We all know the first version of any new technology — an app, or an operating system — is subject to future upgrades. We aren’t surprised when the developer releases the 1.1 version, or even jumps directly to 2.0. We might look forward to these versions that provide new benefits and uses to us, so we routinely accept upgrades when they’re offered.

Recently I felt like God was showing me that inner healing can also come in levels of upgrades. We can go straight from version 1.0 to 2.0, with the help of the Holy Spirit. Picture an energy wave that occurs as a result of an electromagnet pulse (EMP) that spreads over a whole city in minutes. That is God’s level of upgrade: instant, explosive, and exponential.

As a prayer counselor, I am interested in helping others get to that next level, and experience God’s upgrade of healing. I asked the Lord how I could actively participate in that and the response was, “Speak to the mountain and it shall be moved.”

In his article, Speak to the Mountain, Mark Batterson, lead pastor of National Community Church, says:

There comes a moment when you must quit talking to God about the mountain in your life and start talking to the mountain about your God. You proclaim His power. You declare His sovereignty. You affirm His faithfulness. You stand on His Word. You cling to His promises.

This is what the Lord spoke to my heart as I journaled:

My people are not healed all at once. They were not wounded all at once and neither are they healed that way. However, the force of my love and my healing is so strong that I do more in one energy surge of my love than multiple wounds that were inflicted. Speak to the mountain means to declare my healing power is stronger and better than the enemy’s wounding power. Declare my intentions and my might, the might of my Holy Spirit. It is not discouraging to know that healing comes in waves. What is encouraging is to know that just one of my waves does more good than all of the damage that was done. I do indeed redeem the time and I am anxious for my children to get healed, know who they are and find my calling for their life.

Speak the words of truth, declare my words, come into agreement with me and see the results. Declare my words over my children. Speak to the mountain and it shall be moved. My EMP can level mountains in one fell swoop. Mountains that took thousands of years to form, down in an instant. Ancestral strongholds gone, just like that.

I thought of Psalm 107:20 that says:

He sent His word and healed them, and delivered them from their destructions.

Then I looked for more information about an electromagnetic pulse, the picture I saw with this word. From Wikipedia:

EMP interference is generally disruptive or damaging to electronic equipment, and at higher energy levels, a powerful EMP event such as a lightning strike, can damage physical objects like buildings and aircraft structures.

The Lord continued to instruct me about His power:

My EMP destroys structures that have been built to keep my people in bondage. That is how I upgrade their healing. As a new operating system wipes out an old one and replaces it, so my healing wave brings new capabilities to my people. These upgrades will continue until you meet me in heaven so do not resist them, rather embrace them.

I understood immediately what He meant by structures. As we go through painful experiences in life, we often embrace false methods of protection to keep our hearts safe. Defense mechanisms such as hiding from life, making decisions not to let others know who we truly are, and suppressing painful memories are like spiritual forts and tents we build around ourselves.

The Lord is committed to identifying and dismantling the structures that we have built in our lives. In my book, Leaving Home — Finding Home, I recall the time when the Lord showed me the structure I had built to keep shame out of my life. I felt unprotected and of little value and had judged myself as weak. The Lord showed me that I had hidden myself inside a type of circular structure whose walls were screens.

I am inside sitting down, clutching my knees, my head bowed. Jesus is removing one of the screens and coming in. “It’s time to come out now, you don’t have to be afraid anymore.” (I think I’m so afraid that I can’t feel anything.) The Lord stretches out His hand for me to get up but I can’t. “Lord, would you help me get up?” He puts His hand under my chin and brings up my face. He is bending down on one knee and smiling at me. “I’ll get up, Lord.” I put my hand in His and we both get up. He leads me out of the narrow opening to the lake and the mountain and the trail, where we walk together. He waves His hand to show me the great expanse of the sky. I look up. We are out in the open. (page 215)

However, the Lord was not content to allow that structure to remain in place. A few weeks later He took me back to that room of screens.

The Lord is taking me by the hand and leading me out of there. Now, together, we are taking down the screens and stacking them one on top of the other, dismantling the room completely so that there is nothing hidden; rather, there is nothing for me to hide in now. (page 233)

I felt exposed and afraid to no longer have the possibility of returning there. The Lord reassured me:

“Let not your heart be troubled. In my house there are many mansions. I go to prepare a place for you. I build the room that you are to dwell in—not you. My peace I give you, peace with those around you so that you do not have to hide from them. When you are afraid like you are now, run to my house, my tower that I have built for you. That is where you will find true safety and refuge. Not the false safety and refuge that you have built. Do not rebuild those old walls. Run to me.” (page 233)

Jesus’ love enabled me to leave that structure and I have never again had to resort to the false comfort and protection it provided. As I have matured as a prayer counselor, I have learned to ask Him not only to help us relinquish our structures but also for Him to destroy them. One client saw their false protection as a scaffolding. Together we asked the Lord to destroy it. There was a pin in the bottom holding it together and the Lord pulled it out so that the scaffolding came down completely.

My experience of healing in my life has been one of continual upgrades. I have found that inner healing is not a one-and-done issue. Some have likened inner healing to peeling an onion — you take off one layer at a time. I also use the analogy of pulling up tent pegs — we have been bowed down and trapped under an artificial ceiling that is very much like a circus tent that is too low and we pull up one tent peg after another until the top can be completely stripped off of us and we can stand free and tall.

Healing is intended to continue throughout our lifetime. The Lord wants us to know that His power is unlimited and that He can accomplish more in a short time to bring about healing than we can ever think or imagine.

When I get the next “notification” from my heavenly Father that an “upgrade is available” for my “operating system” I will not hesitate to “install” it by declaring His intentions and His might.

I pray you will let His wave of power and the words that you speak take you to the next level too.