It was a dark and stormy night, filled with the sound of voices and….
I mean, it was one of our last nights as a squad, so close to coming home, and I was trying to absorb the moment, one of our last together. And then they invited….
Well, maybe I should start a little further back in time.
At the beginning of November, I hurt my knee. I’m not sure how it happened really. I just noticed after doing a short workout one evening, my knee got sore. The next day I did another workout, and my knee got more sore. Pivoting on that leg, kneeling, squatting, and jumping became really painful.
And of course that made ministry “fun.” Climbing into the back of a big van in a squatted position and lowering myself to sit on the floor of the van became a challenge. Trying to lower myself from that hip-high van gently without jumping, pivoting as I shoveled rocks and dirt, or just bending to pick something off the floor… lots of fun, involving holding my breath against the pain. Smart-person-that-I-am, I kept trying to exercise, just avoiding all squats and jumps. Running was (ahem) tolerable. 
So the pain was around for a few weeks. It got to the point that I tried a workout with my team one morning at final debrief, and I had to quit after the warm-up. Too much pain.
Silly knee, just do what I want you to do!
That same night, as I was soaking in the moment of worship with my squad, they invited people to come up for prayer. I went up and asked them to pray for my knee. Squadmate Bri Lomas prayed for me. Then good ol’ squad leader Sam came up. I squatted to get a marker for how much pain there was. And oh man! The pain nearly took my breath away, just a bit. Sam placed his hand on my knee and began to pray. Then Benita put her hand on my knee and prayed. And when Benita put her hand on me, I started to feel a weird tingling all over the front of my knee. Then she left, and Sam continued praying. We worshiped and praised the Lord together.
Then I squatted again. The pain was half as bad, with only pain at the back of my still there.
Sam put his hand on the back of my knee and started praying again. The tingling came again, this time at the back of my knee. Again we praised and worshiped the Lord for all His greatness.
Then I squatted again, and yes, you guessed it. The pain was completely gone! Yay!
JESUS HEALED ME.
The next day, I dropped something on the ground, I started to bend down in the way I had been using to protect that bad knee. Halfway down, I remembered I was healed. So I squatted for it like a normal person, still painfree.
Finally, I get back to the USA, enjoyed a couple Thanksgivings with people. And of course, I got back to exercising. Right away, my knee was sore with every exercise and every run. Not terrible, but enough to make it all pretty uncomfortable.
After a couple days of this, I got fed up and yelled at my knee (very quietly 
),
“No! You are healed in Jesus name. Pain, get out!
And it did.
Spiritual application? Why yes, I have one.
Sometimes when Jesus heals our heart, our spirit-man, we can forget and make choices as though we are still wounded. Just like I bent to pick something off the ground, automatically trying to protect my knee from squatting, so we also make choices to live with a protective posture, even in situations that will no longer hurt what’s been healed. We don’t go certain kinds of places or do certain kinds of things or make friends with certain kinds of people because once upon a time, it hurt a lot. Yet we’re healed and we know it won’t hurt us anymore. Still, habits are hard to change.
Or what about when the pain comes back? Does that mean my heart wasn’t healed? No. It just means I’m hearing echoes of my past pain. We need to possess for ourselves what God has already done! Yell at the stupid thing to be obedient to Christ who healed it!
Simple, it is not.
But we must fight for the freedom and healing we know He has given us.
We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Corinthians 10:5)
