I know some you may be wondering about me so I thought I'd write another post. It's really about a journey the Lord is taking me on. It started last Saturday night when Allen Hood preached on pruning out of John 15. Well, it started a lot earlier than that but Allen not only gave language to what I was going through, he explained (oh what a concept!) that its from the Lord! (The Lord! You mean any anguish I feel is not just due to my own failures? I thought it was punishment I deserved!) Anyway there were so many grains of wisdom that I gained from the sermon it would be too many to explain. To sum it up: I am going through a season of pruning. The vines who are pruned are not the unfruitful ones but the fruitful ones.
Part of the pruning is cutting off my humanistic belief that I can run my own life: that I can provide for myself, that I can do, be, will, become, etc. A rumored required change in prayer room hours for TCI sent me into an anxious tumult of emotions over work and money. In my mind refusing this was the only option because, how else was I going to provide for myself? Yet, God had other plans. I put off praying about it until Friday and then my plan was to e-mail Sam to ask if I could do morning hours instead so I could keep my work hours. Again, I was in control. Not God.
Then the 17th rolled around. This day will forever be marked in my memory. It started out with me be wakened by a text message from my friend Hector (actually a few messages) at 5:30 am. Instead of being annoyed, ignoring it, and immediately going back to sleep like I would have done, I surprisingly sat up, read every message, and had such an expectancy in my heart that the Lord was going to do something...
And he did. I got to the prayer room around 10am. There was a knot in my stomach full of emotion. Now that I look back on it I know it was both my own anxiety and intercession. I did not know what it was but I knew I had to go the prayer room. A series of events catapulted me there where I hoped to find a calm worship set to work out "daddy issues" with God. I had agreed that morning in prayer to let him provide for me but I did not believe he would provide. When I got there the Lord gave me a comforting verse but the quiet worship set that I hoped for never happened. I was instantly launched into intercession.
This has happened to me on a number of occasions when I can't sort out what feelings are for me and what feelings are for intercession. I know we were praying for teens in Israel and revival when the Holy Spirit began to nudge me to interceed and forget about my own issues. So I did and the Holy Spirit's presence hit me like a tidal wave. It was an ordinary prayer meeting that happens every week for revival but the whole room started to feel the same thing and there was an uproar as people started crying out for revival. Wes Hall got on the mic and urged us to lay hands on the people next to us. At this point I'm in full blown travail. Wes said, "I believe the Lord wants to release the mantle of John Wimber."
Apparently it was getting big because all the leadership was showing up. Lou: "Last night I had a dream that revival had broken out. He told Mike Bickle in the dream 'Revival has broken out.' Some leaders are talking about the mantle of John Wimber falling again. In California...among South Koreans...signs and wonders are breaking out. Today is 1/17. Luke 1:17! I believe God is marking this day with an annointing to pray for the great awakening."
17 It is he who will (A)go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of (B)Elijah,(C)TO TURN THE HEARTS OF THE FATHERS BACK TO THE CHILDREN, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to (D)make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
This word was given 12 years ago to Lou. I will do another blog post on this because I believe there is so much to explain about what the Lord is doing right now with this word. Suffice to say, God does NOTHING by accident. This day was marked in history long before it happened.
Wes reitorated when he got up and spoke after Lou, "I know Lou's the solemn assemly guy but I feel like the Lord told me when I walked in the room, 'Today I'm giving you a solemn assembly'...I feel like the Lord is calling forth faith instead of hope--faith that does not say, 'well maybe it will happen' but says, 'I contend today for my inheritence'...
He added, "I know Lou talked about the mantle of John Wimber...this isn't just something for one state and not another or one ministry and not another. This is our inheritence. YOU will lay hands on the sick and they WILL recover."
The guy next to me and the girl in front of me prayed and prophesied over me. I honestly believe though that the Lord used the intercession to heal any disbelief I had in the Lord. He replaced my doubt with expectancy. Yes, it was for revival. But the God who pours out his spirit is the same God who can and will provide for me.
I wrote in my journal, the day before ironically the day before: "Instead of spending my life in worry and fear, I want to live knowing my place inside my Father's house." That is what I hope this pruning brings about.
