“Dear Lord Jesus, Do anything that You need to do in me, that you might do everything You want to do through me.”
At the beginning of the week we were encouraged to pray that prayer over our lives, and I did. I was excited to see what the Lord was going to do in me and through me during training camp, but there was no way that I could have ever expected or planned for what was going to happen on Tuesday October 14, 2014.
Let me preface this story a little bit: I was extremely turned off to all things charismatic. I have seen the Lord do miraculous things, but I have also seen people fake it. I’ve had someone pray for me and try to push me over in the middle of the prayer so it looked like I was slain in the spirit. Do I believe that the Holy Spirit can do things like that? Yes, absolutely. Did I want Him to do that in me? Heck no. I was terrified of what it looked like to ask the Holy Spirit to come invade my heart.
Tuesday at camp was externally normal but my heart felt far from normal. I remember feeling attacked that day more than I have been in my entire life. Things that the Lord had healed were coming back to haunt me, satan was telling me that I wasn’t good enough for the Lord to use. I wasn’t spiritual enough, I wasn’t outgoing enough, I wasn’t enough.
That night I walked into the training center and the attack only kept coming. Satan was fighting hard for my heart and for a brief second, I really thought he was going to win. I was done, I didn’t want to hear about the Holy Spirit, I didn’t want to be prayed for, I didn’t want someone to walk over and try and push me over, or tell me I wasn’t a good christian because I didn’t speak in tongues. I didn’t want any of it.
Our speaker clarified for all of us that the staff and volunteers at Adventures in Missions had no agenda with us. He spoke to the part of my heart that was terrified. He assured all of us that the Holy Spirit would do what he wanted to do in us if we let him, and that it was not about what they had experienced in their lives. He assured me that everyones experience with the Holy Spirit is different, because we are all different. With that being said, when he invited the band to keep playing and lead us into a time of prayer and worship, I was still closed to it all. I was still being attacked and I was afraid of what God wanted to do in me.
I stood in the fourth row back with my arms crossed and my eyes on my feet. Suddenly I felt a tap on my shoulder and some man who I had never met asked if he could pray for me. I hesitantly said yes with my mouth, but my body language was screaming no. He started praying for peace and against the attack that was happening and the craziest thing happened; The Holy Spirit started pouring peace into my heart. When I let go of all the fear and opened my heart to the Holy Spirit, He showed up.
I realized that night that I had been giving Jesus most of my heart, but had hidden all the things that hurt way to much to deal with in a little room in my heart behind a locked door. When I opened that door and invited the Holy Spirit to invade that room, He did. The man praying for me started praying for specific things in that room that I hadn’t told anyone at camp, heck, I didn’t even like to talk about that stuff at home. He started praying for forgiveness, for a release of bitterness, he spoke identity into me, he spoke freedom over me.
It was painful. It hurt that night because I hadn’t ever allowed it to hurt before. The Lord gently held my hand and lead me through the raging river of hurt into his vast ocean of peace. Once I let the Holy Spirit deal with the pain and suffering that I had hid in that room all I felt was fullness of peace, joy, freedom and love.
The Holy Spirit didn’t come that night through speaking in tongues, or being slain in the spirit, or laughing uncontrollably. The Holy Spirit came with his ocean of peace, and it changed my life forever.
“Dear Lord Jesus, Do anything you need to do in me that you might do everything you want to do through me.”
Pray that prayer over your life, and watch what your father in heaven will do in you and through you. I dare you.
