cries, He moans, because He knows only too well what will come out of that contract with satan, and not in the afterlife, right in this life to begin with! But He can only wait and hope that you will change your mind, itâs all it takes. But are we aware?
But then you say: No, not me! I never invited in satan at all, I hate him with all the hate I can muster, and besides, I have always been Catholic, I like my faith, I have even been ridiculed for it, I take it, no problem, and I do all the Catholic things I have been taught to do since grade school! So, me, inviting satan?! And the answer is, âYes, maybe not you, but rather one from whom you inherited!â Remember, the system, designed for your good? And you say: âNo, my parents were/are good folks too!â And the answer is, âYes, maybe not them, but the ones from whom they inheritedâŠ.!â See the point? And it can go as far back as it can go. Not all families experience these things with the same intensity, but there is always something of it in any family that is always noteworthy if their eyes are open enough and they are aware like you will be after reading this.
The moment we have established the fact of that God-made system meant to bless us, but which ends up carrying non-blessings to us as well, we canât any more say things like: âOh, I donât care, that was the problem of my grandparents, or my parents (or anybody that I am related to), it is not my problem!â You know what Ostrich tricks are â burying their head in the sand in order not to see the problem, and therefore imagine that there is no problem? That is one of them! What your family have comes from somewhere before them, and you are part of that as well, you are them they are you.
And so satan came in with his destructive power because he was invited through agreements on ungodly things, his type of things, that were made with him to bring him in. And there can only be one solution: cancel the agreements! And you say: âHoh, I didnât make any agreements with satan, I donât know what agreements were made and by whom of my family, so how can I cancel them?â We may never know exactly what the agreements were, but we know and see their consequences. And the system will not end with you. Just like you inherited blessings and/or non-blessings, you are also going to pass on those blessings and/or non-blessings to your descendants. When those agreements were made, your ancestors didnât ask you, - you were not even there yet; you are not going to ask your far future descendants, - they are not even there yet. Our ancestors, or descendants, not being in sight did not, and does not, affect the inheritance. The inheritance is a spiritual thing not bound by time or space. It just goes on.
And so at any given moment, the ones holding the flame of the family are those who are there. And their choices for satan or for God will be the ones inherited after them. And because you are the ones there today of your family, you are vested with all the power of those who went before you in your family â simple inheritance. And so with that power you can cancel the agreements with satan of the past in your family, and strike new good ones with God for the future. It is just like how the President of the United States can undo what former Presidents did â he is the one there today. There is no better way to clean up the legacy of your family â just by praying right! Can you imagine how good and gracious God is? All that God needs is someone from your family who will rightfully take up that freedom that He gave us, because He canât touch it Himself, that is our sovereignty, and turn it around in His favor, and then He is ignited for us! At that moment satan has no more rights that he can use to block God. And all this can happen because Jesus Christ came to free us from captivity (Lk4:). You cancel those agreements with the evil one, and you take on the saving and cleansing power of Jesus. And while you clear up both the past and the future you obtain healing for the present, because you have taken back your freedom and power from the enemy, freely and consciously renounced him, and turned it (your freedom) toward God. And now with the blockage, satan, discarded, you will then see the floodgates of Godâs Heavenly powers open to flood your life and that of your family!
Must everybody of the family be around to pray this, or at least agree? No. Were you all around when those, or sometimes just one person, back there made those bad choices for which all of you paid later? The more members of your family you can have to pray this prayer the better of course, but it is not a condition. It is amazing how God can take even the least we can offer to do great things for us. He needs only one person to do it right and you will see what comes out! He needs only one excuse to bless a whole family!
I will not go here into the incredible healings of entire families that I have witnessed these past over ten years I have been involved in these family healing seminars. I hope one day a book will come out in order to be thorough about this type of prayer, but I believe that even without waiting for that you will be able to write your own book of the healings of your own family that you will personally witness while applying this prayer to your family. At those seminars too we normally provide the participants with specifically prepared follow-up prayer to continue with at home. This same prayer also does work as âemergency prayerâ for one who is not yet able to be present at the healing seminar. It is this prayer that you find in the Family Healing Prayer cards.