When God shows up He tends to steal the show. I think that’s good for all of us because it
helps keep us reminded about where our attention should really be. A lot of times we get caught up in the fame
and glory that we’re trying to create for ourselves that we become distracted.
At least I do.
Sometimes I just get caught up in my own story or at least
my own adaptation of it that I forget what really matters. A few nights ago we were sharing this story
about what had happened that afternoon.
We had just gotten to the part where I get to talk and put in my two
cents, however, I usually try to put in 10 or 20 because I think what I have to
say is important. And that’s actually a
really stupid idea because I’m not the best at verbalizing what’s on my heart
or mind – I’m usually a little better at manifesting it into words on a page
because then stuttering and repetitiveness tend to fade from the picture. Obviously this is beside the point.
I was halfway through my monologue when Matt Peters stood
up. This was out of the ordinary for him
because he doesn’t tend to interrupt conversation. In the course of telling our story, he felt
an immense spiritual heaviness and didn’t want to fight it by himself any
longer, so he commissioned the 27-some of us to immerse him in prayer.
And we did.
But then the unexpected happened: we got smacked in the face
with God’s presence. It’s not like you
can really prepare for anything like this – it just happens. During prayer, Matt was the first to fall
into the Lord’s freedom followed by almost everybody else. God spent about three hours ministering to a
lot of us, freeing us and/or starting the process of freedom in our
hearts. I’ve never experienced God’s
presence like this before, but it was intense – for lack of a better term.
The Kingdom was being unlocked.
I’ve been asked by several people to write about Thursday
night. I’ve been trying to figure out a
way to write about it in the last few days, but I can’t figure it out. I just can’t.
There’s no way that I can really put into words what God did that
evening. It was chaos – chaos because my
human mind couldn’t keep up with what was going on. When I tried looking at everything from the
outside of what was happening, I couldn’t comprehend it. As soon as I stepped back in, the spiritual
realm was unzipped and I was able to process everything clearly, knowing where
to go, who to pray for, and what God wanted from me at that moment in time.
I know for me, personally, the Lord spoke volumes into my
life… and He didn’t even say a word. For
the longest time I had doubted this kind of thing happening. I had doubted what occurred in Scripture with
the disciples casting out demons, praying for the sick, etc. I was severely skeptical of what I read in
other books by Heidi and Rolland Baker and Brother Yun. I just didn’t believe it because, well, it
had never evidenced itself in my own life.
I realize that this is probably a poor attitude to have about it all,
but it’s the attitude I’ve had nonetheless.
I can’t deny that truth.
So Thursday afternoon wakened that dead belief inside me and
I couldn’t doubt God’s movement in this world – in our day – any longer.
I’ve since found out that a lot of people had doubts about
that night – about the Spirit falling on us in power. I would even venture to say that if they
doubted God’s attendance that evening then they probably had some kind of doubt
about what happened that afternoon. It
really tore me up knowing that people didn’t think any of it was genuine. I don’t know if it was a lack of faith or what.
But I understand.
Sometimes there are moments in our life where we NEED God to
show up in the way that He did. We NEED
Him to work through us like He did with me, Kelton, Robby, and Nate on that
day. We NEED Him to fall on us in
power.
But sometimes we don’t need that… and the Lord knows.
I can’t help but think about all the times in my life that I
so eagerly desired for the Lord to knock me out and speak to me, for the Lord
to use me to cast out demons, to heal the sick, etc.
Then He never did.
Yet I reached this point in my walk where I needed this
desperately. I was doubting the Lord in
ways that I had never doubted Him back in the States. I think this doubt, if it was allowed to
manifest into unbelief, would have several impacted the way that the Lord could
have worked through me this year. I
truly believe that the Lord chose to move in my life the way that He did on
January 24, 2008 because I needed it more than anything – more than I have
still yet to realize.
The devil will use whatever he can to divide God’s
army. He knows that the World Race is
becoming one of the greatest threats to hell – and he’s pulled out all of the
stops to try and hamper us.
Too bad it’s not going to work.
There were more captives in this Lord’s army that we’re
bound up and fettered than I realized.
If the Lord hadn’t chosen to fall on us that night, several of us still
wouldn’t be free. We’d still be hanging
on to crap from our past that would hold us up and keep us from pulling the
Kingdom out of peoples’ hearts because it still wasn’t spilling forth from our
own. I was freed from doubt. Sounds simple, but sometimes it’s not the
complex things that hold us back – it’s the things that we didn’t realize would
be the biggest distractions that really are.
Now we’re owning our freedom and walking in our identity as
sons and daughters of God.
Ha. Take that you
little devil.
