41. Why Praying for Others Keeps Christian Physicians Humble (and Helps You Hear God’s Voice)

Ever feel your doctor brain takes over when you pray for someone? In this episode, I share how praying for others has become the place where God consistently humbles me, quiets my medical mindset, and sharpens my ability to hear His voice.

You’ll hear the story that launched me into healing prayer, the subtle traps physicians face—performance, compassion turning into striving, identity rooted in our role—and why the Holy Spirit moves most powerfully when we surrender the outcome.

If you’re a Christian physician who wants to grow in healing prayer, hear God more clearly, and bring your faith into medicine with confidence, this conversation will strengthen you.

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Transcript

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Have you ever prayed for someone and walked away thinking, did I do that right? Did I say the right thing? Did I pray hard enough? You know, as a physician? Who loves prayer ministry. I had to really learn sometimes the heart way that God doesn't need my performance, he needs my surrender. So if this piques your interest and you have a compassion for healing, you obviously do. You're a physician and you love, prayer, or curious about it, then stay tuned. This episode will really bless you, I believe. Well, hello there. Welcome healers. I'm so excited to chat with you today about a thing that's really on my heart as a Christian physician, and I think it's gonna help you to walk in faith here, God's voice more clearly. And bring the kingdom of God into medicine. I'm Ingar Hoffman. And today I wanna share with you a little bit of a personal journey, how praying for people especially a church keeps me humble and dependent on the Holy Spirit, and for me personally, has been a wonderful tool to even really hear. The voice of God, learning how to hear from God. So I think this will really bless you because many of you have asked me. You know, I do love Jesus. Love my job. I love being a physician. I love being in medicine, but I wish I could somehow bring my faith more into my medical practice. And one of the key things I have heard over and over again with people I spoke to is. The desire, really wanting to learn how to hear from God. So I think this will bless you and I just share a little bit of my journey and what I learned along the way. A number of years ago, and if you go all the way back to the beginning of this podcast, you hear a bit of my testimony, but I got really passionate about prayer and praying for people. And here's the thing, as a physician, I did pray for my patients in the past. It's not like I never prayed for them. And as a pediatric oncologist and bone marrow transplant physician, I have seen a lot of really. Tough things, difficult situations where I was completely out of my league or where there was just no more medical advice, treatment, et cetera, to give, to improve a condition and basically. The patients that I treated were faced with death because, you know, their cancer treatment didn't work or they got complications from bone marrow transplant that were just irreversible. So I have walked through some really tough situations over the two decades doing this, and what I've learned is certainly to rely on God. But let's face it, my medical brain, oftentimes it stands in the way. So I did pray for my patients in the past, but there was one instance and I won't go into the details of the story here because it's a long testimony. You can listen to it on the first couple episodes where I essentially started to intercede and pray for a patient of mine that was a bone marrow transplant patient, a little baby. That I prayed for during. His treatment course that was very, very rocky with a horrible prognosis. That poor baby had a gazillion complications, and the Lord really let me through prayer and essentially what I called at the time, having no clue what I was saying. Prophetic intercession. I didn't really know about the prophetic, and I didn't really see myself as an intercessor until then. But what turned out to be true is that the Lord during the course of time showed me many things that I should pray for and intercede for, for complications that haven't even occurred in the natural yet. And the short of it is the patient got very sick, was basically end of life care, withdrawal of care was discussed. And miraculously this patient recovered. It's a really amazing story, so go listen to an earlier episode, this experience of healing prayer and intercession in parallel with my own experiences of healing in my body and some of my own struggles and wounds I was dealing with, really had my eyes opened up to the power of prayer. So I became very hungry and eager to. Go after this and run after prayer and intercession and wanted to learn. Literally how to do this better. You know, as physicians we are often so poised to just wanna learn more, and certainly that was my attitude. So I became a Christian Healing Prayer Minister. Through the Christian Healing Ministries in Jacksonville, Florida a ministry that has been around for four decades. I basically did four levels of training with them, and it took me an entire year to be really deeply rooted in prayer and understanding how to pray for the sick, how to pray for healing, for deliverance, for physical healing and just be available. And I think that was an important. Ground the Lord prepared in my heart to be able to serve people better. So that's how I got into healing prayer. That's sort of it in a nutshell. But this miracle with my patient, my own healing, and then starting to pray for people really just shifted my faith and my spiritual growth in a massive way. And I wanna say this as a first lesson for all of us. Whenever we have an experience where we feel drawn by the Lord to do something and we have a little bit of a result, let's say, right? So I had a positive outcome. I saw a breakthrough for my patient and in my own life to encourage each and every one of us to keep on pulling on that threat because that little step of obedience me now saying, okay, I want more of this, Lord, how do I learn? How do I dive? Deeper, how do I surround myself with people that are living and breathing and, and believing in this and are further ahead? How can I be discipled in this way? That was really making myself available and be also. Teachable to learn from brothers and sisters in Christ that have walked in this type of ministry for decades. And I've been so blessed walking alongside learning from Christian Healing Ministry, from people like Judith McNat and having her even speak at our retreat for physicians last year was amazing. So all this really shifted and put my. Trajectory in the growth in my spiritual growth on an accelerated path. And I think I talked a little bit about this in the episode that every Christian physician should have a mentor. So go listen back to that, but I don't wanna digress too deeply. So this is how I got into prayer. This is how god stewarded up a love for prayer and intercession for me and praised to be God. That was wonderful. Now, why, prayer? It has an interesting flavor for me. There's of course, my personal prayer, but I wanna focus on prayer at church. So I'm on the prayer ministry team at church because I was like, Hey. I learned all the skills. Where can I serve where can I bring to the house of the Lord? So I'm on the prayer team at my church. That means at the end of the service, I'm available to pray for people whatever they have needs for. And I have to say that praying for people has kept me. Humble and humbles me over and over again. Because here's the thing as physicians, right, we have a deep desire for people to be healed and to be set free and to be well. So that's a natural inclination of our heart. And so the other part is I have seen that God can do miracles and heal people. So I have some Evidence for it, and I believe for it and want more of that. So I have seen God do amazing things, so I have faith that he can do more and I have compassion and passion for God to move. But here is where the lesson of how prayer for people at church keeps me humble, and I think it is an important lesson for all of us. There are two obstacles that can get in my way, and those then humble me yet again. The first obstacle is. What many of us face, our medical brain gets in the way, and whenever we are faced in a situation, whether it's praying for somebody at church or whether you are believing for some breakthrough for a patient, you are caring for the clinical mindset. It's kicking in immediately because our medical brains are wired to go through the, differential diagnosis. Like somebody comes in the prayer line and they have a medical problem or, or pain, or maybe a real diagnosis, and in your mind you're sorting through maybe the differential, the treatment, the prognosis, what could be going on here. So your medical mind starts creeping in and sometimes you're wanting to solve or diagnose that thing on the medical realm, or you have a framework in your medical training that. Suppresses your faith. So for example, if somebody comes with a serious diagnosis or maybe it's a genetic condition or medical condition that basically, you know, there's not much of a treatment for the prognosis is bad, you very easily can say, I know God can do it. But, and then the medical like. Nobody ever gets better from this, or it's a genetic condition, there's nothing I can do about it. It's very, very easy for that to creep in. And you might be a strong person of faith and hallelujah, the Lord can heal people and raise people from the death. Right? Because that's what the Bible teaches us. Yet it's not that easy for our medical brain. To be turned off. So I just want you to be aware of that that you need to humble yourself before the Lord and say, I'm gonna give you that part. I'm gonna give you my medical thinking. However there is. I wanna say, and this probably a topic for another discussion, I have found that because we are physicians and we understand anatomy and physiology. That it also allows us to pray more specifically and deeper into areas and maybe think about the roots in a different way because we have medical knowledge to apply here. So it can be a positive and a negative to have this medical knowledge. But the challenge really can be that the medical knowledge overrides our childlike faith. So that's one thing, but the other thing, and that's actually probably a bigger problem, the second one is that. Because our hearts are so full of compassion, at least for me, I have such compassion and I want people to be better and I really want them to be healed so badly so that we get emotionally involved and be compassionate and. Inherently isn't anything wrong with I have compassion. I get emotionally involved, but if we are not careful, and especially if our identity in Christ is not fully rooted in him, and we have a lot of our identity rooted in US being a physician which many of us struggle with, I would say. Pretty much any physician I've ever met. I struggled with that and I had to lay that down and the Lord really had to kind of peel the layers of the onion back and strip a lot of that away. But very easily if your identity is rooted in your physician position and role, when your identity is not in Christ, all that compassion. Can quickly turn into performance, and this is really where the Lord has humbled me over and over again. So hear my heart in this, when I say we want people healed and we have compassion and we want that so badly, but we suddenly want it so badly that we feel responsible for the outcome. So that might look something like this. If I just pray the right things, if I just use the right word, or if I just pray better, they will get healed. But remember who is healing. Is it you or is it Jesus? It's not us, right? We are just the conduit. We are just the vessel. There should actually no effort be on our part in terms of trying to make something work. We are a vessel to yield to the Holy Spirit in his prompting and how we should pray, and we stand on his word that says, by his stripes, we are healed. So this is a real trap that we can fall into and honestly. It is a trap where pride can disguise itself as compassion, and again, that comes from a root, that our identity is rooted in our physician role and therefore creating performance versus our identity is rooted in Christ and sonship and daughtership, and we are. Serving in the kingdom and we are serving the Lord. And that is a big difference, but it can be very subtle and sneaky when it shows up. So I want you to be aware of that because certainly for me, this has happened. And here is what I wanna leave you with that the best prayer times that I have experienced especially after church, let's say, when praying for people of the congregation. Other ones where I just didn't expect anything. Not that I didn't have holy expectation from the Lord. It was more like I was actually pretty empty and felt like, Lord, I have nothing to give. And when I'm in that situation, which is typically extremely uncomfortable, I might not even be happy about it myself. But when I'm this model, Lord, I have nothing to give. Why am I even here? He steps in. So when I'm not feeling in the ministry mode then the Lord can usually do it much better than me trying to get myself amped up in ministry mode. Now what I'm not saying is you shouldn't take ministering to people seriously. Or that there isn't a holy preparation. You know, be in the word pray, listen to the Holy Spirit Again, if it comes out of I need to amp myself up so I can perform and do the right thing, there's probably something going on here that you need to be looking at. So just be careful with that and really be okay with being emptied out. And being in a spot to say, Lord, I have nothing left to give. And honestly, I feel like this last few years, especially this year with a lot of personnel challenges in my family, I often felt that way, Lord. I have nothing left to give. I'm trying, you gotta step in here. And that is a place where I feel like he humbles me and he shows up big time. And then you might see just a little whisper from the Lord on a Holy Spirit. The other week I was praying for somebody after the service this person doesn't routinely come to our church, I think and I don't even know exactly what her specific prayer request was in the beginning, but she has sort of multiple chronic medical things going on, and the Lord showed me this picture of the Holy Spirit of, of this woman dancing in worship. And I never met this lady, never seen her before, never seen her afterwards, but I really felt like she was worshiping and dancing. And as I got that picture and sort of shared that word in, in prayer and in intersession I learned she was a worship leader and she hasn't been able to move for a long time but she was so moved by that. And I have to tell you, these are such little things, but when that happens, you should see me in the worship service or in the prayer line after service. I still sometimes jump up and down like a little girl. Totally giddy what the Lord just did. I just jump up and down for joy, spin around and say, oh, thank you Jesus. This is amazing. So that's how he keeps me humble. Praying for people will keep you humble. So I encourage you, go start praying for some people offer you services at church, if you pray, for example, if your church has a prayer team, there might be some training involved. You have to ask, but let's say church has a prayer team to pray for people after the service, which is really not an hour long ordeal. Most churches, you pray for people for a few minutes, pray for their needs, encourage your congregational members, and go hurt your brothers and sisters. Lift them up and pray. You will learn a number of things. Number one, it keeps you humble. Number two, you will learn how to listen to the voice of the spirit. And number three, you just get to be the hands and feet of Jesus and encourage and edify your brothers and sisters. I highly recommend it. It also is one of those things where you can really bring your supply to the church, right? We all want to serve should be serving and. As physicians, we often have a hard time because of a time strip. This is a very easy starting point because it doesn't actually need much time. You show up at church anyway, and so you could stay a few minutes longer to pray for people. So that's my little story. So in summary, praying for people at church really has kept me humble whenever I feel like I don't have much to give the Lord steps in big time this is also how you will learn how to hear the voice of the Holy Spirit. So I hope this blessed you today. I wanna just encourage you don't worry about when you pray for people to do it right, or say the perfect words. Yes, there are some things that are helpful to know. Sort of etiquette and thinks about prayer and even some healing models that Jesus kind of gave us examples for. And if you are interested in that stuff, you know what? I encourage you to join my Facebook group and ask questions in there or send me an email. Facebook group is basically heal the healers kingdom. Community for Christian physicians. I will put the link in the show notes. You can also email me at inga@ingahoman.com or there's a little button usually at least on Apple Podcast where you can just actually send me a message. Yes, you can send me a message through the podcast. Send me a message and say, Hey, I wanna learn more about prayer, or, can you teach me or can you. Guide me and, and show me some resources. Absolutely. Just reach out. So with that, I bless you and let me just pray for you. I bless you in the name of Jesus that you will have eyes to see and ease to hear what the Lord has called you to do and specifically that he will guide you in your prayer time, not just in your quiet time, but actually guide you specifically. Praying for people in your church community, maybe in your home group community, in your small groups, or even at work, and that you will really be able to step into that, that you will be able to hear and trust the voice of the Holy Spirit when he's guiding you to pray for people and to give you holy boldness to actually say, I'm gonna take a leap of faith and step into this. And, just run with what I'm hearing and that you not be afraid and don't have the fear of man, but have the fear of the Lord to just be obedient. And I just seeing that a bunch of you will be just so, having the joy of the Lord doing that. And so I bless you in the name of Jesus, father, be with them. Guide them through the Holy Spirit and thank you Jesus for, for just this reminder of the power of prayer. But thank you in Lord that you are the healer, not us, that we are your vessels. In Jesus name, amen. So have a wonderful day. Stay tuned for the next episode. We're gonna talk a lot more about hearing the voice of. God, that is also what I'm planning a retreat on. I don't have the specific yet, but stay tuned. It will be a very intimate retreat, meaning small numbers because I wanna workshop some things with you because hearing God's voice is a big struggle for people, and I feel that is the most important thing we need to be doing. So. If you wanna know about that, make sure you are on my email list. I will give you a link for that in the show notes as well. So have a wonderful day. Talk to you soon and God bless.