Someone asked me recently during a training class I was teaching, “Does it ever end?” She was talking about ongoing Immanuel Prayer sessions. I had been doing my own work for over 6 years at the time. Weekly sessions where I go in and intentionally meet with Jesus to let Him heal those places in my heart that prevent me from experiencing His perfect love towards me. She was asking if she had to do this? So, just to get this out of the way, the first rule is you don’t have to “do” anything you don’t want to do. Jesus would never force you to do something against your will. That’s not who He is.
Now, I do admit that when I first heard about Immanuel and the concept of having a session every week, I felt the same way…”I have to do this EVERY week?…Forever?” I have to report that my feelings about this have shifted to “I get to do this every week forever!” I can set aside an hour or so every week to intentionally meet with Jesus. I can meet with my Immanuel coach, get help from Jesus and grow closer to Him. He helps me. He gets me out of the pit I find myself in so often. He heals places in my heart that need to experience Him.
The thing is…I am different since I started doing this work. I respond to situations and people differently. He is doing things in me that I cannot quantify, but I can tell you something has changed. And it doesn’t usually happen all at once. That’s not what intimacy is (actually, that’s a one night stand…). His healing is not always linear (I felt this way – I went back to a memory – Now I never feel that way anymore). Instead, the result of ongoing Immanuel sessions is this aggregate healing and fruit that just happens. I find myself noticing that I respond differently to situations. I notice areas of my life where I am experiencing more righteousness, peace and joy (Romans 14:17).
But I still have a long way to go. The focus, aim and goal of Immanuel Prayer is intimacy with Jesus. Healing is a byproduct of this type of connection with Him. If my goal can remain to grow in my intimacy with Him, I can see why I would want to set aside time each week to create space for this to happen. If my goal ever becomes healing, or some other end game, it would be a lot harder to continue on. It then becomes frustrating and feels like really hard work.
So as long as Jesus allows, or until I am with Him in Heaven, I will set aside time to meet with Him. He seems to really enjoy it!