Psychiatrists for Psychiatrists

Psychiatrists for Psychiatrists

by Dr. Bill Reed and Gertrude Dekock Keehn

Transcribed from the original recording; may contain errors.

The first question is to explain how one fuses one’s love with God’s love. And I would like to just briefly state what I think about this, and then I’d like to ask Gertrude to give her a feeling about this. Now, this again is a matter of will. And of course, when we do evil, we actually do it willfully. We know when we’re doing bad. We know when we’re doing good. And so fusing one’s love, my small love with a small L, with God’s love with a capital L, is just simply a matter of throwing myself into the wonderful pool of God’s love. It’s almost like standing on the edge of a swimming pool and being afraid to plunge in. But it takes an act of the will when you jump into the water. And I believe that one fuses his love with God’s love by getting rid of himself and letting God’s love pour into him. Then our little love gets so filled with His love that we have His love. And that’s the important thing. Our little love isn’t worth too much, really. It’s very important to us when we’re living in the kingdom of the world, this little love. But when we divest ourselves of self and let God’s love pour through us, then His love, His wondrous healing love becomes ours. And this is what the Christian must have. This is what we mean when we say how wonderful it is to see how these Christians love each other. But it’s not the kind of love that Hollywood talks about, or that you read about in the magazines and so on. But it is an all-powerful love. And God Himself is love, you see. When you open yourself up to God’s love, you’re opening yourself up to God. And this is the love which casts out fear. It’s a wonderful thing.

Of course, when you heal in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, or when you go through the various things that bring God’s healing power into an individual, it’s simply a matter of divesting yourself of self and letting your small love be filled with His love, an open channel, open at both ends, receiving and pouring through into the individual who needs to be healed through God’s healing love. And I think that how you can judge whether you are loving with your love, whether you are loving with God’s love, or a limited human love, is to study your motives. In which way are you offering? In which way am I loving? In which way am I offering this love? Do I expect something out of it? Am I loving because I want some love back? You see, God’s love, although it becomes a personal love in each one of us, yet it is an impersonal love. And He pours His rain and sunshine on the just and on the unjust. See, this is really the way we can judge whether our love is human or divine. And you know, the average man and wife will say, “Well, I’ve given her love all this time, I’ve given him love all this time, he doesn’t seem to care about me, he never brings me anything home.” Well, do you give him something so that he should bring something home?

Now that’s a very simple little illustration, but most people are looking for things back because they’ve given it. And God never does. He just says, “Enter into this love which I am. And then you will love with the love with which I love.” You see, God isn’t looking for anything back. He just wants us to enter into that love which He is, forever giving, forever going out, flowing out. People say, “Doesn’t it flow back?” You know, I don’t look upon it like that. I say it’s forever flowing. Now if it’s forever flowing, it’s forever flowing to me and through me. Not waiting for it to come back. It’s always flowing out. So it must be flowing towards me to go out. But not back this way. So when we really want to know, what kind of love is it? Let’s just take hold of the motive and say, “Why do I love? What is it? Why am I doing this? Is it with pure love or is it because I think I get something out of it?” And I think that’s the way you judge which is your love and which is God’s love. But I think any husband, wife, friend or anybody else knows when it’s God’s love. I know I do. Well, I just have this one little question which I don’t think I need answer actually here. It says, give an example of how you meditate. Well, we are going to have the last 15 minutes of meditation and that will be a practical answer.

I’m going to combine these two questions. The first question is a prayer for healing. In a prayer for healing, is it not possible to lose sight of the spiritual healing which may be of greater help and preparation? And second question, are we justified in applying extraordinary or heroic measures merely to sustain a spark of life in an old, helplessly ill patient whose time to die has come unmistakably? How do we know when our time has come? Should we stop praying? Well, first of all, I believe that when we pray the prayer of faith, when we know Jesus, let’s not be mistaken about this. I don’t think people ought to be involved in the ministry of intercessory prayer unless they are of Jesus, first and foremost. If you’re questioning about your faith and so on, for goodness sakes, and you haven’t accepted the Lord Jesus Christ into your life, don’t go out and pray to Jesus that someone be healed. You have to preach and you have to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ whom you know, not the Lord Jesus Christ whom Paul preacheth. Look that reference up in the New Testament. You must pray to Almighty God through your own knowledge, your own walk with Him. Then what happens is, I am sure that this being the case, that you as a powerful intercessor can do wonderful things, even though I think many times the patient is not saved. We discussed the term saved yesterday, but we’ll use it in the broad sense. If the patient is not saved, even if they happen to be as this one patient of mine was, a Jewish patient, a wonderful religious Jewish patient, I might say, who could put our faith to shame. And yet I prayed in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ that she be healed. And she was. She was healed. Her case history is in the January Christian Herald. But the first thing that happens, I think, is spiritual healing, healing of the soul. And that happens, I’m sure, immediately. This is the thing. People say, well, now what if people aren’t healed? If someone goes away and they’re still limping and so on, everybody’s faith in the audience or in the church will be shattered. But you don’t know what’s happened to that person’s soul when they suddenly are flooded with the love of Almighty God. This is the spiritual healing. Then it goes on into the body and to the mind. And the physical and emotional problems are solved in due time. I believe that it’s possible for the whole disease process to go through and be compressed. After all, what is God, what is time to Almighty God? He can take a disease process that might run a course of a year and compress it into a moment. Because what is time to Him? He can run this entire course and be healed just like that. I don’t limit God in any way, shape, or form. I believe that He can do this. And I believe that this has been seen many, many times in the ministry of healing. Well, now what about the person for whom we pray, who is lying there?

He’s old and the spark of life is being maintained and so on. Well, of course, we never really know, do we? It says here, His time to die has come unmistakably. But I have been in the situation too many times where the small I has said, well, there’s nothing that can be done. That child, well, Lord, what can I do? Well, let’s pray and have the child come back. Well, this is an old, old person. But nevertheless, it’s not up to me to decide that I must pull the cord on the oxygen tent. I believe this is written up, if you want to read something interesting, read the Harper’s Magazine supplement of last fall called The Crisis in American Medicine. And in there’s an article by one of the theologians at the Episcopal Theological Seminary in which they discuss a case which states the following, that the person had the terminal pneumonia or severe pneumonia. And in order to control this pneumonia, they’d made an opening in the trachea. And the two doctors and the hospital chaplain were discussing whether or not what they should do about this patient. And this man who wrote the article came up and he got involved in the discussion. He said, “Well, of course, you know the answer, don’t you? This man is going to die.” And so he said, that the thing was handled properly. They went in and pulled the cord on the oxygen tent. And the chaplain went down and told the wife that everything possible was being done and that they had placed the patient completely in God’s hands. Well, now, to me, that’s taking something in your hands. We must do everything that we possibly can for the patient because we don’t know when their last moment has come.

Too many hopeless people have suddenly rallied and come back to life. I don’t believe in an elderly man. Here’s an empiric example that I think perhaps this can be stated true. This happened to be a member of my own family. He was in his late 80s and he had been unconscious for a long, long time. And we, of course, have been praying for him. Even my little son prayed every night for great grandpa. But one time when he was severely ill, I said to his doctors, well, now look, there’s no point in your going through giving him a tremendous number of antibiotics. Let’s just put him in God’s hands in this particular instance. He has had all of these strokes and so on. We’re going to continue praying, but I don’t think we need any heroic medical measures in this instance. In this case, we hadn’t hardly even left the hospital when they immediately started him on antibiotics and so on and preserved his life. And I think in that particular instance, it was wrong to do this. I believe that this was untoward heroism in his particular instance. But I believe that we must always pray. We should never stop praying. This is what a person says. Should we stop praying? Never stop praying. And never stop conversing with that person and telling them that God Almighty is with them.

Many times what they need more than anything else is someone to come in there and pray out loud and to tell them about the healing Christ. But I, on the other hand, I believe it’s wrong to go and pull the cord on the oxygen tent as it was done. We’re talking in the field of euthanasia here. And before anybody ever gets involved in this sort of thing and taking men’s lives into their own hands, they must pray and pray and fast. If you have the idea in mind that you should stop praying for somebody, get down on your knees and fast and pray for two weeks to see what kind of answers you come up with and listen to Almighty God. I can’t give you the answer to the complicated individual instance, but I believe this, that there are those instances in which medical heroism is contraindicated. But I believe there is never an instance in which spiritual heroism is contraindicated.

This question reads, when we ask the Father for help with a problem, do we, and turn it over to Him, shall we stop praying? Well now friends, this says when you’ve handed it over to the Father, if it is handed over to the Father, really handed over to the Father, the only reason you would have to keep bringing the problem to Him was because you didn’t leave it with Him. But how I, when I have a problem of any kind and take it to Him, there seems to be a kind of feeling, well, He has taken over and He’s going to handle this. Now, what is my attitude after that? If I were to lose my faith and think He isn’t doing anything about it, or perhaps He didn’t hear, to establish my own faith, I must keep praying. But if I have handed this over to my Father, this is what I would do each day with the problem perhaps still there. “Oh, but how wonderful You are handling it. Thank you, Father.” I would build my joy and my expectancy with thanksgiving. And therefore you are praying then on a… you’re still praying, but you’re praying on a different level. To the first prayer you prayed in anguish, when you had to struggle to hand it over to Him.

But hand it over, keep handing it over if you’re taking it back. But I have truly learned through the years that if I give it to my Father, you know, like that, it’s wonderful. Like a little child, you know, who’s building blocks, he can’t possibly build his house. So he says, “Oh, Daddy, please come and help me. I don’t know how to build this house.” Now his Daddy comes along, sits down on the floor beside those blocks. What does that little fellow do? This.

That’s all the little fellow does. Daddy’s going to build my house. Now, if we have that reaction to praying and handing over our problem to God, the only thing then is thanksgiving with expectancy. And that is learning to claim or receive that which you have entrusted God with. The next is, when you see a loved one approaching a mental illness after giving her to the Father, how would one know if he wanted to work through a psychiatrist? Friends, here is where you get to know what it is to be led by the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit will tell you every time what to do. He will lead your thoughts in the direction of what to do. But the way that I have gone to people who’ve had this mental trouble in its beginning, and we know the symptoms, lots of us, I have declared this truth in front of them. The Lord Thy God is a God of order, and in Him is no confusion. And His life in you knows no confusion. So you are declaring the truth that the life in this little child or adult is God. And in that life there is no confusion. Hold fast to the picture. Keep firm to the picture. Like Jesus did. When He said, take up thy bed and walk.

He was not talking to a body that was crippled. The body has no power to take up its bed and walk. He was speaking to the intelligence, which was his own, within the crippled man, saying to that intelligence, take up thy bed and walk. And through the body that intelligence works and takes up the bed and walk. So, as regards treating this person first with this consciousness that in God there is no confusion. Second, then you say, how would one know whether we should get this, get work through a psychiatrist? If you do that, let God decide the next question. If you are led to do that, then take him and pray for the psychiatrist. And believe me, the psychiatrist I know in South Africa needs more prayers than the patients. And so, I just… I was asked once by a psychiatrist in Cape Town, “How did you get to the root of that person’s trouble? Why, I’ve tried for months with that patient and nearly got myself in the same mess,” he said. And I said, “I just loved him. I just loved him and became his mother. And a child can confide in a loving mother. And I got his story out.” So, he said, “Well, you know, if I don’t take about three vacations a year, I’m finished.”

I said, “You know what I advocate? Psychiatrists for psychiatrists.” So, I just want you to pray for a psychiatrist before you ever took a person to them. Because if that psychiatrist isn’t filled with the Spirit of God, woe unto him. He’ll go under faster than his patients. We proved that in counseling. If I didn’t go to God between every person who came to be counseled, do you suppose I could bear it? Why, I’ve got such a tender heart that I could suffer over a little insect’s suffering. And so, the tenderness of Jesus in you is transmitted into divine compassion, which has a strength in it, stronger than sympathy. And so, you just in between, fill me again, Lord, with Thyself. Fill me again, Lord. And the next one comes in and you’re as fresh as a daisy because you have been refilled with divine life. And this is the secret. And so, you need to pray to be led to the doctor or psychiatrist who knows Christ Jesus. And if you get that, like everybody wants to get a lawyer still, well, for goodness sake, pray that you get a lawyer who knows something about the divine judge. And so, I feel that this is very simply answered. Very. And I hope I’ve answered it. I’ve got two more, but I’m sure you’ve got some too.

You can take your turn now. It won’t take very long. Can the individual heal himself or keep away from illness without the doctor or the minister? Well, the individual can never heal himself any more than the doctor can ever heal anybody. God does the healing. When we prescribe for the patient, whether it be operation or medication or prayer or psychiatry or whatever it happens to be, we only set the stage for God to move in and do the healing. Now, the minister… Of course, there are doctors and doctors, and there are ministers and ministers. So, you can’t lump them all into one bunch. Because there are some ministers, like one patient that I love to tell about who was very, very ill.

And this particular church gets many, many flowers because many, many people die in their church. As they do in all. And so, these flowers from the funeral homes are brought into our hospitals. And those that are nice are brought up in the patients’ rooms. And I remember walking into this one room, and I noticed this beautiful bouquet of gladiolas. And I said to her, well, certainly a beautiful bouquet of flowers. And she said, well, my minister just brought them in. And I looked over at them again. And here, it had a ribbon on it which said, “Rest in peace.”

And she was laughing about that too, you know. But of course, as I say, and he’s a wonderful minister. I’m sure it was just a nerve on his part. But it’s entirely possible that you don’t get a minister sometimes who believes in the healing Christ. And someone who is imbued with psychology and is thinking about all of his parishioners in psychological terms, wonderful as this is. And you can have the minister get off on tangents, away from Christ, and away from healing prayer. And people would debate about whether it’s God’s will that there be healing and so on. I believe that if you have a minister of that sort, one who has doubts about this, perhaps it would be better not to consult him. Just as it’s perhaps better not to go to a doctor who doesn’t believe in the healing Christ. I don’t know. I think all doctors are under Christ’s guiding hand in their work, whether they seek to honor Christ or not. But I do believe that in this particular instance, it was a hopeless situation, let us say. And they’re seeking some hope through their terminal status. And in those instances, it’s better to find a healing church, a healing minister, and a doctor who believes in the healing power of prayer and the vital presence of Christ.

To try to do it all by yourself, I believe, is most difficult. I believe that two or three are needed gathered together in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. Don’t try to do these things alone. Always get a prayer partner, if you can, and try to follow these other recommendations I’ve made. I believe it’s entirely possible, however, in the unusual instance, for a person who’s been given up, and a person who is living away from a healing church and doesn’t know about the healing ministry, to throw himself on the mercy of Almighty God by himself in his bedroom and be healed. I know that this has happened. I would in no way try to limit God in any way, shape, or form. These things will come to you, and your method will come to you as a result of your own meditation and prayers.

Well, we’re going to have to bring this to a close so we can have our meditation. But I have one more here, and I’ve asked the leaders if I might answer this one myself. I won’t answer it, but I’ll show you who did answer it. When we pray for someone to be healed, must we believe ourselves that the healing will take place? What do we do about our doubts? Do doubts hinder healing?

Those who were here yesterday at the question and answer period remember probably what I said at that time about the most poignant words in the New Testament were uttered by the man who brought his son to Jesus to be healed. The boy was dying. Beloved son. And if you know the Jews, you know how they love a son.

He asked Jesus to heal him. Jesus turned to the man. He said, “Do you believe that I can heal this boy?” And the father said, “Yes, Lord, I believe.” All of a sudden, it came to him the terrible consequences of what would happen if his belief wasn’t strong enough. And he cried out in anguish, “Lord, help Thou mine unbelief.” I think that answers this question right here. Jesus answered it. Do you believe yourself that I can do it? It’s all within yourself.

This is to be just a short, directed meditation. And I want you to relax, please, just as much as ever you can, because you want to be so absolutely unconscious of your body. This was the question, you know, was about how to meditate. Now, this is one of the very first meditations that I ever had in my life that brought to my mind the absolute joy of knowing that I only desire nothing but to have the Father indwelling. All was there. And I want you to close your eyes and relax. And I am going to do this as near to how I did it when I first discovered how to meditate and lose myself in God. And I want you not to appear to hear my voice and yet to let the words that I say come from your own heart. First of all, this won’t take a minute. How many of you still think you have some desires? Some desires. For anything.

Quite a few. So we’re going to lose all those desires now. We really are. If you do this really well, when it’s finished, you will say, Oh, I just understand. I don’t have to desire anything. Now just close your eyes and I will try to make my voice as gentle as I can so that you’re not conscious of my voice.

Lord, there seem to be so many things that I desire. And yet I know that if I could really be still and know that there is only God, I’m sure that I would lose these desires. And this verse that I find in the Psalms, which was something that David felt within his own being, is the spirit that I want to catch as I meditate in Thy presence. And I want to feel this, Lord. I want to feel it so intensely that it be part of me. One thing have I desired of the Lord. And that I will seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord. Dwell in the house of the Lord. Well, to dwell means to stay, not to visit. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord. Where is this house of the Lord? Is it a building? Is it this house that I’m in? Where could this be? Because if it’s the house of the Lord, it must be my own if I want to dwell in it. It’s deep within myself. Somewhere, this house of the Lord, where when I come quietly, silently, I find He is there. So I want to dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life.

What a rest that would be. Because if I dwell in the house of the Lord, then I am where the Lord is, and I share with Him all that He has. Not for a day, not for a week, but for all the days of my life. And there, I behold the beauty of the Lord. When I see with these two eyes, and I look out into a world so full of duality, I see sorrow and joy. I see laughter and tears. I see poverty and riches. I see everything as though there are two things. But in this house of the Lord, I behold the beauty of the Lord. For I am looking now with my inner vision, and I am seeing that love is in all these things, endeavoring to bring them all together. This little sorrow that I appear to have. And then tomorrow, that joy I may have. All of them working together for good, if I love the Lord. And so when I turn within, and I face the reality of things, I see that it’s all good. For God is in it all, and through it all, leading me gently to Him. And so there, I do not see with dual vision. I behold the beauty of my Lord. Love divine.

Pure love divine. Selfless giving. Perfect understanding. Supplier of all my needs. things. Oh yes, I really want to stay there, and behold the truth about everything. And here, I can inquire in His temple. I don’t have to run hither and thither. I don’t have to ask everybody what I must do. How shall I do it? I just come to You, Lord. And I inquire of You. What shall I do? What shall I say? Where shall I go? And then, the house of the Lord being so quiet, and so still, I hear Your voice. And You tell me what to do at the right time. And You tell me where to go the right time. And You tell me what to say when I have to say it. Oh, what rest, dear Lord. What rest to abide in this house with You. Yet, ever active, going about my daily jobs, having to do many things, but always dwell in the house of the Lord. Taking with me my instructor. Taking with me the supplier of all my needs. Taking with me the physician of my body. Taking with me the beauty of the whole universe. Seeing things with Thine eyes. Hearing things with Thine ears. Oh, God, there is nothing to desire. For having You, I have all.

Now with great rejoicing, one thing do I desire of the Lord, and that I will seek after. That I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire within His temple. Be still just for five minutes and feel His presence and drop all your burdens, all your desires, in the quietness of God’s presence. In the quietness of God’s presence, all is healed, all problems solved, all things dissolved in His love, all things made new. And as each soul surrenders to the quietness of the indwelling God, God’s power becomes potent in every cell of soul and body, and that power, being perfect, healed, renewed, restored. For the mind of man is still and not in any way hindering the perfect work of His Creator.

When we meditate upon Thee, O God, our senses are still. We see no longer with these physical eyes, neither do we hear with these physical ears, but we sense with the higher senses of the soul, the closeness of spirit, and the beauty, and the purity, and the loveliness of God. It is only when we are still and center our thoughts in Thee that we become lost to all around us, and we realize that we have found our way back home to God from whence we came and where we are going. O God, prepare each one here for that which You are so willing to do for them. Let everything in them be removed in readiness to receive that which You wait and wait and wait to give. Let man consent to receive what You have to give. And let there be no reservations, no thought whatsoever to separate them from the knowledge that God is all there is and there is none beside Him.

Prepare for this time that we shall have this afternoon. And may we witness to the power of the living Christ in each and everyone who needs Him. And may they be made every whit whole. Thank you, thank you, Father. In the name of Jesus Christ.