Steward's Portion

6: The Burning Hunger – 1-22-2011, Saturday

MY PASSION FOR GOD HAS BEEN BUILDING. It’s moved me from my home in California to Kansas City.  It’s brought me to a church where God truly is present.  And yet I feel nothing.  His manifest love encounters people all around me.  But it seems to pass over me with extreme prejudice.  No, that’s not entirely correct, I should say it DOES pass over me with extreme prejudice.  There is no question in that statement.  This was never made more clear than when I went to a ministry of encounter and God made a point of the fact that He was not filling me.  It sent me into an emotional nosedive, as recounted here (Obligation vs. Opportunity).  But I recovered and pressed forward, even so far as to move myself here.

So yesterday (Friday), I attended the evening service, and dark clouds began to form over me during worship.  Each and every song focused on encountering God’s presence.    More than speaking of salvation, this was a focus on the outpouring of supernatural love, a manifest presence of God upon the believer.   The problem was, I have never “felt” the love of God, or the overwhelming joy of His presence.   So when we all began thanking God in praise for His presence, and asking Him for more, it undid me emotionally.  How could I sing for more of what I had never experienced?

I have never valued “experiences” in and of themselves, but ever since God revealed to me that believers have access to His manifest presence, a hunger was birthed within me that has grown and grown.  And that night it was reaching a point I could no longer bear.  I was so desperate for that intimate encounter with God.  After all, we are going to revel in the presence of God for all eternity, so who wouldn’t want to partake of that here and now if it were offered?  Oh, to take hold of it!  But reaching for it has been so taxing on me.  It’s always just out of my reach, even when others take hold of it all around me.

So my heart went dark, and I cried out to God in pained anger, asking Him why He was consistently passing me by on His way to meet others.  Why wouldn’t He hear my cry?  I buried my head in my hands, screaming silently in prayer.

“Why don’t you want to fill me,” I cried, “what in me is holding you back that you cannot come to me?!   Tell me so that I can fix it!!”

I continued crying out, asking if I had made a mistake joining the Internship, and receiving training that requires His supernatural power, a power He will not give.  How can I pray for others to receive what God won’t even give me?  I never feel God’s presence when I pray for people, even when God is present, nor am I ever given words for them.  Praying for people makes me feel like an orphan who sees everyone else get hugs, and is then called upon to pray for them to receive even more hugs.

I felt a hand on my back.

No, it wasn’t God.  Someone had come over to pray for me.  I didn’t bother to look up.  And after a pause, he prayed over me saying that God wanted desperately to fill me with His presence.  Then he added, “and there is nothing that is holding Him back from doing so.”

He said some other things, some nice things, useless things, things I can’t even remember.  But those words, “He wants desperately to fill you,” “and nothing is holding Him back” burned like a poison arrow in my heart.  Why do people torment me with their prayers?  Why?  Why must they come over and pour useless rhetoric over me time and time again?  Obviously he was wrong.  Either God doesn’t want to fill me, or as I suspected, there was something within me holding Him back from doing so.  There had to be some sin, or ignorance I wasn’t dealing with.  After all, how do you explain God wanting desperately to do something, and not being held back from doing so, but then never getting around to doing it despite the pleading cries from those waiting on Him?  In my mind that’s a contradiction.  You can’t expect me to believe that nothing is holding Him back.   But why wouldn’t God tell me what was wrong?  Was He even listening to me?  I felt absolutely cut off from Him.

Then the hand lifted, and whoever it was disappeared back into the crowd.  I just wanted to leave.  I couldn’t handle any more.  But I had to be here till 10pm as part of the requirements of my internship.

The message finally started 2 1/2 hours later, which, normally is like sweet honey to my soul, but tonight I was in agony.  And as icing on the cake, God’s presence was poured out again at the end of the message, with blind eyes open, uneven legs growing and resolving back issues, and arthritis being removed after 50 years of suffering.  It was wonderful, as usual.

But there I sat.  Empty.  Hungering.  No, starving!  All the while sitting in front of a God who was unhindered and desperately desiring to fill me.  I don’t understand.  I just don’t understand.

Bed time.

Saturday morning has finally arrived, but the pained burning in my heart is still here!  I really don’t want to be in a bad mood.  It hinders learning, and progress, and upsets my wife who feels my pain like an empath.  Thankfully, Saturday’s schedule is simple.  We have prayer room from noon till 5, then another service from 6-10pm.  I could just stew for 5 hours in the prayer room and not bother anyone before being tortured again with the evening service.  Yeah, I can tell the day will be ripe with emotional conflict.  I know I am going to go at it with God again.  I’m too  provoked, and too hurt to avoid the inevitable confrontation.

So here I am in the prayer room.  I don’t want to sing.  I don’t want to read.  I just want to yell at God.  Like a little, grumpy child.  I’m pretty sure this isn’t what God meant when He said we must approach Him as children.  But it’s all I have to offer.  Why do I have to be such a mess?  I’m embarrassed for myself.

So it begins.  The burning in my heart flares up again and I can’t bare to keep silent in my heart.  “Why don’t you answer me, Lord?  Am I cut off?  Do you even hear me?”

“You hear my cry, you will answer me, you will satisfy” sang the musicians.

The words gripped my heart, like they were being spoken to me by God Himself.  Something was happening.  This wasn’t mere music.  They sang this over and over, phrasing it different ways, knocking me out of my stupor and self-focus.  It riveted me.

“Ok, I’m listening, is this really you speaking?” I asked breathlessly.

Then the music set changed, and a man and a woman stepped in to replace the musicians who had just been playing.  The man began playing the guitar and sang, and the woman echoed his song and added bits and pieces to it as they went.  They were playing in the spirit, and sang as the Lord led.  It wasn’t a standard song that has a beginning, middle and end.  It was free flowing.  It was….God singing through them to me.

I literally gasped as they began to unpack my heart in song.  And they unpacked it in sequence.  They started at the beginning.  First came my questions to God.  It was as if I had written the lyrics myself.  Every deep longing cry I had ever uttered to God flowed out of them in song, exactly as I had said it to God in my heart.  It was so intense for me I literally uttered in my mind, “How do they know?” as if they were reading my mind.  But my mind answered my emotions.   This was God talking to me.  While I wasn’t feeling the joy or love that I longed for, I recognized the presence of God, for it was the same riveting focus that God uses to grip me when I study (a focus that enables me to study for 10 hours straight).  It was here again, only this time the revelation of study was coming through music.

As I listened to them, it was as if I was hearing myself speak in song.  I heard myself (through them) singing out my questions, and heard my heart breaking as it cried out for God, desperately desiring to touch Him, all through the mouth of another.  It took all my strength to keep from weeping openly, but I could hear teardrops hitting my notepad. There is something so touching when you hear someone else speak your heart.  The satisfaction that floods your being when you hear someone else perfectly, intricately, articulate your deepest most hidden heart-yearnings.  It’s beyond words.  It’s intimacy.  The satisfaction of being known and understood is like nothing else.

God told me that He had heard me.  He knew what I was crying out for, and proved it by singing the passion of that desire in song before me.  And as my heart was sung out to the Lord, so was His heart sung back in response.  I was witnessing a dialog between me and God.  My cries had been recorded previously, and God was now having a dialog with that living word.  I say living, because the desires expressed on stage by my heart will never die.  They will never cease to exist, but stand as an eternal desire and longing that must be satisfied, moment by moment, by an eternal God.  I had so much to say, it must have gone on for an hour before all was laid bare, and each cry had been articulated.

“So you did hear me!” I gushed.

Just knowing that truth was satisfying, and applied a comforting salve to my burning heart.

“But if you heard me, why make me suffer like this?  What is the purpose?  What good does it do to sustain me in this burning desire?”

God answered in song:

“This is the way you’ll see me, I will draw near.  Father I desire, it burns in me like fire.  You see so differently.  It’s something in the way you are, its something in your beating heart.”

“Cause my heart to burn, come and kiss me with your word.  Here I am Lord, speak to me.  You take my mourning and turn it into dancing, you take my sadness and turn it into joy.  You take my weeping and turn it into laughter.  You bring restoration to my soul.”

For five hours God spoke to me in song.  He told me that He heard my every cry, and felt my every ache.  He felt it because it was His ache for me.  He had put it in my heart and set it ablaze.  He loved me.  He counted my sins not as rebellion, but as immaturity.  Like a parent who loves a child and patiently loves them during their phase of immature childishness.  He wasn’t punishing me.  Nor was He neglecting me.  There was something He was doing.  It had to do with the way He is.  It had to do with love.  It had to do with answering my desire.  For hours God made this point to me, He was responding in deep passionate love.  But why don’t I feel it?  What exactly is it that you are doing?  What is it about God that allows me to burn like this?

That answer came during the evening service.

Dana Candler, an instructor at the International House of Prayer University (IHOP’s full-time Bible School) spoke that evening.  Her topic?  “Mourning For The Bridegroom” which is also the title for a book she wrote on the subject.  God had taken her through the very struggle I was now experiencing.  In summary, she explained that the hunger and thirst I was experiencing was the presence of God, not the absence of Him.  I recalled another phrase that God had sung to me in the prayer room: “This flesh and blood cannot awaken love for you.  I want to know you in spirit and in truth.” In other words, this hunger I was experiencing was not natural.  My flesh had not produced it.  It had come from God.  It was proof of His presence.  It was proof of His work in me.  But what work?

Hunger.  God is making room for Himself.  The more room there is in your stomach, the more hunger you experience.  The same is true spiritually.

When we experience this spiritual hunger, we don’t know how to fill it.  So we attempt to fill it naturally.  We get busy.  We get entertained.  We eat the food of this world.  We get anything we can to fill the void we recognize inside us.  But “food” of this world can never satisfy a spiritual hunger.  It can, however, sooth it temporarily and dull it’s pain.  May it never be!

So God begins a fire within us.  It burns away at the “junk food” we have filled ourselves with.  As this burning consumes the worldly filler within us,  it makes the emptiness we were trying to fill even worse.  The burning creates space, and never stops expanding it within us.  And the natural response is to fill it again with something fast.  But God was saying “No! Let the space exist and grow so that I may come and fill you, and when I have come, I will grow in you by creating more space so that I may fill you even more.”

Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. ^{5} Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. ^{6} Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  (Matthew 5:4-6, NIV)

In my ignorance, I was translating this verse to read: “Cursed are those who mourn, for they suffer in the void of love and joy.  … Cursed are the hungry for they are starving.”  I didn’t understand the purpose for hunger.  It’s not a curse, it’s a blessing.  It’s intended to be cultivated.  Hunger is a sign of God’s work within you, and is an assurance that He will answer.  Hunger drives us to say yes to Him and His work when it presents itself to us.  Saying yes to God is saying yes to His filling.

God gives food to the poor.  Those who are filled to the brim with food of their own choosing do not have room for God.  God will not share the space.  So he burns it away and creates a burning hunger that is desperate to be filled.  The more space we make within us, the more of Him we receive.  He desperately desires to fill us, and there is nothing hindering Him when you hunger, because He is already present within you and is working to create more space for the full measure of supernatural filling that He is bringing to you.

This is, in part, why you’ll see certain people manifest the presence of God.  When there is only a small amount of His presence within you, you can stand normally.  But there reaches a point when the amount of God’s presence upon you begins to overwhelm your body.  At that point you reach the edge of the glory in which you can still function, and God moves within you to increase your hunger and your heart towards righteousness, so that yesterdays ceiling becomes today’s floor.  In other words, He ever works to increase our capacity to stand in His glory.  The final result will be the very image of Christ, who can stand in the Father’s presence without any convulsions whatsoever.  Jesus bears the full image of the Father, and is not in need of greater righteousness in order to be able to stand before Him.  In this way God moves us from glory to glory.  There are other reasons for manifestations, but this is certainly part of it.

This is such an important subject, I intend to do a thorough study on it so that I can comfort those who misunderstand their burning hunger as I did.

As the day came to a close, I remembered the word spoken to me on Wednesday, the 19th, in which God told me that the blessings of my father’s interaction with God were available to me as an inheritance.  “Get ready, here it comes” was the message.  I remember my father telling me about how God spoke to him in the prayer room when he visited.  At the time, I thought that his experience was just a sappy communication gimmick that met some need in him.  Oh my goodness that’s no gimmick!  My father and I have very different personalities, and it ministered to me just as powerfully as it did to him.  This is a language of the heart.  It reached places within me that nothing has ever touched before.

So now it begins.  My inheritance has begun to enter my life.  I shouldn’t be surprised, but I am.  It makes me wonder what lays ahead.  My father also has a degree of dreams and visions.  I’ve never had an appreciation for those gifts either.  If having God sing to me was enough to melt my “rough and tumble” heart, I’m ready for the “silliness” of dreams and visions too.  This hunger is making me desperate to say “yes” to God and all that He does.

Yes!  I say yes to you Lord!

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7: Follow Up – 1-23-2011, Sunday

THIS MORNING at 8:00am, and every Sunday morning for the remainder of our internship, Dawn and I were assigned to the CEC (Children’s Equipping Center) helping with basic care and lessons during the first morning service (8-10am).  Dawn was assigned to the 2-3 year olds, and I got the 4-5 year olds.  The Children’s Equipping Center is focused on revealing to children that they are an army God is raising up for the purpose of preparing the way of His coming.  They are part of the plan that ushers in His return.  They are a generation that has a calling, and it needs to be understood early.

While every other children’s ministry that I’ve encountered teaches through the power of propaganda, the CEC teaches through the hands-on power of encountering God.  They treat these children as mini-saints.  Even Jesus revealed that we must be as children to enter the Kingdom.  Children have far fewer hindrances to their encounter with God.  They simply believe without doubt and suspicion.  This allows God to do in minutes what it takes Him years to do in their parents.  The result is nothing short of amazing.  Children prophecy, they heal one another, and evangelize with the same power of God that adults experience.  It’s an honor to participate in this equipping of the saints!  It’s also humbling to see how powerful they can be despite their immaturity.  Oh to have the faith of a child!

Later in the day, we spent another five hours in the prayer room, from 2-6pm.

I spent it reading Dana Candler’s book, “Mourning For The Bridegroom.”  And today the worship sets followed along with what I was reading, focusing on the action that one takes when they are hungry.  “Lord you have my heart, and I will search for yours.  Let me be to you a sacrifice, Jesus take my life and lead me on.  I will sing love come down,” they sang.  The focus was on staying the course and what it means to eat of God spiritually.  In response to hunger, they sang: “take and eat, take and drink of this cup, be one with me.”  The banquette is found when the capacity for it’s food is found within us.  This sets one’s heart on actively consecrating oneself, and putting aside those activities and entertainments that fill the void and dull the hunger within us.  Whereas I despised that hunger before, now I crave to make it worse, to clear out even more space, even though it causes me to groan for the fullness that comes from God.

Thank you Lord for this burning hunger, I long for the banquette of your presence!

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8: Sickness – 1-29-2011, Saturday

IT’S BEEN ALMOST ONE WEEK. I’ve been sick since last Sunday afternoon.  The worst of it hit me last Monday (our one day off each week).  While I do feel better than I have, I’m still suffering the affect of coughing on my poor lungs.  And today I’ve been assigned to drive shuttles to and from the overflow parking lots IHOP uses when their main lot fills up (which it does each service).  I’ll be doing that for at least four hours.  Yep, serving God in sickness.

That just doesn’t seem right.

In fact, that’s been the focus of my heart this week.

Why have I remained sick despite all the prayer I’ve received?  Why have others received healing in this, but not me?   What is it that determines who will be healed and who will not?  I’m sure that’s a far larger question than can be answered in one or two statements.  But I must know.  I have to know.  I will know.

I eagerly look forward to God’s instruction on this matter.  There’s something in this that is connected to a broad range of subjects, I’m sure of it.  A “secret” like that is too valuable to leave unexplored.

 

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9: The Path To Encounter – 2-05-2011, Saturday

THEY KNOW WHEN YOU’RE WEAK. It’s when they’re the strongest.  Demons move in when you’re most susceptible to their influence – an influence I call “gravemind.”  It’s where they put their thoughts into your mind as if it’s your own thoughts, and then entice you to embrace them in agreement.  Once that happens, you have a horse’s bit in your mouth and they lead you into death – the death of God’s will for you.  They show you your spiritual grave, and you willingly step into it.

Having been sick for two weeks (and still with a random cough) I’ve been a prime target for gravemind.  I went from the joy of hearing God sing to me in the prayer room to feeling exhausted under the weight of sickness that was not being healed.

I struggled to hold on to the truth.  I had heard from the Lord.  It’s true.  He was with me.  The burning hunger I was experiencing was the work of God.  I was not cut off.  God was moving in love towards me.

“But…if that’s so…” came the whispers, “…what difference does that make?  You’re still left without the manifest love that others are receiving even during struggles greater than your own.”  Why can’t you even receive a little of that love that God ‘desperately wants’ to give you but doesn’t?  And, look, He’s not even healing you.”

They planted the seed, and I sat there and watched it grow.  I didn’t have the answers.  Why couldn’t God give me even a little bit of His manifest presence as we waited on my hunger to grow stronger?  Why have I had to wait for so many years?  Is it really so terrible to hug me even a little?  Would it ruin everything to let me feel that love, even for a moment?

The tree of discouragement had grown, and began to bear it’s bitter fruit.  I was too tired to study.  I was too fatigued to sleep.  I was too discouraged to enter into worship.  But God loves me.

God’s love is so strange, so foreign.  It works in ways I don’t understand.

How can I feel like this with God so evident all around me?  It’s the paradox of deception – wherein the reality of experiential emotions defies the reality of revelational truth.  They can’t both be true, but seem to exist at the same time, and in the same place.

It’s the last day of the STAND Conference at IHOP-KC.  Intro to IHOP – Team 4, my core group,  has been chosen to usher and handle shuttles and parking.  I’m driving this morning, from 8:00am-12:30pm.  At 1:30pm, we need to head over to the University for prophecy.  The “Track Two” Intro to IHOP interns are learning how to speak prophecy over people, and will be doing so over all of us Track One interns.

Despise not prophesyings. (1 Thessalonians 5:20, KJV)

“Hello Personal Experience, I’d like to introduce you to the Word of God.  You two need to talk.”

I have come to despise prophecy.  And I know it’s wrong!  But I still hate it.

In my experience, prior to IHOP, this is what prophecy is:

PROPHET: “I see a light mist, a light rain, falling on you….

ME: What does that mean?

PROPHET: It’s not given for me to know, this is for you.

ME: *blank stare*

PROPHET: I also see a field.  And horses.  The horses are running around chasing one another.  I feel like you are one of the horses.  And there’s a penguin.

ME: um…

PROPHET: That’s all.  Thank you.

When it’s not random abstract pictures of things I have to this day been unable to interpret, I’m told how great my ministry will be.  Seriously though, who is the guy who is told that his ministry is going to be merely average?  Which guy gets that word?  EVERYONE’S ministry is special, and wonderful, and great, and exciting, and will have money come into it, and power.  No one is ever told otherwise.

For the most part people have simply read my “mail” in the past.  They tell me about things that have already come and gone, and that God and I have already set aside, and yet they speak it as if it’s all brand new and current.  And at least once someone read Satan’s mail for me that I had deleted.  It took me a week to get over that hit.

So ask me if I’m excited to get prophecy from people learning how to prophesy?

“Are you?”

No.

Too bad, prophecy time.

We’re at the university, in the room we always meet in during the week.  Track Two is in groups of 3, with half the groups being on the right, and the other on the left side of the room.  Those waiting for prophecy sit in the middle, waiting to be called.

We’ll all be prophesied over twice.  First by one side, then we’ll wait to be called by the second side.  This is done as confirmation.  What one group sees and says should be confirmed by the second.
Four of us were called over for prophecy.  They prayed, and then listened to what the Lord would show them.  They started with one of the gals to my left.  I would be third.  So I listened.

As usual, listening to words meant for others is pretty underwhelming.  It has no real impact for you personally, and you really can’t imagine all the personal connections that are being made for that person. I watched the expressions of those being prophesied over.  It seemed to be resonating with them.  But I couldn’t tell how much.

“I can’t wait till this is over.  I hope it goes by quick” I thought to myself.  “Don’t be negative,” my spirit responded, “they don’t deserve anything less than your respect.  They’re here just like you, to seek God and learn.” *sigh* Fine.

My turn.

I expected to hear how great things were going to be for me some day, some other day, far off in the “near” future.  I expected it to be void of what was going on between me and God, right here and right now.  I expected to receive no answers or direction on how to escape the hole I was in and lay hold of God like I desperately wanted.  I’ve always gotten useless, abstract, phrases I never know what to do with, and that God never explains.

Was I right?

You know I wasn’t.  Of course I was wrong.  This is where God sent me to meet Him.  Yet I am always surprised when my doubts and negativity are consistently shown to be wrong.

All three of the people prophesying over us homed in on my heart with deadly precision.  Is this what the others in my group experienced?

First, they dealt with my history, the past that has made me who I am.  A past I have not understood.

From my youth I was assaulted by demons.  I have great-great-great grandparents that were involved in demonic organizations that opened a spiritual door that brought demons to my doorstep.  Without going into it here, they came to bring about spiritual death in me.  They wanted me dead.  And being in a conservative church meant that no one knew what to do about their constant manifesting assaults.  Sure, people prayed for me, but in ignorance.  They had no concept of spiritual authority, and how to stand against it in demons, or how to use it from God.

God was my sole, stabilizing comfort.  God was my sanity.  Men were nothing but demonic tools of hurt and heartache.  God had always watched over me during that time when I was too young spiritually to stand up to the spiritual spirits of death.  I would lay in bed, waiting for the darkness to move against me, crying out for God.  I could never find Him, although I knew He was watching over me.  The demons were restricted from laying a hand on me.  But I still felt helpless against the terror they wielded against me.

The first Intern spoke verses the Lord had given him to describe God’s heart toward me during this time of sorrow and spiritual suffering of my youth.

By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth: I sought him, but I found him not.  (Song of Solomon 3:1, KJV)

And when I passed by thee, and saw thee polluted in thine own blood, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live; yea, I said unto thee when thou wast in thy blood, Live.  (Ezekiel 16:6, KJV)

Both of those verses are prophetic pictures of Christ’s love for His bride.  In Song of Solomon, it is the bride who is lovesick for her groom, but struggles to find him.  In Ezekiel, God passes by Israel and see’s her in her newborn weakness, but speaks life over her, and begins to prepare her for her eventual marriage to Him in Christ.

In the days of my youth, God was my custodian and protector, but I didn’t know Him that well, and I felt adrift, and alone in my daily battles.  No one was able to come to my side and offer support, and I had to learn to fight alone, under the direction of God.  It took me a long time before I grasped how to stand against the demons and end their assault.  But why was it so hard for so long?  Why didn’t God make it all go away instantly?

The intern continued speaking.  He saw me in tall, lush grass.  Hidden, and protected.  He then said that God explained this as the state of baby Moses.  His mother put him in the basket and set him adrift in the Nile, because there were those who wanted him dead.  Thus Moses began in weakness, unable to defend himself, and yet was hidden and protected by the reeds and tall lush grass during that time.

He said that the Lord hovers over my life, as he did over Moses when he was adrift.  He watches over those things I have no control over, and keeps me safe from destruction.  That’s how its always been, and I’ve always been thankful for His hiding me in the reeds.  But I’ve still been alone in the basket.

Eventually, those days passed, but I grew up not knowing who I was to God.  How could I avoid messing things up and losing out on my destiny?

Then the intern addressed this concern, saying, “The Lord is not going to let you mess up.”

As soon as I learned of my spiritual calling, my spiritual lineage as it were, I have always had a deep concern that I was raised in the wrong place, in the wrong time, and under a conservative umbrella that shielded me from my true identity for too long.   I love my parents, and have nothing against them.  But I have this fear that I have missed my destiny somehow, and was never going to be brought into the place I was born to function in spiritually.  I was Moses raised by Egyptians.  How could I ever be anything more?  How would I ever escape that place of limiting circumstance?

The other Interns were given similar things about me.  One of them said they kept hearing “Hide & Seek.”  I was hidden by God for a purpose, like Moses, and now that I was aware of who I was, I was seeking desperately after my true Father.

“This is the season of the secret place.  God will make Himself known to you openly after you seek Him in the secret place.”

Wow, a specific instruction and promise given in prophetic utterance that I can actually use!  Finally!  God had already been speaking to me about the nature of this secret place.  It’s found in prayer and fasting.  More on that in another entry.

I was then told that God was bringing me into greater authority, an authority that will strike people’s hearts.  An authority that comes from being fully equipped, and no more in doubt about my place, people, or kingdom.

Next group.

Rather than confirm the previous word spoken by the first group, these Interns continued where the others left off.

One of them saw a demolition truck, indicating the power to tear down strongholds.  What had once stood against me when I was weak, would now be undone by my spiritual strength.  I would walk into a room and bring strength to others.  My strength was rooted in my confidence in who I am in God.  Because of this, I am to lean into God who is my strength.

I am not to give in to weariness.  I am not to entertain fear and doubt.  (In my own words, I must say no to gravemind.)

In answer to my cries, God says that He will provide.  God is going to let joy break out in me as I discover more of Him.  He’s putting a key in the lock that has bound me for so, so long.  When He turns it, there will be an explosion of arms in the air that were once bound tight an unable to move.  There will be freedom.

When I was 10, my joy was murdered by the demonic assaults against me.  It made me serious, and solemn, just as any natural war would weigh heavily on the hearts of children caught up in it’s terrors.   But God is going to remove that.

I remember how I was.  I was an extrovert.  I was the leader that everyone followed.  I came up with the ideas.  I formed the clubs.  I found the cool meeting place.  I started the games.  Life was good. Life was fun.  I thought that those days could never be resurrected this side of heaven.  But I was told that God was releasing joy from my youth again!  The wild child is going to be resurrected!  Joy will be mine again!

Prophecy time is over.  Ask me if I’m sad about it.

“Are you?”

Yes!

Some of these people have never done this before.  Ever.  And yet because of how IHOP directs people into their relationship with the Lord, God is able to speak through them with great accuracy.

There was no error, or “bones” as people say, in anything they said.  Wow.  Just wow.

Evening service is from 6:00-10:00pm.

Allen Hood spoke.  You need to hear it.  It can be found in their services archive and is listed as “Feb 5 2011, 6:00pm.”

He spoke about hearing from the Lord correctly.  But he did so in a way I have never heard before.  God used it to finish His word to me that was begun during the prophecy time.  He wanted to tell me about the value and importance of entering into that “secret place” in which I was to seek after Him.  It was connected with this nations future.  It connected perfectly with the national turmoil I saw in the days when God will release my wife and I to minister, having been fully equipped.  God wanted me to understand the power and purpose for prayer.  He wanted me to understand the power and purpose for fasting.  And He wanted me to know how it literally affects the generations of a nation.

As God shows me more about prayer and fasting, I’ll update you on what that looks like, and why that is the path to encounter that I have been so desperate to find.

But I have found the path!  I found it!  But I must confess a little uneasiness about the terrain I see before me.

God help me not stumble!

 

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10: Praying the Scriptures – 2-13-2011, Sunday

SPENDING FIVE HOURS in the prayer room each day can create a love/hate relationship within you towards the place.  If you can connect with God there, you love it.  If you can’t, you can come to hate it.  This week swung closer to the hate than the love.

I’ve been trying to enter into the secret place where God said I would find him.  This secret place would seem to be prayer.  And fasting would seem to facilitate greater encounter within that time of prayer.  But the how and when has eluded me.

My prayer time has been dry.  And due to social interaction, fasting has not yet been appropriate.

Nevertheless, with five hours in the prayer room each day, there is no better time to establish what my prayer time should look like.  But what should it look like?  There’s nothing worse than when your prayers feel like you have stuffed your message in a bottle and chucked it into the sea.  Even when your message is received, the sending and receiving of it seem to span ages while you wait for communication to run its course.

So a friend of ours recommended a book on prayer.  It’s called “Experiencing The Depths Of Jesus Christ” by a French woman named Jeanne Guyon, who penned the work in 1685.

The back of the book reads:

“Watchman Nee saw that this book was translated into Chinese, and made available to every convert of The Little Flock.  Fenelon, Count Zinzendorf, John Westley, the early Quakers, Jessie Penn-Lewis and Hudson Tayor all highly recommended it to the believers of their day.”

So, on Sunday, as I was struggling to connect with the worship, I decided to start reading the book to see if it would help me.

“Praying the scripture” is a unique way of dealing with the Scripture; it involves both reading and prayer.

Here is how you should begin.

Turn to the Scripture; choose some passage that is simple and fairly practical.  Next, come to the Lord.  Come quietly and humbly.  There, before Him, read a small portion of the passage of Scripture you have opened to.

Be careful as you read.  Take in fully, gently and carefully what you are reading.  Taste it and digest it as you read.

I’ve never prayed through the scriptures.  I study them, and glean from them concerning a great many topics, and yes, God meets me in this and has taught me so much, but this is different from that.  This is more of a worship encounter than a topical study or academic lesson.

I continued reading.  She came to an example where she was demonstrating how to read through the Lord’s prayer.

As you speak the words, “They Kingdom come” call upon your Lord, the King of Glory, to reign in you.

Give yourself up to God.  Give yourself to God so that He may do in your heart what you have so long been a failure in trying to do.

Acknowledge before Him His right to rule over you.

At some point in this encounter with your Lord, you will feel deep within your spirit that it is time ti simply remain silent before Him.  When you have such a sense, do not move on to the next word – not as long as this sense continues with you.  You see, it is the Lord Himself who is holding you to silence.  When that sense of waiting before Him has passed, go on again to the next words of the Lord’s prayer.

“Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”

Praying these words, humble yourself before the Lord, earnestly asking Him to accomplish His whole will in you and through you.  Surrender your heart into His hands.  Surrender your freedom into His hands.  Yield to your Lord His right to do with you as He pleases.

Do you know what God’s will is?

His will is that His children love Him.  Therefore, when you pray, Lord, your will be done,” you are actually asking the Lord to allow you to love Him.  So begin to love Him!  And as you do, beseech Him to give you His love.

This approach to reading scripture is not entirely foreign to me, as I do this in part when I study.  But this isn’t study.  It’s encounter.  It’s far more intimate.  It brings God’s emotions to the table, not merely facts and sound doctrine.

Simply loving God as I meditate on His word is difficult because of my “I must learn something” approach to the scriptures.  It’s like learning to say “I love you” out loud to someone when you are not used to expressing such intimate sentiments in front of others. But this is exactly what I need to do, I need to express the love in my heart rather than rest on the fact that God knows my heart.

But where to start?

I began to think about what section of scripture I wanted to pray through.  I didn’t want to do the Lord’s prayer.  I wanted to pray through something else, something that would catch my attention.  I decided to read a little further as I contemplated what scripture to read.

All that I have just described to you will take place very sweetly, and it will take place very peacefully, throughout the entire prayer.

Let us look now at another possibility.

There may come an occasion while you are with the Lord that you will wish to lay aside the Lord’s Prayer.  Perhaps you will wish to come to Him as your shepherd.

Upon reading this, I thought to myself, “Yeah, I’ll pray through that verse.  I’ll contemplate God as my Shepherd.  Ok, Lord, how do I do this”

“The Lord is… He is my shepherd,” sang the musicians in the prayer room.

I laughed.  “Ok Lord, show me how to engage in the prayer room.”

The musicians kept repeating this phrase, over and over again.  Normally, this would drive me crazy because listening to the same thing over and over again gets very monotonous and boring.  But now, I finally understood why they employed this style of worship in the prayer room.  They sing the same phrase over and over again to facilitate praying through the word of God.

Each time they sang “The Lord is….He is my shepherd,” I would dwell on the different facets of this reality.  Each repetition, though the same, became different.  Each repetition was sung in my heart with a unique focus on how God is my shepherd.

The repetition that had once driven me crazy now caused me to long for more repetitions so as to give me enough time to meditate upon the verse being sung.

But my mind became impatient.  It tried to wander away.  I brought it back.  And again it began to wander.  And again I brought it back.

I recalled Jeanne’s instruction on calming one’s mind and soul.

In “beholding the Lord,” you come to the Lord in a totally different way.  Perhaps at this point I need to share with you the greatest difficulty you will have in waiting upon the Lord.  It has to do with your mind.  The mind has a very strong tendency to stray away from the Lord.  Therefore, as you come before your Lord to sit in His presence, beholding Him, make use of the Scripture to quiet your mind.

Once your heart has been turned inwardly to the Lord, you will have an impression of His presence.  You will be able to notice His presence more acutely because your outer senses have now become very calm and quiet.  Your attention is no longer on outward things or on the surface thoughts of your mind; instead, sweetly and silently, your mind becomes occupied with what you have read and by that touch of His presence.

My mind is like a distracted two year-old.  It’s attention is drawn away at the slightest noise or movement.

“Oh God, forgive me my untrained mind!” I prayed.

The musicians instantly stopped repeating the shepherd phrase and began to sing, “Calm down my soul, be still and know.  Calm down my soul, be still and know.”

It was like a mother singing to calm her child.  My mind relaxed and the stress of my mental business faded.

When I was calm, they returned to singing, “The Lord…He is my shepherd.”

Once back on track, they began focusing on different aspects of God as a shepherd, and I was able to join in this musical prayer through this passage.

“I think I am beginning to understand the prayer room, Lord” I prayed.  The style, the repetition, the scriptures sung as lyrics, I finally get it.

Now, I just need to enter into this regularly.

I wonder what will happen when I add fasting to this musical meditation through the scriptures?

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11: The Bridegroom Fast – 2-22-2011, Tuesday

PRIOR TO ARRIVING at the International House of Prayer in December of 2010, I had gone to a ministry of encounter expecting to find God.  What I found was a “present absence.”  God showed up and nearly dropped the two men ministering to me to the floor.  But I got nothing.  I sensed nothing.  And after three hours of their attempts to bring God and I together, we called it quits.  I was emotionally devastated.  I was personally offended.  But more than anything, I was deeply heartbroken.

As I later lamented this experience to some friends of ours, Randy and Cathy, they identified my emotional state as that of mourning.

“Mourning?” I thought to myself, “God made me mourn Him?  He was right there!  Why would He do that to me?”

So I internally dismissed their word of knowledge as an expression of their empathy for my suffering.  It was kind, and I was glad that they understood how deeply this was affecting me, but I didn’t want to accept mourning as what I had received from God after such an intense time of pursuit.  What good is existing in a state of mourning?  I wanted to find the joy of the Lord!  I wanted to find His love!

My wife kept telling me that God gave me what I was asking for.  She just sensed it to be so.  But I felt as though something had gone wrong.  The encounter I was supposed to get was blocked by some problem that I hadn’t recognized.  How else do you explain pressing in towards God and being met by nothing but the pained absence of His presence?

“I’ll pursue another encounter, not mourning” I decided, “I don’t know what went wrong, but I’ll find the problem, fix it, and try again.”

Fast forward to the prayer room (detailed in this entry).

God is unpacking my heart in song.  He is singing to me!  This is the beginning of the kind of encounter I always wanted from God!  But what’s this?  No, it can’t be…

God is teaching me how to mourn.

God is teaching me how to hunger and thirst for Him.

What sort of relationship is this?  It’s the bride longing for the Groom.  It’s the mourning of absence.  It’s heartsickness that comes from a deep, deep love for someone who is not with you.  And it’s the path to encounter.

Why?  Because it positions you to receive.  Those who have, do not need.  Those who are filled have no more room for food.  Those who are with the ones they love have no need for reunion.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. {8} For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.  (Matthew 7:7-8, NIV)

Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.  (Matthew 5:6, NIV)

Blessed are they that mourn: for they shall be comforted. (Matthew 5:4, KJV)

We were made poor and needy on purpose.  We were made to hunger and thirst intentionally.  Why?  Because we were meant to find our eternal satisfaction in God.  But we suffer when we turn to anything else.  And turn we do; suffer we do.  And in this suffering we do anything we can to dull the hunger and thirst to ease our suffering.  But it is this very recognition of need that we must feed.

Only the soul that says yes to this thirst and hunger and seeks the infinite God of Fullness will ever experience sustained satisfaction.  Men spend their entire lives seeking to rise above and overcome this human condition, but it is an eternal extension and image of God that we cannot overcome or ignore.  We can only be satisfied in God, or be tormented forever apart from Him.

Blessed are the poor in spirit: for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.  (Matthew 5:3, KJV)

To be poor in spirit is to recognize your need.  We are not rich in ourselves.  We eat and consume, but our hunger remains.  We drink and thirst again.  But blessed are those who recognize that they are poor in spirit because they will turn to the God of Fullness and find eternal satisfaction.

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink.  (8)  (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.)  (9)  Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans.  (10)  Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water.  (11)  The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?  (12)  Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle?  (13)  Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again:  (14)  But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.  (John 4:7-14, KJV)

Blessed are the poor in spirit because they know they have a need that only Jesus can fill.  Theirs is the kingdom of Heaven, in which they will feast on the Bread of Life, and drink deeply of the Living Water.

This is the “Necessity of Need.”  You cannot receive what you are not positioned to get.
So connected with this recognition of need, is prayer and fasting.

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?” {15} And Jesus said to them, “Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  (Matthew 9:14-15, NKJV)

We mourn His absence through fasting and prayer.  But why?

When I sought God at the ministry of encounter, I had fasted, and I had prayed.  I had worshiped in the evening.  I had studied during the day.  I had done everything I could think of to prepare myself.  I felt I was ready.  But when God arrived, He saw that I was not.  I was full of effort, but had not yet grasped my true need.

God knew I could not get what I was asking for apart from a Bridegroom fast.

Mike Bickle identifies seven types of biblical fasting:

1) Fasting to experience the power of God in personal ministry.
2) Fasting for prophetic revelation of the end times.
3) Fasting for the fulfillment of God’s promises to our city or nation.
4) Fasting to stop a crisis.
5) Fasting for protection.
6) Fasting for direction.
7) Fasting for encounter and intimacy with God – the Bridegroom Fast

One of the primary purposes of the Bridegroom Fast is to cause our hearts to move in love and longing for God.  Our hearts are prone to dullness and lethargy and if we don’t deliberately confront that dullness we’ll become hardened without even realizing it.  The Bridegroom Fast tenderizes our hearts so dullness is diminished and we are able to experience the affections of God in greater measure.  This is what God was forcing me to encounter with His “present absence” at the ministry of encounter.

What I was seeking from God can only come from a revelation of hunger.  The problem was, I had spent far too many years appeasing my appetite and intentionally dulling it’s pain.  It was when I finally became tired of doing this year after year with no encounter that I began to pursue and press after God for satisfaction.

Then I arrived at the ministry of encounter.  That ministry time  exploded the poorness of my spirit like a nuclear bomb.  It was so intense that I could hardly bear it.  I was brought face to face with the emptiness of my condition, and mourned God’s absence.  It actually birthed within me a recognition of what I needed from God.  It birthed a proper heart response.

But that was only the beginning of revelation for me.  I needed to expand my love for God, so that my love for sin would fade away into nothing.

In the book, “The Rewards of Fasting” by Mike Bickle and Dana Candler, they point out that:

“Fasting because of love exposes the compromises in our hearts and our ungodly dependance on worldly things.  It is a way of keeping our hearts spiritually awake and alert in a dark world that naturally dulls and defiles the human spirit.  Our love for God must be expressed in our quest to pursue total obedience.  Jesus said, “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me.  And He who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him” (John 14:21).”

Jesus promises to manifest Himself to us!  This is not merely an experience that makes you feel good, its  a reunion between you and the Love of your life.  That is where God had to bring me.  And I could not get there apart from mourning and hungering.

Oh!  But fasting!  I hate fasting!  Every single time I have fasted in the past I was in agony.  It was torture.  After a day or two, my wife would find her stride and be good.  But as for me, I was crippled with hunger.  No matter how much I tried to put my mind on God, I was overcome by the pangs of starvation.  I was hungry every single day without relief.  The hunger never resided or eased off, it remained constant and unrelenting.  I hated fasting!

But now God is calling me to fast.  If there was ever a personal command for me to take up my cross, this was it.  The interns are called to join the staff in fasting on Tuesdays.  The staff here actually fast every Tuesday and Thursday.  And once a month, they fast for three days during their Bridegroom Fast.

I figured I could endure one day.  We’d see about three.

Then it happened.

I wasn’t hungry that entire day.  So I tried fasting for three days.  Same thing!  I could have gone even longer!

God had given me a grace for fasting.

It then occurred to me that this was an inheritance from my mother.  She was given the grace for fasting.  I couldn’t understand how she could go for so long without eating.  But now I understand.

Now that I am walking with God in understanding, I am entering into those things that have been given to me as an inheritance.  Sadly, they have been dormant for far too long on account of my efforts to dull the pain of my poorness of spirit.

I wish I could say that fasting is an easy fix, and brings encounter immediately, but for me, I have much to change and wrestle with before my prayer and fasting can produce what God desires within me.  But this is the path to encounter.  In fact, it’s the path to a great many things.  I look forward to what I will learn during this process.
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12: Make Yourself Ready – 3-07-2011, Monday

THIS WEEK was the base-wide Bridegroom Fast that I described in my last entry.  Everyone from university students to staff participate in this at the beginning of each month.  As usual, it started on Monday.  Monday is our one day off.  On Tuesday, classes resumed.  Little did we know God had prepared a message for us that day.

During our prayer room time, Mike Bickle, the director of the International House of Prayer Missions Base in Kansas City (IHOP–KC), did something he has never done before.  He interrupted the 24/7 prayer room with an announcement.

John Mulinde was going to share a prophetic word with the IHOP–KC staff that day.  And Mike Bickle called everyone to a time of repentance.  Staff and students alike cried out to God for the fear of the Lord to fall upon them that they would walk rightly before God in all areas of life.

Before we go any further, you need to listen to what he had to say.

GO LISTEN HERE.

Undoubtedly many of us have heard countless sermons on renewing our minds and walking in purity before the Lord.  But God’s message to John is the reason why we must take this so seriously.

As I sat there and listened to his testimony, I was sobered by the reality that God sees my inner thought life.  And I fearfully contemplated the righteousness of God that does not make exceptions in it’s judgment but counts my inward thoughts of evil as condemnable as any outward action.  Every secret lust, hatred, slander, envy, etc. that hides within is JUST as damnable as it would be if expressed openly.

In this, two things hit me.  First, that salvation is not judged by the outwardly, but by the inwardly.  If you were turned inside out, so that your inward thoughts became outward actions, would you still consider yourself saved?  Would you feel the need to repent?  If so, then why is nothing done when those thoughts are played with in your mind?  And why are you not working to eradicate them as fervently as you would if everyone could see them?

Secondly, the nature of salvation is far more supernatural than we think.  Without supernatural power, no one will enter heaven.  What kind of power?  The power to overcome sin.  You simply cannot enter the kingdom of heaven apart from the daily exercise of supernatural power that overcomes sin – sin that we cannot overcome in our own strength.  If there is not supernatural interaction inwardly between us and God, our salvation is jeopardized by that sin that overcomes us.

I intend to finish my position papers on the nature of salvation and how it works, so I won’t attempt to prove any point here.  But I do want to tie it into God’s purpose for bringing Dawn and I here to this church at such a time as this.

Tuesday’s testimony was followed on Wednesday by something they call a Purity Covenant.  A purity covenant has to do with moral righteousness.  It’s a time when all students and interns covenant with God to walk in moral purity before Him, both externally and internally.

This day was scheduled long before John came with his testimony.

So on a three day Bridegroom Fast, we had John’s testimony and then the Purity Covenant.  The Holy Spirit was confirming in all our hearts that this was no coincidence.  It was a Divine message. It was a call to prepare ourselves for a greater outpouring of God’s presence and glory, under which no man can stand filled with hidden sin.

God is preparing this church for greater encounter.  Not long ago, here at this church, they had what they called “The Awakening,” where God’s presence fell with such power that people were repenting and being miraculously healed in greater ways than this church has ever seen.  But God told them a greater time is coming, and that they must prepare themselves for it, because the greater God’s presence, the greater the threat to those who hide their sin.  Here’s a biblical example of what I’m talking about:

But Peter said, Ananias, why hath Satan filled thine heart to lie to the Holy Ghost, and to keep back part of the price of the land?  (4)  Whiles it remained, was it not thine own? and after it was sold, was it not in thine own power? why hast thou conceived this thing in thine heart? thou hast not lied unto men, but unto God.  (5)  And Ananias hearing these words fell down, and gave up the ghost: and great fear came on all them that heard these things.  (6)  And the young men arose, wound him up, and carried him out, and buried him.  (7)  And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what was done, came in.  (8)  And Peter answered unto her, Tell me whether ye sold the land for so much? And she said, Yea, for so much.  (9)  Then Peter said unto her, How is it that ye have agreed together to tempt the Spirit of the Lord? behold, the feet of them which have buried thy husband are at the door, and shall carry thee out.  (10)  Then fell she down straightway at his feet, and yielded up the ghost: and the young men came in, and found her dead, and, carrying her forth, buried her by her husband.  (11)  And great fear came upon all the church, and upon as many as heard these things.  (Acts 5:3-11, KJV)

People lie all the time in church, always before the Holy Spirit, and do not fall down dead.  The difference here is the level of glory, God’s presence, that they were standing before when they lied.  God is warning IHOP-KC to prepare themselves, and confess their sins, that they not position themselves to lie about it later when standing before a greater outpouring of God’s holiness.

Now, do you know what happens when God calls you to walk in purity before Him?  Satan comes to work your weakness against you and bring about even more sin than you normally have to deal with.

All this week people have felt worse than they ever have, and I’m not speaking of physical sickness, although that seems to have increased as well.  I’m talking about temptations in all areas of life pressing in where they weren’t before.  Now is a time of testing.  It’s a time of shaking to see who will stand and who will fall.  It’s a sobering time that must be taken seriously.  Repentance is on everyone’s mind right now, from the leadership down to the student.

This is what I’m dealing with right now.  A time of soul searching.  A time where I am asking God to search me and reveal what needs changing.  I’m doing my best to resist that spirit of depression and hopelessness that tries to condemn you and get you to give up trying.  It’s surprising how powerful it is, and yet, I’m pressing in towards God and His Spirit for strength.

I will overcome.

I will stand the time of shaking.

I will be empowered supernaturally to live out the heart of God.

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13: Lock-Down – 3-14-2011, Monday

ON WEDNESDAY, our core group met for fellowship in the evening as we always do.  But that evening they had a “fun” preview of what was to come in Track Two of ITI (Intro To IHOP-KC).

We were going to practice prophecy.

This is involved two “games” which were really just opportunities to prophesy over one another.

The first involved us all closing our eyes and putting out our hand.  Our leader then walked around the room and secretly dropped one coin into someone’s hand.  After this was done we were told to pull our hands in, and then open our eyes.  At this point no one knew who had the coin except for the leader and the person with the coin.  Then we were supposed to listen for prophetic words from the Lord for the person holding the coin and speak them out.

The purpose for this exercise was to remove our knowledge of that person as a distraction or as an influence upon what the lord was saying.  That way we wouldn’t be tempted to speak from the knowledge we had about that person, but would instead be more careful to listen to the Spirit.

It was interesting listening to what people got from the Lord.  It was even more interesting discovering who the mystery person was, and then listening to them share how some of the words were immediately relevant to their lives.

Next time two coins were given out, a quarter and a nickle, so when you got a word, you had to identify whether it would be for the person holding the quarter or the nickle.  This added an extra dimension of clarity to the prophetic words being given.

I, however, got nothing for anyone.

The next game involved an envelope.  Envelopes were passed out with numbers on them.  We were told that each envelope contained the name of someone within our group.  Again, we were not allowed to open them and see who they were.  Instead, we were to seek the Lord and write down the prophetic word He gave us for the mystery person who’s name was in the envelope.

My heart instantly broke.

I do not get words for anyone.  At all.  Period.  And now, everyone was going to have some wonderful thing written for them except for whoever was in my envelope.  My person would get nothing.

I didn’t want to have my inability to prophesy be the cause for disappointment in someone else.  So I agonized over this and desperately cried out to God to give me something, anything, for whoever was in my envelope.  But He gave me nothing.  I couldn’t picture anything, or think of anything.  As usual, I was on complete lock-down.

“Oh no, no, no, no!” I thought to myself, “I need to give this envelope to someone else so this mystery person can get a word instead of getting nothing because I had their name!”

“No!” my heart responded, “You have to do this, everyone keeps encouraging you to just listen and say whatever comes to mind no matter how small or seemingly insignificant it may be, so maybe something will come if you press through…”

So I listened even harder, desperate for any random thought whatsoever to float through my mind so I could write something down.

Nothing came.

Nothing.  Nothing at all.  It’s not that I’m getting things and assume they aren’t from God and dismiss them, it’s that I’m getting literally nothing at all.  It’s not a phone with a dial tone, it’s a phone with a dead line.

Why am I unable to receive anything?  When I study, God speaks to me all the time.  He gives me pictures to illustrate points, He directs me to verses, He gives me words of knowledge and revelation, but as soon as I go to pray over someone or listen for prophecy, it all goes silent.  Why?  What is wrong?

Times up.

Now we were told to look in the envelope and see who our word was for.  Everyone did except me.  I felt sick to my stomach, I didn’t even want to know who I had just deprived. I began to think about what I would say to the person in my envelope by way of apology when people asked them what they got and they awkwardly revealed they got nothing because they had me as their minister.

Then people started laughing.

Turns out that our own names were in the envelopes given to us.  Everyone had just prophesied over themselves.

“Oh thank God…” I whispered in my heart.

I was greatly relieved, but the heartbreak did not leave.  I felt tears swelling up inside of me.  Why?  The pressure was over!  I’m not even offended!  So what am I being emotional over?  I don’t get emotional over things.  I don’t cry.  What was wrong with me?  Why did this matter so much?

I left shortly after that.  I couldn’t stay, I was close to losing it and I didn’t know why.  So once home I continued to press God about it.  When I didn’t receive an answer, I took the next day off.  And then the next day.  That’s how much it mattered to me.

During that time I got my answer.

The first thing I discovered was this – I desperately desire to prophesy.

Therefore, brethren, desire earnestly to prophesy, and do not forbid to speak with tongues.  (1 Corinthians 14:39, NKJV)

For ye may all prophesy one by one, that all may learn, and all may be comforted.  (1 Corinthians 14:31, KJV)

Despise not prophesyings.  (1Th 5:20, KJV)

Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. {2} For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. {3} But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort.  (1 Corinthians 14:1-3, NIV)

Prophecy is the testimony of Jesus’ heart for His people.  An angel told the apostle John that the “testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy” (Revelation 19:10, NIV).  When the Holy Spirit reveals aspects of Jesus’ heart and His will to us in various supernatural ways, this is often referred to as receiving or operating in the spirit of prophecy.

Prophecy is the fruit of being filled with the knowledge of God’s will.

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding (Colossians 1:9, NIV)

This is what I desire.  Until now, I didn’t know that I felt this strongly about it.  But truly, a great passion is growing within me for accurate, prophetic, edification of the church.

So if this desire has grown within me to the point where the passion is bringing me to tears, why am I so completely blocked?

“Why God?”  “Why won’t you give me anything?”  “Why can’t I practice this with the others?”

Instantly I received a check in my spirit.  “Practice.”  That was the word that triggered it.  I was not being allowed to practice.

This has actually been my stance for a long time, but my resolve has been wearing away the more I see the fruit of other’s prophetic ministering.  I want to join them!  I want to step into my calling in this gifting.  This has left me vulnerable to an approach that always leads to error.

I recalled all the times I witnessed people prophesying over the course of my life.  There were those who heard clearly from the Lord and had confidence in it, and then there were those who grasped at anything that appeared in their head and acted surprised when it turned out to be accurate.  I call that “hat trick prophecy.”  It’s where you reach blindly into a hat and hope to pull out a rabbit.  You hope for accuracy and you hope for significance.  But it’s hit and miss.  Sometimes you’re Houdini, and sometimes you’re Bullwinkle.

And that is where the danger is hidden.  That is where the Devil bides his time.  Eventually, he’ll put things into your hat.  This is a danger for everyone, and is the very reason why we must be so diligent to seek the Lord about what we see and hear before offering it to another.  But when someone is standing there waiting for you to say something, there is a pressure to provide.  And in our desire to bless, we can end up handing out a curse instead.

But even beyond this, there is another, more subtle issue.  God expects us to seek Him for the whole message, not merely a portion of it.

God brought to mind a warning He had given me early on in my quest for clarity about the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

My wife and I were at a small Assemblies of God church when a guest prophet and his prophetess daughter came through.  They were going to minister to the church.

“Perfect,” I said to God, “now you can show me what you think about all of this.  Teach me about prophecy.”

So before the service, my wife and I were standing by ourselves and some guy walks up to me and begins talking about his shockingly poor ability to make right decisions in life.  I had never met this person before, and yet he was now sharing his dirty laundry with me without reservation.  He told me about his failure in marriage, his failure in raising his kids, and his unbelievably poor walk before the Lord in life, even right up to that very day.  He went on for near 10 minutes, not even pausing for me to say anything in response.  And once he had laid himself bare, he said, “Ok, well, I’ll catch ya later,”turned, and walked away.

I just stood there with my mouth open.

“What on earth was that about?” we asked each other.

Then the service stared.  “Good, here we go” I said to God, “show me your heart in this.”  The prophets started with a disclaimer.  They explained that it was our responsibility to receive the meat, and throw out the bones.  In other words, they were just going to prophecy what they saw, and if something was not from God, we were to just ignore it.

I felt God’s anger begin burning.

Then they started calling on people to stand up as they received words for them.  The man who had bared his soul to me not 15 minutes earlier was called to stand up.  He was given a wonderful word that spoke of his calling as a leader in the church.  We heard about all the great things God was going to do through him in this leadership calling.  As I was listening to this wonderful word, I protested in my heart, saying, “But God!  This is that guy!”  How can you speak such things over a life like his?”  But God said nothing.  He was waiting for the prophet to finish.

As soon as the prophet stopped speaking, God started.  I was shocked by what I heard.   God was finishing the prophecy for this man within my hearing.

God said, “But… this man shall not enter into the fullness of his calling because of those things I caused him to confess to you.  This man’s sin stands as a barrier to my calling upon his life.  Had the prophet addressed this man’s sin as I desired, he would be set free and be able to enter in.”

My heart was flooded with Divine satisfaction.  The full word of the Lord for this man was now finished.

Then the prophets called upon another.  Then another.  And another. And for each person, God would speak out the sin that was going to hinder them from entering into, or receiving the full measure of what was prophesied over them.

At the end, God thundered in my spirit, saying, “I am furious with my prophets!  I am grieved by those who prophesy in my name but do not inquire of me as to what I want to say!”

I felt this grief rest heavy upon me.

Mike Bickle warns of neglecting to give the conditions for prophetic words.

“Many prophetic words are not guarantees but invitations to cooperate with God.  God requires faith and obedience as we work and pray in agreement with what He promises.

I have known people who receive true prophetic words about their callings that were confirmed in unusual ways.  The people understood the words as guarantees instead of invitations, and thus they failed to lay hold of the Lord in the way the Lord required them to enter into their new ministry.”  (Growing in the Prophetic, pg. 165, by Mike Bickle)

So after the service, I went up to the prophets and asked them a question.

“Do you see anything other than what you speak over people?” I asked, “I mean, do you ever see any sins that need to be corrected in people?”  “Sometimes, yes,” they told me, “but prophecy isn’t for correction, it’s for edification.”  I felt the grief of the Lord press again upon my heart.  So I told them what God had shown me, but they ignored it and explained again that prophecy was for the edification of the saints, and they were not going to shame anyone for their sin.

I wasn’t implying that they needed to shame anyone. That was their assumption.  God can address sin in many ways.  But they answered my question, they saw sin and they refused seek God’s heart in the matter.

So I asked them about their disclaimer about bones.  “If your words are from God, where are the ‘bones’ coming from?  How can God be wrong?”  They smiled at me as one would a small child.  “God is never wrong,” they confessed, “but our job is to speak what we see, and your job is to discern what is from God and what is not.”  They then turned to answer questions from someone else.

I agree that we all have a responsibility to discern what is from the Lord, and what is not, but that is my point.  We ALL share that responsibility.  If you bring your child over to my house and I serve them fish, you expect me to have checked the fish very carefully for bones prior to offering it to your child for consumption.  If your child began choking to death because I didn’t even bother to check the fish for bones, what would your response be?  Would you tell me it wasn’t my fault because it was the child’s responsibility to check the meat for bones?  We are all the children of God.

And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. {^6} “If anyone causes one of these little ones—those who believe in me—to stumble, it would be better for them to have a large millstone hung around their neck and to be drowned in the depths of the sea.  (Matthew 18:5-6, NIV)

Those who do not fear to offer bones to “those who believe in me” ought to remember that what you do to the least of God’s saints is done to God (Matthew 25:45).  Woe to those who feed the children of the Almighty bones and refuse to repent!

Error is forgivable, but never excusable.

As my wife and I walked out to our car, I overheard a woman rebuking her friend.  I recognized her.  She was the last person to receive prophecy that night.

She was an African-American woman who was called to be a prophetess.  Her calling was powerful.  The anointing upon her life for this calling was strong.  She was going to be a woman of significance.  And she had absolutely beamed when this was spoken over her.

But for her, God’s final word was this: pride.

Her friend had said something that put her in a bad light in front of the pastor that night. “How do you think that makes me look to the pastor?!  Don’t make me look bad in front of the pastor!” she scolded quietly, waving her finger in her friends face.  The night was not even over and her pride was in full swing.

God said, “Remember this, and do not deprive my people of my warning.”  I took this to heart, but was too distracted by God’s great displeasure of His prophets.  It made me feel justified in my suspicion of them.  I was filled with holy indignation at this failure to speak the whole council of God.  As a result, I failed to learn the lesson for myself.  My focus was on correcting others.

So the next time a prophet came through the church, I was armed and ready.

When a prophetess came through and began erring in a similar manner, I felt the grief of the Lord again.  So I decided to confront her about it.

I got the pastor, and told him I needed to speak to this prophetess and tell her about something God had shown me.  She was in town for the week, and so we arranged a meeting with her.  At the meeting I asked her similar questions to the ones I had asked the previous prophets, and when she gave a similar answer, I nailed her with God’s revelation.  I told her the story above, and told her of God’s anger and grief, and rebuked her for ignoring the Lord.  I had not yet shared all this with my pastor, and he had no idea I was in assault mode.  He had assumed I was going to share something positive.  When I finished, his eyes were as wide as saucers.

I’ll never forget what happened next.

As I leaned back in my chair, waiting for her response, she leaned forward and her eyes narrowed.  She then began to rebuke me for rebuking a prophet of the Lord.  And just as I was about to dismiss her words in my heart, God began to speak.  He was angry again.  But this time his anger was focused at me.  As the prophetess continued rebuking me, the Lord joined in and rebuked me inwardly.

To be rebuked outwardly and inwardly at the same time is a terrifying and traumatic experience, because there is nowhere to shrink away from it.  It’s everywhere you are.  I understood why in the latter days men will cry out to the rocks asking them to fall upon them to hide them from the wrath of a returning Messiah.  I was desperate to escape but had nowhere to hide!

The prophetess and God both spoke the exact same words in unison with one another.  It was powerful.  But periodically the prophetess would dip into personal offense and her words would be different from the Lord’s, but after a minute she’d enter back into God’s heart at which point her words of rebuke perfectly mirrored the Lord’s once again.  It was both fascinating and something I never wanted to see again at the same time.

I humbled myself, apologized, repented, and we shook hands.  I left totally sobered and humiliated. My pastor was just happy everything ended on a positive note.

As I drove home, I couldn’t believe what a disaster that had turned out to be.  I was armed with the very words of God that were supposed to bring about repentance in the prophetess, but  I was leaving humbled and humiliated.  How could this have happened?

“Did you not learn from the error of my prophets?” God asked.  “But Lord!” I protested, “You told me you were angry with them!  Didn’t you tell me this so that I could confront them?  Why show me something if you don’t want me to do anything about it?!”  To which God replied, “The prophets do not wait upon me.  They speak as they will.  Will you do the same?  What did I authorize you to speak?”

God’s point was plain.  What takes God to reveal, requires God’s authorization to speak.  Everything else is spoken in the flesh, even if you speak Divinely revealed truth.

“Never do this again,” God said.

The humility department of my soul sent me the same memo.

“Never again,” I agreed, “never ever again!”

So as I’m contemplating this past history in the realm of the prophetic, God impresses it upon me that He has put me on lock-down.  I cannot prophesy because He is not letting me.  That is why I get nothing when I listen for prophecy or words of knowledge.

“Why am I on lock-down?” I asked plaintively.

“You must move in closer to me that you may hear my full council,” He replied.

God was talking about the intimacy of my marriage to Him.  Intimacy avoids error, because the closer you are to God the better you can hear Him.  There are things you simply cannot hear if there is any distance between you and God.  That must be my whole focus for right now.

This revelation has now put me at ease.  No longer will I be stressed because I can’t prophesy with the others.  God is protecting me at my own request.  He and I both desire accuracy.  I refuse to tolerate anything less in my life.  Jesus is my standard, and I will except nothing less.

Then answered Jesus and said unto them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise.  (20)  For the Father loveth the Son, and sheweth him all things that himself doeth: and he will shew him greater works than these, that ye may marvel.  (John 5:19-20, KJV)

I am being restrained so that I may focus rightly upon Him.  It’s for my benefit. My time is coming, but I have asked for the fullness of God.  That cannot come to pass apart from a deep intimacy with the Lord.

But now I want to cry at how far away from God I feel!

I have a lot of work to do.  A lot of work.  I know now what I am supposed to do here as I wait for the release of my spiritual gifts.  It’s time for me to enter into the full reality of the Bridal Paradigm of Christ and His church.  It’s time for me to learn spiritual romance — our intimacy with God that far surpasses the physical, natural, romance of the flesh.  This is the First Commandment.

And thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength: this is the first commandment.  (Mark 12:30, KJV)

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14: THE END – 4-04-2011, Monday

THIS IS IT. This is the end of Track One of the “Introduction to IHOP.”  What’s next?  Normally, the answer would be to continue on into Track Two which is required if you intend to be on staff here at IHOP.  That’s what I expected God to do with us.  It seemed like a reasonable next step.  But it was not to be, and for now, we are not to join staff.  Instead, God put it strongly upon my heart to continue my studies on Marriage and the Bridal Paradigm of Salvation.  God had His own “track two” in mind for us.  And so I am pressing forward to finish my studies.

Looking back upon my time, I count our months in “Intro to IHOP” as exactly that — an introduction to what IHOP is all about.  For three months I lived as a staff member and was consumed with their ministry focus and heart for Israel.  I learned what it is to be an intercessory missionary.

But in my mind, the most valuable thing we received from our time was that we made friends for life.  Dawn and I had prayed that God would select people of His own choosing to be part of our core team.  We had asked for close-knit friendships.  God answered that prayer.  Though our core group was comprised of people from all walks of life, each and every one were clearly hand chosen.  There couldn’t have been a better way to get started at the church.   We are in contact with so many people now that we feel very immersed in the community here.

But even here, in this wonderful church and it’s focus on salvation as a marriage with God, I have found something to be incomprehensibly missing — there is no preparatory counseling for marriage, nor any express teaching that establishes  God’s heart with regard to marriage and divorce.  And yet this is what God has set ablaze in my heart.  While I cannot say that God has brought us here to fill that void in any official capacity, I can say that God is already beginning to send us people who are requesting that we teach classes on these subjects.  I see this as relaxed training exercises for my wife and I to grow accustomed to talking to people about what God is teaching us.  Where it will all lead, I do not know.  But as I complete my studies, I expect God to reveal what comes next.

So as I end this journal, I end it with a beginning.  I begin to respond to those God is sending me for their training, and my own.  Expect to see some serious studies in marriage, divorce, courtship, and the power and purpose of both men and women in the Bridal Paradigm of our salvation, in the coming months.

 

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