Testimony: Ear opened!

My nephew was born just before Thanksgiving of last year and in his first two hearing tests the doctors reported that he was deaf. My sister told me about this and I began to pray as well as probably many others as they also sent out an email to their friends. He then had a third appointment with just a regular doctor who reported that he could hear but still recommended going to a hearing specialist. Well, today my sister took him to the specialist who gave the report that he could hear! Praise God!!!!!

Self-control

I lack self-control. There, I said it. However, I don't mean that I do all kinds of bad things. I mean that I do all kinds of good things that I probably am not supposed to do. Think about it. I can fill my life with good things but never accomplish what God has called me to do. Pastor Bill talked to us about this yesterday in school. Boy do I need to hear it. It is so true that we need to focus on what it is that we are supposed to do. Think about it from the standpoint of just giving your full attention to a task that you are currently doing. You will have much greater success at what you are doing if you are single-minded and focusing on that particular task. I am currently trying to write this blog without being distracted by other things such as email, news, or thinking about what I will do next and hopefully this blog will have more power behind it because the words that I write will be more carefully chosen than if I just haphazardly threw something together while doing 10 other things.

When Pastor Bill mentioned this yesterday I immediately thought about music. For those of you who haven't known me for long, I played trumpet for 13 years but haven't played it the past two years and I was on the worship team at my church in Florida for 3.5 years playing keyboard but haven't done that since June. While I stepped aside from playing the trumpet just because I didn't have the time to practice every day, God had to help me out a little bit to give up playing the keyboard in worship. Among other things, a big problem I have is trying to take on things that are too big of a load for me to carry. That can also be translated into taking on too many things so that the combined load is too big. I have realized that right now I have too many things on my plate and so when I came to the conclusion that I must spend more time with God (my own hunger, not someone forcing me) I knew that something else would have to go. So I decided to quit my job so that I can get some more sleep and also have more time to give to my relationship with God. Before you say that I am being religious (haha, I caught ya!), I know plenty of people who cut things out of their schedule so that they can spend more time with their boyfriend/girlfriend, so don't even try to tell me that I am out of line for wanting to spend more time with God.

It is my hopes that my relationship with God will develop to a place of greater intimacy with Him so that I know what it is that He wants for me to focus on. Right now my schedule is filled with good things, many of which may be distracting me from my main purpose. Again, they are all good things. It is possible that even my favorite activities are things that are not working towards my purpose. Shawn Bolz said that this generation will be one that will do many different things and not stick with just one thing their whole life. While I can totally see this happening, I believe that God still wants us to be focused on our purpose for the season that we are in. It is true that when resources are spread out over a wide area, the impact is not as great. Make the most of what God has given you. Find what it is that He has called you to do and go after that with such a focus that good things are no longer a distraction.

The man who thinks he is Jesus

The man who thinks he is Jesus

Boy would I like to kick the hell out of this guy. Seriously. He needs to have some serious house cleaning to get all the critters out of him. Pastor Kris was talking about praying for a "miraculous" salvation this morning and I think this guy would be my biggest miracle salvation. Can Jesus get saved? The difficulty in getting him to repent is that he doesn't believe there is any sin and furthermore he thinks he is Jesus.

This article obviously doesn't give the whole story on the man, but I wonder how people can follow someone who seems to have almost no qualities of Christ. Does he do miracles? Has he raised the dead? How does he answer people that question him? Has God testified about him? Did someone 400 years ago prophesy about his coming? I sure hope that his followers see the light and don't do anything drastic like kill themselves when he is about to die. What do you think?

Testimony: depression overcome by joy

So a woman came forward for prayer when a word of knowlegde for bad dreams was spoken. So I prayed for that and then asked her if she had problems with her feet. She said that she didn't but said she has fallen and hurt her knees before. Then she tells me that she was recently diagnosed with diabetes so when I asked her if there might be some nerve damage in her feet she said there might be. So I just started to go after that and while I did a female student came over to pray for her as well. The peace of God hit this woman and when the female student began to prophecy over her the woman became overcome with the joy of the Lord. She ends up telling us that she was extremely depressed and had just kinda given up on life. I had prayed over her new life when I was praying for the diabetes and her feet and knees so praise God for speaking through me as I prayed and using the prophetic as well to bring happiness and joy to someone who was stuck in depression!

Testimony: throat healed

In the midst of praying for breakthrough in seeing cancer disappear and disabilities healed I realized recently that I should contend for the normal sicknesses that sweep through Christian communities. Well, today as I went with my friend/neighbor/classmate Mark to go invite people out to a healing meeting next Saturday night with Todd Bentley he asked me to pray for his throat before we got going. So on the sidewalk I just started to pray for him. Just a week or two ago I had started to get sick and then began declaring that I walked in divine health as well as commanding the sickness to leave. I had been sick nearly the entire month of December so I did not want to be sick again. I had nearly gone to the drug store to get some medicine but I decided that for my faith to be excercised I should pray in faith that God would heal me and not take Tylenol in faith that it would heal me. Anyway, so God does heal me and I have been feeling great ever since. Back to today, as soon as I finished praying, Mark's reaction was "Woah. It feels better." I asked him what had been wrong and he said it was so bad that he had lost his voice the past few days and that it had really hurt. Then he says, "but I just got completely healed." PRAISE GOD! C'mon Jesus!

photo blog

view of Mt. Lassen from the church.


sunrise from the prayer chapel


"joy laps" at school


no, my camera lense doesn't have spots on it


God laughs, so we laugh...


and sometimes when we laugh we fall out of our chairs...

Testimony: back healed!

Riding home from the meeting tonight God gave me a word of knowledge for pain in the back on the lower right side. The word was for our neighbor whom we were giving a ride home. When we dropped her off, I got out to pray for her. 20 seconds later she was twisting it around with no pain! All glory be to God!

Testimonies: knee and shoulder healed!

At church today a man came up for prayer for his knee. He had it replaced with a fake knee about two years ago and was wanting prayer so that when he went into the doctor in a couple weeks he wouldn't need any more work done. So I prayed for a restoration of his knee and when I asked him to try it out, he said that he couldn't feel it anymore. I asked if "it" was pain, and he said that "it" was the fake knee. He said that it normally makes a ratcheting sound and he can feel the knee, but he couldn't anymore! C'mon God! This one is a "nothing is impossible for God" healing.

After church I went to the store to get some juice and noticed an old woman sitting down with a middle aged man standing next to her. I asked them if everything was ok and just started to talk to them. I ended up asking her if she had any pain in her legs and she said that she did and that it came from pain in her back all the way down. So I prayed for her back and then asked her how she felt. She immediately said that her shoulder felt better. I asked her about that and she said that it hurts really bad, but that now it wasn't hurting. Praise God! This one is a "God skipped over everything on my prayer list to do something else," healing.

God's got my back

So I normally wake up early before work to go pray because that is something that for at least right now I feel God wants me to do. I have loved it. My times in the prayer house in the middle of the night have been my favorite times there. Anyway, as you may know I don't get a ton of sleep, just a couple hours each night. Therefore, people might think at times that I am tired because at times I am. Soooo, this morning I was gonna wake up just a bit earlier than normal because I was really excited to go pray and was looking forward to be in His presence. Well, I was tired when I woke and didn't get out of bed right away. I dozed off and looked at my phone and it showed the time that I would normally get up. For whatever reason I still didn't get out of bed and I fell asleep again. This time waking up exactly an hour later at pretty much the latest time that I could get ready for work and make it there on time. A couple weeks ago one of the executives told everyone that if you should up late you aren't going to be working there anymore. Whether that was just a threat or not, God definitely saved me this morning by waking me up just at the time I needed to get to work.

Then, on the way to work, I was driving faster than normal. For me, that means I was going maybe 5 over the speed limit. At one red light where I was turning right I didn't come to what I consider a complete stop, which was still a stop in the book of many people, but it scared me because right as I turned there was a police officer! In looking in the direction of the traffic that I needed to see, I totally didn't see him coming from the other direction. However, he did nothing and I got to work on time.

Then, my boss handed me my pda to scan freight off the truck as he always does and when I look at it, it has the number 7 punched in on it. Hmmmm, interesting. It wasn't just one 7 though, it was twenty. 77777777777777777777. :) I like the sound of that. I will talk more on it later. For now, I want to go spend some time with God.

Pulling tomorrow into today

Today in school Pastor Bill talked about pulling tomorrow into today. I won't elaborate on it now, but because of our relationship with God we have access to things now that were reserved for another day. When I got home from school I checked a site that I normally go to. It just so happened that it had tomorrow's headlines posted today. So I took this screenshot showing the time in the upper right corner and the date on the calendar. I think God is trying to say something...

Apple Insider



(sorry this is going out so late. I first saw the website around 5:45 or so on Thursday)

When Having Faith Isn't Enough...

Last week I talked about how I was perplexed by people I met who had not experienced the miraculous and how they were different from me. You see, it wasn't until the beginning of March 2006 that I had ever heard any testimonies of God doing miracles in the United States. A year earlier I had been praying that I would see miracles when I traveled to South Africa. I didn't see anyone get healed nor any food multiplied which is interesting since we never prayed for either to happen.

The thing that I didn't realize is that I was saying the answer to my question last week when I contemplated the topic. Here at the Bethel School of Supernatural Ministry we expect God to show up when we pray for people. It is more than just a culture where miracles happen because not everyone in the culture sees people get healed. I was shocked a few weeks ago when I was talking with a friend who had been praying for his bosses finger which was bent very unnaturally but was not seeing any breakthrough. Turns out that he had never prayed for someone and seen them get healed! Wow. I guess I took it for granted just because I have seen so many people get healed. I don't mean to sound arrogant when I say this, but it is just pretty easy.

Before you call the blasphemy police let me explain that it is easy because God heals the person, all I am doing is praying for them. Well, that is all they think I am doing. I am also believing that God will answer my prayers. Not someone else's prayers, but MY prayers. It is important to believe that God can work through you.

The problem I faced at least one of the nights when I was preaching in Brazil last July was that I was doubting that anyone I prayed for would get healed. Only a week before then I was having nights where I would pray for 6-10 people and each one of them would get healed! What was the difference? Bill Johnson and Randy Clark had done such a good job of teaching us to expect miracles that right from the first night of meetings we were seeing literally hundreds of people get healed. However on the nights when I preached I was coming under the attack of the enemy and agreed with his lie that nobody gets healed when I pray for them. So while the other people on our team were seeing blind eyes and deaf ears opened, I don't remember if any people got healed that I prayed for (maybe just a few, but that is in 2 hours of praying for people). My point is that my doubt that God would use me got in the way of the fact that I still believed that God could heal anybody!

I am feeling the conviction of God come on myself right now. I was just thinking in my mind that we must stop doubting that God would act in response to your prayers. Then I thought that we must also not have doubt that God would use us for a MIRACLE because we are not yet to that point in our faith. It might be easier for someone to pray for people with headaches than it is for someone who is medically brain dead.

I felt like God was just tapping me on the shoulder and saying, "Yo David, you shouldn't doubt that I would use you for a crazy miracle either."

Then I thought: "But I am praying every day for breakthrough in big time miracles."

To which I heard: "That doesn't mean that you should not believe I could use you until after the first miracle happens!"

Lord, forgive me! I had no idea that in the midst of going after seeing the paralyzed walk (and other impossible things) I was clouding my belief that nothing is impossible for God with my doubt that I have reached the point where God is ready to use me. For whatever reason I have been pushing back the day of breakthrough until something happens between just God and I. I don't even know if that makes sense. Last Friday I didn't feel like I was doubting that God could use me, but there is probably a sense of doubt when praying for something that you have never seen healed.

So anyway, the point of this is to not only have faith in God, but to also not doubt that God would respond to your prayers. He loves you just as much as the person who needs to get healed. By the same token, do not doubt that some things are too big for God to respond to for where you are currently at. That is just a lie! If nothing is impossible for God, then nothing is impossible. I don't recall any Bible verse comparing faith and anointing, but I am pretty sure that God will respond to your faith (and lack of doubt) even when you aren't some super anointing healing person. So remember that God wants to use you and show up every time you pray and also that faith trumps lack of anointing every time.

Good Morning!

So after getting a really bad headache last night I quickly went to bed. Man, it was really bad. I don't get headaches often and when I do they are fairly easy to deal with. This one had me writhing in pain. So I went to bed probably before 8. I honestly don't know what time it was as I was hurting so much that I didn't go clean my bowl or cup out or go to brush my teeth (I had just finished eating, but my headache got worse after I ate). Anyway, at about 2:30 I woke up and started to just pray and focus on God. About 3 am I decided to just go to the prayer house. Man was it good. I love being there by myself. I typically don't like being there with other people if I am gonna be praying. If I am soaking I could care less who is there, but if I am walking around I like to be the only one there. So as I prayed the presence of God came and stayed. It was great. Then I soaked and had this funny dream about getting a phone call from Chris Overstreet while I was in the prayer house. Then I finished reading "Dreaming With God" and then I prayed some more. While I was reading a few people came in that were dressed to go somewhere. They came in a little before 7 I think. Well, I finished reading and started to pray again. So I got up and walked around and before a few mintues had gone by they were all getting filled up in the Holy Spirit so I was "kidnapped" by one of them and drug over to their group. The presence of God and some Holy laughter are a great way to start the day! They left and I was alone to witness an amazingly beautiful sunrise.

The Video Announcements this morning were amazing. Also be sure to check out the podcast this week as it should have some AMAZING testimonies on it. They were all great, but my favorite was one of the students who shared that while working at a pizza place over the Christmas break started to prophecy over an athiest and led him to Christ and then talking to a muslim had this bit of conversation (paraphrased):

Athiest to Muslim just after accepting Jesus: You should let this guy tell you how to pray to Jesus!

Muslim: Oh, well we believe that Jesus was a prophet.

BSSM Student: But prophets don't lie and Jesus said that He was the Messiah.

(Me: oh snap!)

Muslim: uh.....ok teach me how to pray to Jesus

::gets saved::

Haha. Yeah, that is my version of the story, but it is still that great!

So after church my roommate Jeremy and I went to Costco to pick up some goods. While there we prayed for a couple people. The second lady asked if we went to Simpson University (a Christian college just a few miles from Bethel). We explained how we go to Bethel but that some of our friends from church are students at Simpson. Turns out her husband is a professor at Simpson. Another woman I prayed for was in front of the Jam and Honey (unknown to me or Jeremy at the time). Later as we walked by again he noticed that and he reminded me of the dream he had last night that said "you prohesy like jam and honey." How sweet is that!

Tonight at church and Tuesday at school we have Bobby Conner speaking to us. Friday at school and at church, Sunday morning and evening, and Monday evening we have Mario Murillo, the following weekend I will be at Berkeley, the weekend after that is Todd Bentley, the week after that is Atlanta(!!!!), the week after that is the Eyes and Wings Conference (Bob Jones, Larry Randolph, John Paul Jackson), then in the couple weeks after that is another trip to Berkeley and then the mission trip to La Paz, Mexico! It should be amazing!

more fire

So last night in talking about outreach I didn't mention what had happened at church before we left. I was feeling the presence of God a lot more than normal. I think that my prayers and my time spent with the Lord are being answered. Anyway, so I had a great time during worship. Beforehand I prayed for a man who was born autistic and didn't feel anything. After worship though I was praying for a woman with cancer along with a group of several people. As we prayed for a minute or two I felt so much of the anointing go through my hand into her that a couple times I could barely keep my hand on her. I seriously believe that God healed her! It was intense! Then of course at the bus station I pryaed for the man with Cerebral Palsy. God just keeps bringing me people with Down's Syndrome, Autism, Cerebral Palsy, and Spina Bifida. I think He is trying to say something...

Also at work this morning I noticed a guy with a brace on his wrist. So after convincing him to let me pray for him (he was reluctant at first) I prayed real quick and as I was ending I felt the anointing go through my hand. I didn't make him try it out just then, maybe I should have, but I believe his pain is gone. I am continuing to believe for a great outpouring of His spirit upon me to see radical breakthrough in Redding, Berkeley/San Francisco, Atlanta, and Mexico! The next two months are going to be incredible!

Oh, and after I left last night they prayed for a couple people in the hospital who started feeling better, witnessed to a Jehovah's Witness, ministered prophetically, and led several people to the Lord, including a gang member! They just needing me to leave so that they could get to what God wanted to do. Haha. Praise God!

Living on the edge

Well, it is 34 degrees right now and I just got home from the greyhound bus station and downtown where we went on outreach. We were going there to preach the gospel on the bus as they waited to leave. Before we left the church God told me that I would see someone in a wheelchair that had to be in one and that they would get healed. So I am thinking to myself that we would have to find the person downtown somewhere since someone in a wheelchair couldn't really ride the Greyhound. So after walking around downtown in 34 degrees weather we went back to the bus station having found nobody. Well, once the bus arrived that we were gonna preach on I noticed a man getting carried down the steps to get placed into a wheelchair! C'mon Jesus! So I went inside with him and his father-in-law and prayed for him as he waited to get into the restroom. He was born with Cerebral Palsy. He started to feel tingling in his knees and then after praying some more he felt tingling all the way down into his feet. Then they had to go but God knows that I have not stopped praying for him since they left. So we went on the bus, handed out some fresh brownies and talked with the people about God. Right before the bus pulled out two of people on our team led a man in a prayer of repentance! At this point I had to go so that I could go to the prayer house before work (there is something about praying for breakthrough before you know what the problem is!) and the rest of the team went to the hospital to go to the ER waiting room to clear it out. I'll let you know how that goes! God is amazing!

San Diego

So last Wednesday I loaded up my car with 4 other people for a trip down to San Diego for the West Coast Prayer Rumble. By the time we were in Los Angeles we were still trying to figure out where we would be staying that night. Luckily one of the guys remembered that his friend had moved back to San Diego to live with his parents so we gave him a call and had a place to stay for the night. Well, they ended up hosting us all 4 nights! Talk about a blessing!

So the Rumble was incredible. It had its select moments of awkwardness, but that typically happens when people take up many offerings and are trying to get a group of people that might be reluctant to give. Haha. No, but really, it was awesome. Banning kicked it off, followed by Jesse Engle of Justice House of Prayer (JHOP) San Francisco, and then Banning again that night. In the evening it was fun as he starting giving words of knowledge and people started to get healed. At one point I stood next to a woman just to bless her, and after feeling the Holy Spirit, she tells me to pray for her friend's ankle. So I do real quick (it is during the meeting) and it gets healed, so when Banning hears that her ankle gets healed, he says, "I didn't even call out left ankle, that was gonna be my next one!" Anyway, that was super. I hope that it encouraged/challenged everyone to step into the supernatural power of God.

A quick side note. Being at the Rumble really made me realize how different it is to be at Bethel versus not be at Bethel. While we love what God is doing here and pray for more, there is a sense that it is nothing out of the ordinary. Meanwhile, from so many people we talk to, or rather listen to, it is as though what we see in Redding is out of this world. I really don't know how to explain it. Take Mike Bickle for instance. I would think that if he prayed for people a fair number would get healed. However, it seems as though he contends for miracles like I contend for Down's Syndrome to be healed. That is, contending for something I have never seen. I really don't know what it is. I pray for the sick and recently it seems like anywhere from 25-90% of the people get healed depending on the day. I think I will seek the Lord on the this and perhaps write a blog about it in the future because it really interested me this past week.

The second day was Brian Kim, Corey Russell and Lou Engle. Brian and Corey are both out of IHOP and their love for God and passion is evident of that. Man! I am glad I bought the CDs cause they were something else! There were times where I disagreed with what they were saying WITHOUT what I thought was a necessary explanation of bringing a balance, but nevertheless, they were outstanding. Lou Engle is something else. Wow. Such a father. Again, I am glad I bought the CDs. He challenged the heck out of me not just with that message, but throughout the Rumble (more on that later).

Ok, so I haven't talked about what was perhaps my favorite part of the Rumble, worship. WOW. Two different groups led, alternating sessions. Jonathan David Helser and Isa Covertier. They were amazing. The sound that Jonathan's band put out was so fresh and the lyrics were so powerful. I bought their CD and have been listening to it in the car ever since. Isa's band was SOLID. Wow. They just kept taking us into the presence of the Lord. Seriously, I spent so much time in God's presence at the Rumble. It was amazing. At one session I spent 2.5 hours just enjoying his presence during worship and then the message as well (hence the need for getting the CDs). But yeah, wow. Check them out on myspace.

On Saturday, the 10th and final day of my fast, we were at UC San Diego all day for prayer, worship, and yeah, I think that was it. It was great. And went to the back of the auditorium we were in and paced back and forth for breakthrough for the uncurable diseases. Oh God was firing me up. I went to pray for a man with a bandage on his head, after I did I felt an impression in my right foot so as I asked him I looked down and saw that his right shoe had a 4-5 inch sole on it. He had cancer when he was a kid that stunted the growth in that leg. I prayed and prayed and prayed and didn't see his leg grow out. He said he felt God's presence and also that his other (good) leg was feeling even stronger, so that was good. Later as we went out on the campus to pray I saw a woman with a cane so I stopped and prayed for her, she was kinda in a rush so I didn't make her test it out right there. It is really getting so easy to pray for people. If you want to pray for people, just get with someone else who does, go with them for a little bit and then try it out, it isn't very hard.

We heard from Lou Engle about the history of UC San Diego and their library which just so happens to be "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" with a 560 foot serpent leading up to it. It was intense. So we prayed and declared and had a good time. Back inside out of the cold. I got to sit in on a meeting about some cool stuff coming to San Francisco and how we might get to play a part of that, but again, more on that as it becomes public. I asked for Lou Engle and his wife to pray for me as I am going out to Georgia Tech a month from today and ended up with some pretty sweet prophetic words to carry in prayer. Thanks Lou! On top of that, they showered us with his two books and then his wife also gave me his worship CD all for free. They were such incredible people. They really taught me a lot this weekend.

Well, after it all ended we headed out to get some dinner, which would be my first meal of 2007 as I ended my 10 day fast. We had some mexican food and boy was it good. :)

The next morning we went to the church where Banning would speak and quickly my body reminded me that the meal I had last night was the first one in a while, but don't worry, I will spare you the details, but I did end up in the bathroom at the same time as another guy who broke his fast. Haha. Anyway, this church was taking me back to Tallahassee. It was multi-ethnic and multi-generational and the worship was straight up Hillsong. Banning's message was on fire. We have new lyrics for the "this little light of mine..." song. They are, "This huge freakin' fire of mine..." haha. He was talking about how so many Christians hide their light so that it won't go out but in Matthew 5 Jesus actually tells us that we are the light of the world. That's right, Jesus said I am the light of the world. It was great. He challenged them to take their faith public.

We got to give words of knowledge and saw many people get healed without anyone praying for them. It was sweet. There were many great testimonies of people getting healed. I will put up a video of one man's testiomny in the next couple of days. It was intense. So, after that we grabbed a quick bite to eat at Panda Express which was so good! I had some Kung Pao chicken that on one bite I thought my face was gonna turn into fire! Haha, it was good. So we said goodbye to our host and hopped on the Interstate at about 2:30-2:45 pm for our 11 hour drive home. We got stuck in some pretty good LA traffic but then made it up almost to Sacramento before we stopped for dinner. Near Bakersfield there was a stretch of highway that looked incredible! It was mile after mile after mile of straight highway and so since it was at night, all you could see were tons of lights. I wish I had gotten a picture or video of it, but we were coming down from the mountains and it was kinda curvy so I decided not to.

Well, I pulled into the driveway at 1:30 this morning to find everyone asleep. I changed into my work clothes and headed over to the prayer house to read my bible and pray before going to work. I am so glad that I did. It was incredible. I didn't see anything or hear an answer when I asked, but I believe there were angels in there with me. I felt something that I had never felt before. Something from the Rumble really changed me. Changed the way I think about the Holy Spirit and challenged my love and devotion to God. I was challenged to pray even more and fast for the coming harvest. Wow. It was just incredible. I believe breakthrough is here and I am taking it public. I got a few words at work, a few were right and a few were wrong. Nevertheless, my light is gonna shine brightly at Target because I am the light of the world! It is my responisibility to reach people with the gospel and I will hopefully never point fingers again. Thank you Lord for the work you are doing in my life. Increase the level of intimacy I have with you and pour out your spirit to confront the works of the enemy.

Great Faith

Great faith. I received a prophetic word in 2003 that said I would have great faith but until recently I hadn't thought too much about it. In fact, in just the past couple of days my awareness about it has heightened to where I just went back to listen to it and transcribe a portion of the prophecy.

"In the days to come you are going to be a man noted by great faith. A dogged determination. If God said it He will do it. That's going to be infectious and will be imparted to many other people and you are going to be amazed that as you encourage others the great exploits that they will do based upon your faith for them."

On Sunday night I felt like I was starting to operate in faith. Not that I hadn't been praying for people in faith, but more like I was starting to believe that they are going to get healed when I pray because my faith will stir God to show up.

Anyway, today I had many errands to run in preparation for leaving for San Diego tomorrow. I needed to go to the bank, get my oil changed, see if Old Navy had jeans on sale that I liked, and then perhaps go to Target if they didn't. After going to the bank I thought that I would go to Old Navy since it is just across the street and that way I wouldn't have to back track after getting my oil changed. So I go in and almost immediately spot 4-5 people with developmental disabilities. I am thinking to myself, "God, you set me up! How could you do this to me? I am praying for breakthrough right now and am fasting to be baptised in power and you are throwing all of my favorite foods in front of me!" The bad thing is that my first reaction was that it isn't time yet for the breakthrough to come. It wouldn't be very cool to tell someone who is dying of some disease that you are fasting and praying for breakthrough but since you aren't done yet they aren't gonna get healed. Actually, that is pretty funny in a bad kinda way.

So after looking through way too many pairs of jeans and only finding 3 that were my size but none of which I liked (I couldn't even find one I liked that was my size not on sale!) I went out to look for them (Since two were in wheelchairs I knew they wouldn't be able to get far away from me...haha). So I saw them in another store that was women's clothing and I didn't want to follow them in there so I wasted time walking and then sat down in a seat nearby. Once they came out I got up and started to follow them (bad idea...haha) and when I finally got along side them and started to talk the first thing out of their mouth was "I thought you were a stalker" (they were slightly joking...). Anyway, I ask for permission to pray after explaining how I believe that God is wanting to heal disabilities. So the caregiver mentions that one man in the wheelchair will never walk again due to arthritis in his knee and an accident when he was a teenager.

My prayer was something that you might expect from a 7 year old who has never prayed for someone before. Ok, maybe not quite that bad, but it was definitely not a prayer of faith by the standards of how I prayed for people on Sunday. Nothing happened in the physical but I am happy that I went for it because believe it or not, that was the first time I have ever approached people with developmental disabilities (not counting the man at Berkeley who was paralyzed, I am talking about people who were born with a condition effecting their brain) in public. There have been a few times in a church setting that I have gotten to pray for people, but this was my first time in public. I realized that if I am believing to see people get healed in public that I better start praying for people in public. If I want to see a paralyzed man get out of a wheelchair on February 8th then I better start praying for people in wheelchairs.

So I got my oil changed and went to church for our informal meeting with Pastor Bill to watch videos of A.A. Allen and Jack Coe. They were amazing! Particularly I noticed how A.A. Allen prayed with such faith that I couldn't really imagine someone not getting healed when he prayed. It was a sight to see. I know that he was doing this in a church setting (people coming to him for prayer and not him going to people wanting to see if they will let him pray for them) but I still believe that I should pray with such great faith when I am at the mall or somewhere else outside the church.

After the meeting I went to the prayer house and then when I was leaving a woman was pushing in a man in a wheelchair. This time not upset at God but rather thankful for the opportunity I asked him if I could pray for him. Turns out he has ALS or Lou Gehrig's Disease. This time, although I was still trying to not talk too loudly, I prayed with much more faith that God would heal him than I did with the man at the mall (this was kinda a church setting, although he didn't approach me, I knew he would be up for prayer since he was there). Again, we didn't see anything happen right there, but I am believing that God is gonna heal him completely. He was diagnosed with ALS eight years ago and the doctors gave him three years to live. So much for the doctor's report. Ha, go Jesus! So he is already believing that God has kept him alive much longer than he was supposed to.

Last thing. Early this morning when I was praying I had a short vision that I want to share just part of (don't want to say the whole thing just because of who else was in it). In the vision I was on a univeristy campus in Budapest, Hungary leading an outreach. I went to pray for a man who was paralyzed and after just commanding his legs and body to be strengthened, I commanded him to get up and walk in Jesus name and he did! I share this not to try to brag, although I do believe that will happen sometime when I visit my sister in Budapest, but rather because of the prayer of great faith. It seems as though God is speaking that to me. A few weeks ago I mentioned how I was gonna stop commanding and just kinda ask God politely to come. Well, as nice as that is, I think He is changing my opinion on how I should pray. Seriously, if each person who was paralyzed that I prayed for got healed, I probably would just shout, "Get up and walk in Jesus name!" or "Be healed in Jesus name!" not some long, drawn out petition.

Well, I better start packing for San Diego so I can get to bed. Please pray for safe travels, that we get rocked by God, and that God uses us to rock other people all 5 days we are gone!

Word at work

Quick story from work this morning. We were finishing up an area and I was in the aisle with one other guy. I felt an impression in my left foot that I identified as a word of knowledge however I had to wait because he was talking. So I hung around until he was leaving and helped him walk some shopping carts back. I looked at him walk a bit and really couldn't tell that he was limping or anything, but hey some people are good at not limping. So I asked him, "does your left foot hurt?" He resonds, "yes." So I asked how he hurt it and after he explained how, he asks me how I knew. So I told him how God will show me pain that people have when he is wanting to heal it and so I offered to pray for him. Then he explains how even though it might not seem like he is a religous person, he does believe in God. He kinda skirted the idea of me praying for him though, so I will try to talk with him tomorrow. I find it interesting how many people with a pretty extensive religous (not necessarily in a bad way) background, live in such a way as to make Christians feel very uneasy around them, yet then when you talk to them about God they open up and are more than willing to express their supposed faith. This guy hasn't ever said anything to me that made me feel uncomfortable like I mentioned, but just in general there have been several people at work who act in such a way that you think they despise Christians and don't believe in God, but then say they are Christians.

Ending 2006 with a bang!

Saturday night I stumbled upon some Todd Bentley articles that were of great interest to me. They were on the breaker anointing. Several times since I have been out here I have had leaders tell me that I have a great breaker anointing but I was always thinking, "cool, but what is that?" So I stumbled across these articles about the same time that I got a call from Target asking me to come in because they got a truck that was unexpected (how? I don't know). So, I decided to read through both articles after I started to get hooked on the first one even though I knew I needed to get to bed to get the amount of sleep I was hoping to get.

Well, at the end of the article Todd starts to talk about contending for it and doing so early in the morning. It reminded me of how earlier in the semester I had started waking up early to try to get in the presence of God (remember that this is getting up early before I am supposed to be at work at 4 am). And for a while I was so burdened to pray for more of God that I would wake up even earlier (an hour before work) so that I could pray as well. Needless to say, I haven't been doing that recently. I can't remember when I stopped, but it was probably somewhere around when I was gonna quit my job because I was so sleep deprived. However, now with a fresh fire and goal to chase after I was even more heavily burdened to pray than I was before.

Luckily, when I was called to come into work yesterday it was our first day back at 4 am instead of 3. That would have been pretty dismal to wake up at 2 am and be going for the entire day (not that 3 am is great, but that is one more hour of sleep!). So yesterday I got up and decided that instead of praying in my car like I used to, and frequently had times where I would feel like I was falling asleep (mainly when I was trying to soak), that I would go to the prayer house and give myself some intense time of intercession.

It was amazing! For me having a specific time to pray for breakthrough makes things much easier. I mentioned how I was struggling with always shifting to praying for breakthrough while I was soaking instead of just worshipping God and listening to Him. Well, now I have a time and a place to pray for breakthrough so that I don't ever feel conflicted when I soak.

After getting off work at 8:04 (long story, only 4 of us showed up and so we had to do things a bit differently) I rushed home, took a shower and got to church right at 8:30 before the service started. Have I mentioned how much I love being on the ministry team and getting to pray for people? It is just great to give people an encounter with God. In the first service I got a chance to pray for one of the church/ministry school leaders of where I will be going on my mission trip to La Paz. He was just wanted to get filled up and it was so much fun. In the second service I was praying for a young guy who was visiting who had some pain in his shoulder, jaw, and foot. Well, Jesus gave him an overhaul and just healed him up in a matter of 2 or 3 minutes. I noticed that as I prayed for him, I was praying with a confidence that he would be healed. More on that later.

Pastor Bill talked about our part of the 1 billion soul harvest that is starting this year (now that it is 2007!). Since I got to hear it twice I was really starting to get pumped up about the role I would get to play in it, expecially since young people are going to be a huge part of it. Some prophets are even saying that their will be 1 billion young people saved, so even better! Bear with me as I make a prophetic declaration...Over the next several years I believe that I will get to lead many thousands of young people into the Kingdom. Praise God! You might question that number based on current trends, but I will respond that I have just begun (or not even begun yet).

At the evening service most of the pastors shared what God has put on their hearts for 2007. It was fantastic. THe following are some of my favorites...

Ideas will be released that are well beyond our time

Dreamers will be released that will ask, "why not?"

More encounters with the supernatural

Mantles will be easily picked up by the next generation of leaders(!!!!)

Fearless generation

Grace to pray more than we ever have before

Spirit of evangilism released

How would I live my life if I wasn't afraid?

Who do you want to be? Go after it.

You were born for greatness

Innovation and creativity released

Revival is established in our culture

definitions of establish from dictionary.com
1. to found, institute, build, or bring into being on a firm or stable basis: to establish a university; to establish a medical practice.
2. to install or settle in a position, place, business, etc.: to establish one's child in business.
3. to show to be valid or true; prove: to establish the facts of the matter.
4. to cause to be accepted or recognized: to establish a custom; She established herself as a leading surgeon.
5. to bring about permanently: to establish order.
6. to enact, appoint, or ordain for permanence, as a law; fix unalterably.
7. to make (a church) a national or state institution.
8. Cards. to obtain control of (a suit) so that one can win all the subsequent tricks in it.

Supernatural becomes choice A

As we pray we are prophesying

There is authority in the declared word; declare the word of the Lord

Learn to live in the realm of unlimited supply

how would you pray for someone with cancer (or any disease) if every person you have ever prayed for with cancer (or that disease) got completely healed?


WOW. That is a lot of good stuff to ponder. That last one hit me. Other than that morning when I prayed for the young man who got healed, I have been starting to pray timid prayers recently. The "God, please if you can, do something to maybe heal this person" prayers. Ok, not really like that, but quiet prayers that would be totally reliant on the grace of God (and my faith not playing at all into it) to heal the person. So when I got to pray for a man who had a stroke and a brain anurism and was all messed up from that, I prayed as though I knew he would be healed and that I pray for people with his same problem every day and always see them get healed. Man, it is such a better way to pray. There wasn't a way for him to check it out last night, but I am believing that it is finished. He certainly was encouraged. People are probably so used to the timid prayers and claiming that they believe God will heal them that when they hear a prayer of faith they might really believe it and get healed! I would definitely like my chances of getting healed when a person who sees healing 100% of the time prays for me as opposed to someone who has never seen anyone get healed and prays accordingly.

Last night I also prayed for this on fire man in his 50s at our church that was in a lot of back pain and also pain in the area where you would receive a shoulder massage. Well, God just wacked him real good and healed him up. Same story of praying in faith as though every time I have prayed for someone God has healed them.

Sorry this is so long, but I'm almost done and this next part is really exciting!

I am in the middle of a fast. Yesterday morning during the sermon I realized that in Acts chapter 1 they were together praying (and fasting?) in the upper room for the same length, 10 days (I'm not sure where the 10 days came from, but I will trust that it is accurate). One of the things that I have been praying is that I would get baptised in the Holy Spirit and that power would come upon me to spread the gospel (Acts 1:8). Secondly, Jesus went into the desert to fast and pray for 40 days. In Matthew 17 Jesus tells his disciples (in the NASB and NKJV) that they couldn't drive out the demon because, "this kind only comes out by prayer and fasting." However, Jesus didn't pray or fast for the breakthrough then. I would like to propose to you that his 40 days of fasting in the desert was his preparation that purchased the breakthrough to cast out that demon. Key word breakthrough. From yesterday when I started to pray I will have 40 days to pray for the breakthrough of the paralyzed man who I believe will get healed and for the breaker anointing to come upon me in a mighty way to see many get healed and saved when I go to Georgia Tech in February. How about that! If I had started today it would have been 39 days. Haha. Talk about fuel for the fire! C'mon Jesus!