What do you do when you’re at the crossroad of needing a concrete plan and trusting the unknown. That is where I found myself Thursday morning when my plans I had for our team fell through. I had gotten up at six o’clock in the morning in hopes of putting together something last minute. However, I knew I wouldn’t be very effective in anything I tried to do unless I spent some time with my Abba first. So I sat and began to lift up my voice in praises to Him. I began praying that somehow ministry opportunities would start falling from the sky, as if He was a genie that grants me three wishes. (Don’t worry guys, the only thing that fell from the sky were berries from the tree I was sitting under.) So unfortunately no schools or manual labor jobs were placed in my lap, but He did whisper something to me. He said, “Karlie, do you trust me?” I chuckled to myself and arrogantly thought, “Of course I trust you God, I’m here aren’t I?” He then continued to say, “Do you trust me with your team? Do you trust me with your day? Do you trust me with the unknown?” Boy did I get humbled reeeal quick!
After just sitting and processing what He had just asked me for a song or two, I responded, “Okay Lord this is your team, not mine, I trust you.” I then proceeded to tell my team that we were not going to be going to ministry as we have planned, but rather we are going to have a Spirit led day. We started by just allowing each teammate to have their individual one on one time with God, entering into His presence. Then we gathered as a team as we asked Him to show us people, places. or objects He had specifically placed in our path (because we know He always goes before us). Some of the things on our list that God had given us was a woman at the bank with a child on her hip, an older man reading a newspaper, and a man in a blue plaid shirt wearing blue jeans. The thing that stuck out about this man in the blue shirt however is that he was demon possessed. The girl on my team that got the vision of him described it as this: She saw a man in a blue plaid shirt wearing jean pants. She walked up to him and asked if he knew Jesus. He replied, yes. She then asked if he would like to know more. He said no. Then she asked if we could pray for him, but as we were all praying for him she open her eyes and realized he was demon possessed and began rebuking the demon. However, Ashley and Karlie backed off, as if out of fear or worry, but wasn’t really sure why we would back away.
So we set out on our adventure with Jesus and was guided by the voice of our Father. If He asked any of us to move, we moved. If He asked us to speak, we spoke. Just practicing our simple, yet sometimes blind, obedience.
(This is a bunny trail of the story that I am originally telling, but I thought it was too cool not to share. So as we were walking, one of the girls on our team stopped us. She said she didn’t know why but strongly felt like she needed to go talk to this man working on his car. We walked over and asked him if he needed prayer for anything. Long story short, this man has a tumor that is taking over one of his kidneys but the doctors say if they take it out he will die. BUT! They also told him that with it in his body he was only supposed to live for two weeks longer… that was 10 years ago. So we were able to pray healing over him and as we were praying I felt a prompting by the Spirit to ask him to place his hand on the spot where the tumor was. The Holy Spirit was telling me it would take an act of faith to heal this man, not just words alone. So I too put my hand over his where the tumor had been. I prayed healing over him again and I am 100% confident that man received healing. There is no way I will know for sure if he did, but I am excited to see the doctors reaction when he steps into his next doctor appointment. God is good.)
Anyways, so were out walking around, praying for people, and we have seen a few of the people God had showed us. So were coming out of this store and I see him. The man in the blue plaid shirt and jeans. I nudge my team mate who had seen him, but she was busy in conversation with another man they believed God had showed them. I kept making awkward eye contact with him and thought about approaching him myself, but backed off because he kept glaring at me so intensely. At that time, it was just Ashley and I not in conversation with this other man the entire group was talking to. I was busy singing worship songs (trying to slowly put Jesus into the mind of an atheist store owner I had just talked to) while Ashley had just bought some food for herself. In the moment, I did not even realize the man in the plaid blue shirt was the man that my teammate had seen earlier in the vision God gave her that was demon possessed. At the same time, everything she had said came true.
This example is just like the example of Peter. Jesus told him he would deny him three times. Peter was so confident that he wouldn’t, but didn’t even realize in the moment that was exactly what he was doing. Ashley and I were told we would back off by Jesus, but in our own fleshly arrogance thought that would never happen, but then it did.
I wish this story ended with us casting out demons but unfortunately it does not. The man in the blue plaid shirt drove away and we missed our opportunity. However, much was learned through this experience in being obedient to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. And thank goodness this is only the beginning of the journey God is taking all of us on in trusting the unknown.
I am so thankful there is always new mercies found in God for each and every day. We may have missed our chance today, but that doesn’t mean God won’t cross our paths again tomorrow or maybe even next week. But just know, when we see him again, none of us are going to let an opportunity like that slip through our hands again. Demons, we are coming for you… we will find you.. and we will kill you.
