Holy Ghost in the kitchen

So that is pretty much the view we were forced to cope with all weekend. Lake Tahoe is beautiful!

Amazing things happened to me the entire trip including the ride home. After a fairly long time of just being drunk in the Holy Ghost, we made a stop in Carson City, and then headed back to Redding. Business was as usual, as it had been on the trip at least, until we started to prophesy over each other. A little ways into it I started to manifest a lot. I don't really know what was happened, however one person said that I was receiving the prophetic words given to other people for myself.

Their was definitely something major happening. It is hard to describe. I'll just mark it down as a very significant day (weekend and season) in my life for a few reasons. More on that some other time. :)

Today was our moving day - again. So I am writing from my home for the next two months. I will have my own room for the first time since moving to Redding and will be sleeping on a regular bed for the first time as well. There is an office big enough for Jeremy and I and there is also a pool (feel free to come over!). It should be a fun and exciting summer as many new things are going to happen. God is on the move! He is only waiting for us!

While talking on my cell phone tonight at a birthday party in the kitchen I started to get drunk. I figured that I shouldn't keep it all for myself so I distributed some to a few others. I was talking with a revivalist in Miami, FL who just connected with one of my old pastors. I am so excited to hear the revival reports that are going to come from them out of South Beach!

The Normal Christian Life...

Today was another good day in the Kingdom. People got saved, people got healed, and people received prophetic words that will catapult them into their destiny.

In the morning I did prophetic art during worship. I have never done it before and haven't painted since elementary school. I'll admit, other than not knowing the basics about painting like drying off the brush, it was a lot of fun and not hard at all. During the rest of the meeting our row was just getting whacked some more. Man, has it been fun. I can't wait to go on more Firestorms in the future.

We gave words of knowledge and a bunch of people were getting healed. God is so good! After changing a flat tire and then taking it to get fixed we arrived for our afternoon outreach to hear an amazing testimony from the pastor's wife. One girl who just graduated from BSSM called up the pastor's wife's father to pray for him for healing of his detached retina that left him completely blind in that eye. She prayed over the voicemail as they weren't home. Meanwhile, at lunch, the man takes of his sunglass type things, covers his good eye, and tells his wife that he can see her and the outlines of some other things as well! God is so good!

There were some awesome testimonies from our outreach time. In addition to the seven people who got saved, many others got prophetic words. One boy, who I made a balloon sword for, told me that he has been to many nations already (like 10!) after I prophesied that he would go to many nations. Other children were taught to prophecy and learned to hear God's voice with training from our team. Yea God!

The evening meeting was amazing. We prophesied over every person there. It was great. I think our whole team was drunk. The people were experiencing new things and had things spoken over them that created a grace for them to walk into. I even received an amazing word from one of the mothers on our team. I feel funny saying mother since it was perfectly delivered like Cindy Jacobs! It was so powerful! Definitely the most impacting word I have gotten.

People got healed of stuff. One girl on our team asked a lady if she had problems with her right knee which led to finding out she had all sorts of problems. The report when we left was that all the pain was gone! Woohoo!

Enjoying some new wine!

(Ok, so if I say today/tonight in this blog I am referring to Friday, June 8 since that was when I thought about it. And if you don't want to read the whole thing, then I think you should read the very end where I talk about eating pizza, it will rock your paradigm if you aren't familiar with it)

So today, well yesterday now that I am writing it, I finished work early up in the mountains to leave Redding for a ministry trip to Lake Tahoe. I have mentioned that pretty much since school ended I have had an increased awareness of the Holy Spirit and angels. Today (er, yesterday) was no exception. From the time we met to pray before we left until the time I lay down in bed to go to sleep I was getting royaly whacked. Can I just say that I was drunk for about 13 hours? (Is everyone ok with the term, "drunk?" I come from a background that is less free than Bethel and so I don't want to offend people just because of word choice. No, I didn't backslide and get drunk on alcohol. Yes, I did get plastered in the Holy Spirit and was being immersed in His love!).

So the whole car ride there I was pretty much drunk. On the way there we drove towards Mt. Lassen, the 10,000 foot volcano that I hiked up back in September and then headed towards Reno. Then we drove towards Lake Tahoe and drove up over 8,000 feet in the mountains before headed back down towards the Lake (for my Florida friends, a football field is 300 feet long not including the endzones, so that means we drove up about 27 football fields high!). The mountains and the Lake are beautiful. God is so good. I work on top of a mountain with incredible views, then I drive through the mountains and end up at a service which overlooks a huge lake with beautiful mountians around it!

Tonight, the speaker at the meeting was the man who imparted the Father's Heart to both the late Jack Frost and John Wimber (of the Vineyard movement). I tried to pay attention as much as I could but I was getting blasted the whole time. Since school has been out I have been manifesting a lot more than I had earlier in the school year. It feels as the my discernment is definitely increasing as I am starting to take notice of things. Praise God!

After the meeting, he had everyone under 30 come up for impartation of the Father's heart and sure enough when Kevin Dedmon (our fearless leader) came by and prayed for me I got wasted. A little bit later I went to go join others from our group in praying for people. I only prayed for two people but I didn't hear any reports of God not healing someone! Come on Jesus!

I went and prophesied over a couple with another guy, we were later joined by probably 5 others, and at one point Theresa Dedmon and I got slammed at exactly the same time (Woah! It is starting again! HAHAHAHA!) I am talking about getting blitzed and I am getting myself hammered in the process! Talk about power in the testimony!

Through an exchange with one of the people on our team, I am learning that even when we look like we are manifesting similarly, we can still feel things completely different. For instance they felt like liquid pouring down their head onto their body whereas I didn't feel it at all when they put their hand on my head, but instead I felt heat on my hands. When the prayed a second time the heat came back and then increased.

Finally, we left for our host home. Talk about awesome. I have a queen bed (fit for a king though...haha) that has nicer bedding than any other bed I have ever slept on. Hands down the greatest pillow ever. The towels are definitely 6 feet long and the shower head was glorious (maybe it is just that I have been using bad shower heads since I moved to Redding, but boy was it nice!). OK, this next part is great!

As we ate some late night pizza one of our guys was talking about his joy angel being next to him. Since I have been able to feel angels recently I figured I would go over to where he was standing (the angel that is) and immediately when I got to where he was I could feel him and had to back up. It gets better. After a few times of me asking Shandy what he saw the angel doing when he felt him, I had gotten up to get another slice of pizza. When I got back to my seat I felt something on my neck that made me manifest pretty good and I try to quickly put down my plate to keep from dropping it. When I asked him about it, Shandy said that he took a feather off the angel and put it on my neck when I walked by! No joke, that feather, that I didn't know about, and I didn't even know that he put anything on me, even in the spiritual realm, rocked me!

God is so good! More fire Lord!

Don't miss the prayer meeting!

Ah, God is good.

It has been a long day of hard work, but there is a satisfaction of being able to relax after working hard. My back is a little stiff after 9 hours of working, but the first thing I did as I got in my car to drive home was to thank God for giving me that job. Being able to admire God's creation while I work and on the drive to and from work doesn't hurt either.

Well, I'll back up to last night. I went to soak before pre-service prayer and God's presence was thick! When I went over to the church I was one of the first ones there and started to get whacked a little bit before anyone else was really there. Did I mention that God is good and that I am having so much fun? Pretty soon more people arrived and God kept coming as well. At one point I was about to fall backwards when a guy that I normally walk around with came out of nowhere (which is funny because he walks really slowly like I do while there) and caught me. The rest of prayer kept getting better as our group of 3-5 people with arms around eachother's shoulders started, stopped, spun around completely (I'm still not sure how we pulled that one off!), almost fell over a few times, laughed a lot, and fell over a few times. Then we had a bonfire at the end and sure enough me and my "dancing partner" (lol, that guy I just mentioned) fell over and almost took a few people with us.

Worship was so much fun! There has not been a worship set during a meeting in the past 3 weeks that I haven't loved. That is good! It isn't because the music was always the greatest, although it usually was, but rather because I have decided to worship whether I felt like it or not.

Eric Johnson spoke, which doesn't happen often on a Sunday. This is the first time I have heard him other than at school or one time at a Friday night service. He was great. He talked a lot about what I have been thinking about recently, just in a slightly different context. He talked about our spiritual inheritance and not trying to pay for what we have been given for free. I found myself realizing that I am still trying to pave my own way instead of building upon those who have gone before me. If they already have breakthrough in it and it is my inheritance then why am I still trying to get it on my own? After having a good ole time in the fire tunnel I went to the grocery store to pick up some lunch making supplies for work. While there I prayed for a few people. It was quite refreshing after many awkward attempts while down in Sacramento of Saturday. Nothing happened that the people noticed which I happily say to show that I am not just trying to share healings. It is a growing process for me right now as earlier yesterday I went to Costco and didn't pray for the people whose paths I crossed who could use a healing or two.

Finally, on a very random note, I wanted to share about something that just happened. I bought a pair of shoes less than two weeks ago since the pair I had been wearing were really falling apart. Really! So as soon as I bought them I started to wear them sinc my old shoes were now in such bad condition. Since the only way to return shoes is if you don't wear them outside your house I didn't see any value in keeping my receipt. Especially since I got them right before I moved I was trying to get rid of things I didn't need. I think the thought went through my mind about something happening to my shoes so I decided to keep the receipt and I put it in my checkbook. Today when I got home from work I was taking off my shoes right before going into the apartment when the loop that holds the shoelace in place broke. So I called up the store where I bought them and explained what happened and they are going to let me replace them because I have the receipt and the box (I can't remember the last shoe box I got rid of unless it was really old). It could just be an unusual coincidence, but I think it was the Holy Spirit telling me to keep the receipt!

He's always speaking

"I thought to myself, 'What would happen if the washing machine flooded?'"

Not much later we received a phone call and rushed out the door to respond to a flooded garage. After helping clean up some of the mess and putting the drainage hose back where it belongs, our flooded friend realized that the Holy Spirit had warned her of what was going to happen, but she hadn't recognized it. My roommate then responded that He is always speaking and that it is up to us to listen.

Yesterday I was rushing to our old apartment to get my clothes so that I could go to where we are now living to take a shower and get to the church for a meeting. On my way there I saw two cars on the side of the road. Seeing that there was an officer on the scene and that all the people were standing outside their vehicles, I felt a sensation in the big toe of my right foot. Having never stopped at an accident before I wasn't quite sure how to approach the people since the officer was writing up what happened. It could have just been me feeling the Holy Spirit, or it could have been a word of knowledge for one of the people (I think it was a word of knowledge). I have been so used to not getting words of knowledge "on-the-go" that I doubted the validity of it until I had already talked myself out of stopping.

Regardless of how much we recognize the voice of God, we must awaken ourselves to what He is doing and what He is saying. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. That has been my prayer in recent months - that I would know what God is doing so that I could do it and nothing more. Had I been waiting for God to speak like the sick people at the pool of Bethesda were waiting for the angel to stir the waters I would have jumped at the opportunity. Now that I think about it, that is how I want to start living - eagerly awaiting an assignment from the Lord whether it is to give someone an encouraging word, or to pray for someone to be healed of an incurable disease.

Eagerly await the voice of God, the Language of the Holy Spirit. When you hear your spiritual phone ringing, don't hesitate to answer because you may miss the call.

Somebody get happy!

So I finally got smart last night and put my laptop in its normal spot next to my bed so that I could write down my dreams when I wake up in the middle of the night. Sure enough, I had a dream, woke up, and wrote it down. One person that was in this dream had never been in any of my dreams until the past two nights. Anyway, I woke up early to get some time in with the Lord. It was fitting that Pastor Kris talked about how something only has value when it costs us something. Well, I have loved my time with God in the mornings and this morning was no different. I think it was probably my favorite time of praying in the Spirit ever. Of my goals that I wrote about a few days ago I have been doing very well on the praying, soaking, and reading the bible, all of which I do in the morning. I have not been as consistent in spending an hour reading other books, but have been reading a few pages each day.

Church was super cool. I was digging worship as I have learned again how to enter in when it isn't my choice of music. Eric Johnson, Pastor Bill's son, shared this amazing story about an 8-year-old that learned not to be afraid of snakes (the devil). I am not doing the illustration justice right now, but he made several great points about how we need to put the devil in his proper place of being small and only having the authority that we hand over to him. Pastor Kris told a story that I have heard many times, but after he told and just began to talk was amazing! When I went up to pray for people I felt an impression on my right knee, so I turned to Banning and asked him if it was hurting, which it wasn't. Ten seconds later he went to go pray for a man. Fifteen seconds after that he tells me to get over there and explains how not only did this man ask for me to pray for him, but also that it was his right knee that he came up to get healing for! So Banning and I just declared healing in a second over him, without praying, and told him to go walk and test it out. He reported very much the same as I did with my knee problem from a month ago in that, it didn't feel nearly as weak when he was walking and that he felt more stable. Praise God!

Fast forward to the evening and I showed up to pre-service prayer a few minutes early. Since I have been having such a good time praying in tongues the past few days, I didn't hesitate to start walking around the room even though there was no music on yet and I was the only one doing it. Sure enough I could feel God's presence almost immediately and was then getting touched by some angels and the Holy Spirit. Later I was with several other people and was starting to get a little bit drunk in the Holy Spirit. I was laughing so much that now my throat is just a tiny bit sore from it. I kept falling over and laughing. Ah, being happy is so much fun! I now have the feeling that the summer is going to be a blast!

So, I don't think that I have ever had quite the experience that I had during worship tonight. It was amazing. I have had other experiences that were incredible, but I think this one tops them all. I thought I felt that something special was happening (which normally does not happen) and after just the third song Pastor Kris gets up to share that he feels such a special anointing in the room that he hasn't felt anything that strong since the Jesus Movement 40 years ago! WOAH! I was already going crazy, but that just kicked it up another notch. It was fantastic. On top of that, a good friend of mine that I have been constantly praying for was finally back from her surgery a month ago. I didn't realize just how special this is until now, but I had been praying that she wouldn't need any more rods put in her back because she would be healed, and guess what, she didn't need any rods! She still needs to be completely healed though. While praying for her I got a couple words of knowledge, one for pain in the left ear, which left completely, and another for headaches which lessened. Also, pain in her knee went away while I was praying for her feet. God is so awesome!!!! I can't believe how faithful He is! Oh and while I was praying for my friend, she was praying with one or two other people for a woman with a large tumor. After the second time of prayer the woman had an astonished look on her face and could not find the tumor!!!! JESUS!!!!!

I almost forget to mention what got released during this time of worship before I prayed for my friend. In addition to the healing anointing, Pastor Kris also said that there was an anointing to break cycles, not only including bad addictions, but also including bad thought patterns of fear or loss of hope. He explained how many lose hope when things they are praying for don't get answered. I totally felt that I had lost hope and it was also fitting that Kim Walker sang prophetically about dreams that were forgotten due to lost hope or bad memory would be restored. Well, I have dreams of people getting out of wheelchairs among other things that I have definitely lost hope on in a very general sense. Actually, I think it would be more accurate to say that I don't carry those dreams with the same level of faith that I once did.

Nearly two hours into the service Danny Silk finally got up to preach. I sat with some friends who were susceptible to getting drunk in the Holy Spirit on purpose just because I know God is giving me some freedom and joy. I was not dissappointed. After Josephs and Marys were called forward to be released we ended with a big fire tunnel. Much later I got to pray with an awesome guy, Scott, for a woman with cancer. You can tell that Scott has been around Pastor Bill by the authority that he prays with. Not a gift of faith, loud authority, but rather a soft-spoken, rock-solid healing theology authority. He got a clear word about her not being able to sleep and the whole time we were praying I could feel the fire coming off of my fingertips. She is gonna be healed.

Somebody get happy! God is good!

You may want to write this down...AGAIN!

God is really good!

Seriously. After my experience at the prayer chapel yesterday morning I thought that I should have a little party in there this morning before reporting at 8 am for the healing rooms. So, I had a cool time from 5-8 hanging out with Jesus and some angels and then headed over to the church. This was not my normal team, but there were a few familiar faces there from school and then also the intercessors that pray in the room with us and pray for us as we pray for the people. They are so awesome. It is like having four Grandmothers in the room cheering you on.

I learned something very valuable last night as we were sharing testimonies before going out into the city for outreach when one of the leaders made a comment about how my friend shares her testimonies. He made the comment that she always is thankful for the little things such as headaches and pain and treats them as a normal person might treat someone getting out of a wheelchair. He then said that people like her who are so thankful for the little things are the ones that then see the people getting healed of cancer and deaf ears opening. Anyway, when our leader at the healing rooms told us to ask God for what we want to see, I said, "God, I want to see headaches healed." I realized how quick I have been to write off less impressive healings as insignificant and to only really value the healing of cancer, deaf ears, blind eyes, etc... The angelic was pretty thick in the room at the time and I was probably manifesting more than I have since February especially when someone called out autism. So, I quickly followed with "Ceeeerebral Palsy! Down's Syyyndrome!" as I was shaking.

Did I mention that God is really good? Well, in case you didn't realize that yet, He is! I believe that for each of the people we prayed for I had at least one word of knowledge. For many of them I had several. I don't say this to boast, because God is giving them to me, but several weeks ago it seemed like I couldn't get a word of knowledge if I waited for one all day. God is really doing something in my life in creating a balance between doing what I am called to do, but doing it for the right reasons. It has been a long time coming, but better to go through what I did and be doing it right then to still be performing for the testimonies and praise of others as I had started to do. Anyway, on to what God was doing...

One woman no longer got dizzy when she danced and spun.

A man who is now one day past how long the doctors said he had to live felt fire in his chest. He had lung cancer that spread to his brain. Through words of knowledge he also got healed of numbness in his fingertips and lack of feeling in both of his feet. On his fingertips we prayed many times with there being improvement each time. We had to press in for his feet several times before they started to get better. We had already prayed I think three times (and were going to move on) when I then felt the Holy Spirit touch the bottom of my right foot, and so I told him, released another testimony and then prayed again, this time with breakthrough! Praise God!!!!

A girl with all kinds of stuff wrong had an outbreak of laughter (we did too!) when we prayed for God to release joy on her. She had chronic headaches (come on!), so I gladly prayed that they would never come back and that she would no longer have insomnia (both problems I had several weeks ago that I didn't have at the end of the week). Then, even though we had already been told to move on to the next person, I felt led to share a testimony from one of my classmates about how she got healed of lactose intolerance and then prayed for several friends and family members who got healed as well. Then the girl tells me that she has that too but thought it was unimportant compared to the rest of the things. Apparently God thought it was very important! She experienced indescribable feelings throughout her body as we prayed for her complete healing of many illnesses.

A woman wrote that she wanted prayer for "whatever the Lord wills". Well, after reading this, I think you will see that it is God's will to heal! We could barely touch her because the Holy Spirit was touching her so much. My prayer partner had a great word of knowledge that allowed us to find out that she had deafness so bad that hearing aids don't help. As we were praying for that I got words of knowledge for her feet and for her knees. We prayed that the numbness would go from her feet and that her knees would be fully strengthened and she had breakthrough. Then we also prayed for her back which I believe is fully healed as she quickly bent completely over at least a half dozen times without any sign of pain.

This is good!

When praying for a man with shoulder problems I felt heat in the exact area that I later found out was the location of the problem. He couldn't do anything to test it out, but he knew that swimming would test it and so he is going to give the report to one of the intercessors who is in his family.

A woman was receiving some inner healing when I felt that she also had feet problems. Guess what? She did! We got to pray for her feet and her knees as well and when we were about to wrap that up I felt that God was wanting to do something on the balls of her feet. It turns out that she has a fairly serious problem there in which she is prone to getting cut with possible dangerous consequences. We began pressing in for that and were feeling that God was doing a great work.

Another woman came for prayer for her colon. After praying in the spirit for a minute I felt that there was something wrong in the lower right side of her back. She said that she was having problems there so we prayed. A few minutes later there was a great shift that she felt, after which the pain was gone. Later as we were praying I felt that God was touching the colon so we prayed for that and she ended up feeling her colon pull back towards her back. Praise God!!!!

To top it off we prayed for a student who has had problems with her knees, hips, and back. After prayer she could bend her knees to get close to the ground without pain. Praise you Lord!!!!

God is good!

I went to the wedding of two of my classmates this afternoon and just watched the webcast for The Call on God.tv and just happened to catch the segment that we filmed here at Bethel. I could feel the anointing on it and was so thankful that I get to be a part of what is going on here. Later they showed the Ramp in Alabama which was rocking and had a very strong anointing too! How cool is God? I am getting rocked while watching a webcast, some of which wasn't even live! :)

You may want to write this down again.... God is good!

You may want to write this down...

God is good.

Oh wow, what a day I had yesterday. I woke up at 4 am to take a classmate to the Greyhound Bus terminal and after I dropped her off I thought it would be fun to go to the prayer chapel. Good choice. As I prayed I was more aware of His presence and also angels than I have been in a while. After that I had some good soaking time and then went home. I read my bible and made some breakfast. Lol, the only thing I "made" was the bagel that I cut in half to put in the toaster.

Later, when I was reading "The Reality of the Supernatural World" by Todd Bentley, I was hit with some pretty good revelation about the need to maintain spiritual disciplines. I don't want anyone to start debating with me, so I won't touch any specifics, but it was easy to relate what he wrote to my own personal experiences of having trouble doing something when we haven't been doing it regularly. For instance he gave the example of having a hard time getting back into doing meetings after having a week or even just a few days off. However, if he has been doing meetings every day then it is no problem for him to get going the next day. Likewise, revelation from reading the bible comes best when we actively read it every day. If I make a habit of ministering to people in public it becomes easier to do, but if I don't do it for a while, it is very difficult.

Something really seems to be happening in the spirit for me. Maybe it is because I am spending more time in prayer (it isn't because of performance, but rather familiarity!) and in God's presence. Last night at pre-service prayer I was really getting touched and started to laugh a lot, which I haven't done in a while. I went on outreach and was on a team with two of my favorite people. These people would blow you away. We had a blast and ministered to a lot of people. It all started with one of them following arrows they saw in the spirit and then passing it off to the other who felt that we should go to IHOP (Pancakes, not Prayer). So I pull in and before we even get inside the building we immediately found people that matched several words of knowledge. One man's knee got healed and another one's vision improved.

While talking with our waitress and telling her how great she is, I start to think that we should bless her with a large tip and immediately after I think that my friend gives a word of knowledge that we were supposed to bless a Native American and she happened to be one (I wouldn't have guessed it and we actually ran into more Native Americans before we left that did look like it). So we end up leaving her a large tip and after ministering to many other people we headed back.

We didn't make it far before I noticed a man walking on crutches, so we did a U-turn and pulled over to talk to him. We prayed for him and my friends both prophecied over him. While we were praying I could feel heat transfering from my fingers to his knee. He was really touched. It was awesome. So we went to a street that our group leader had written down that has nothing on it except for one intersection. Well, there was a car stopped at that intersection. Turns out one of the girls was teaching the other to drive. We were able to pray for them and just let them know that God thinks they are awesome. After that we finally went back to the church.

OK, so that was kinda long, I will save you by making a new post for what happened Saturday morning at the Healing Rooms...

To Be Continued...

Dream Language

God is so good! Today has been a wonderful day of using my free time to get things done and also spend lots of time with God. I came to the realization this morning that as long as I am at home and my roommate isn't, I have no excuse to not pray in the Holy Spirit and soak to the extent of my heart's desire. Some days I just don't feel like going to the prayer chapel since it can often be crowded and I realized that I need to learn how to pray in tongues and soak elsewhere!

God has been giving me a lot of dreams recently. They have varied greatly but have all spoke to me in some way. Many times I am having two or three dreams each night. Today in addition to two during the night, I went into a dream while I was soaking this afternoon. (There was a slight pause in my blogging train of thought as I could not type in anything in my browser for the past 20 minutes or so. Now back to your regularly scheduled blog.) I have been reading a book by Todd Bentley called "The Reality of the Supernatural World." It seems like it has been a key of sorts to open up new experiences for me, which have manifested most frequently as dreams. Addtionally, my friend Jeremy has been speaking very highly of James Goll's "Dream Language." I read the forward of it recently before going to bed and sure enough I had several dreams that night.

Ironically, the dream I had this afternoon had James Goll in it, even though he didn't look like any of the pictures I have seen of him. However, he looked fairly close to the real thing and I knew in the dream that it was him. In it there was something to do with his book "The Seer" which I own, but have not started reading yet (I think I will read it next after dreaming about it!). Interestingly enough one of the pictures that I saw on the book in the dream is not the actual picture that is on the book. However, in the dream the picture revealed the secret to a mystery that opened a huge door and led to a dramatic encounter with God! I believe that this is the first time that I have ever had a dream about having an encounter with God. I have had dreams about cripples and paralytics getting healed, but never about getting blasted by the Holy Spirit.

I feel kind of funny saying it, but I feel like I need to hire a dream interpreter. Perhaps I should just start to meditate on my dreams so that I can get the interpretation myself. That sounds like a better idea. However, the idea of seeking help isn't totally wrong either. Jeremy pointed out to me the other day how dreams are just as valuable as a prophetic word and understanding what God is saying is just important in a dream as it is through prophecy.

That was a good night

That is what I said to a friend and his mom as I left a friend's house last night after probably one of the craziest nights (in a good way) that I have experienced in my life. It all started when I was at home group and happened to be in the middle of a game of Uno when a friend called me to invite me to come hang out with the Westerfields. While on the phone it became my turn and not fully paying attention I put down my next to last card and forgot to call out "Uno" thus keeping me from probably winning that game. Oh well...the price I paid to get some breakthrough and and an encounter with God.

I really could have said that it was a good day because that morning I had an amazing time in the prayer chapel. Rather than making myself only lay down, I spent some time just soaking in a chair. Boy was it good. There were a few times where God's presence was so heavy on me that it felt like someone was sitting on me. Actually I guess it would be more accurate to describe it as a really heavy blanket covering my entire body. Then while reading my Bible I felt like I was getting more revelation than I have been getting recently. Maybe I should be reading more...

School was great as well. Danny Silk spoke to us for the last time and was great as always. One of the interns, Israel, talked to us for a while and was stinking awesome! It was amazing. He told the Power Costs and the Healing Anointing dreams which get me every time I hear them. Lastly, Mark Brookes spoke. He can preach. Yeah, I can't even remember what he talked about after what happened last night.

So I went over to the house where we were meeting and saw how few people were there. After a few minutes and a few more people got there Jason asked if we were ready to start. Ready to start? I thought that we were just hanging out. Well, it turned out much better than just hanging out. He asked everyone what they came expecting and pretty much everyone mentioned intimacy. I also mentioned that I was wanting and understanding of how the Spirit is moving so I can work with Him, just as I have talked about only doing what I see the Father doing. Well, that was probably what Jason talked about most of the time. It was phenomenal. I wish I had it recorded because he was talking so fast that my mind could catch very little.

The thing that was scary (in a good way) about it was how similar it was to an experience I had when Todd Bentley was speaking at the Encounter conference back in February. The presence of God was so heavy that I couldn't handle it and felt like I needed to leave. Before I could leave though Todd told everyone that they could lay down on the floor or do whatever, which I took him up on and that helped a lot. Well, this went on last night for who knows how long until I broke out in a pretty good sweat, had shortness of breath, and felt too weak to get up out of my chair. Often all I could do was drop my head in front of me or drop it into the back of the chair behind me. Finally, I got up to go to the restroom and barely felt like I would make it there (it was only 10 steps away). I sat down again because I felt weak like I do when I am about to throw up (even though I didn't think I was going to) and got some cold water on my face. I went back out drank some water before going back out to the room. Stuff was starting to break in the room and I was starting to feel better. Then Jason described pretty much what had just happened to me was going to start happening to some people in the room.

Within a minute or two I felt completely normal again. We started to pray more and again stuff began to break. I didn't understand most of what was going on, but I believe that I am starting to get a grasp on the reality of the spiritual realm. I did catch from Jason that so much of the struggle is in our minds. We forget that we have the mind of Christ and that the Kingdom of God is within us. One of the things that hit me the most that he said had to do with fear. He mentioned that the fear and shaking that happens when we are looking for eggs at the grocery store but then see someone in a wheelchair, our compassion for the person starts kicking at the demonic (that isn't exactly what he said, because I can't remember, so I will try to explain it). When the two Kingdoms collide it produces fear in us. Why? We are feeling the fear that the kingdom of darkness is feeling. He then said that the greater fear that we face, the greater breakthrough will come after it is broken. That is encouraging to me because I am normally very scared!

Although he didn't pray for me for impartation like he did for almost everyone else, I still feel like I got a ton out of those few hours. I can see why the name of his ministry is Kingdom Realities, because it really is a reality of the Kingdom that changes everything. As the Kingdom becomes real to us and continues to become more real we begin to walk in more and more. It is all about understanding the Kingdom. I am so thankful for that opportunity to connect with the Spirit of God because it confirmed to me that my search for understanding is exactly the thing that I need.

Could it be?

If you read my blog from yesterday, you know that I was talking about flowing with the Holy Spirit and doing what the Father is doing. This morning I picked up Bill Johnson’s latest book, Strengthen Yourself in the Lord, and began to read some more of it. Just a few pages into it I became aware that the section I was in was talking about having solitude and how Jesus would only do what the Father did!

A year ago when my only way to hear Bill was through podcasts and downloaded sermons I heard him speak about unusual coincidences being the language of the spirit. This can come in all sorts of ways whether it is really bad traffic or waking up at the same time each night. Well, I find this as no unusual coincidence as I am wanting to only do what I see the Father doing to then read in just four pages about Jesus doing that same thing.

What does it mean? God is just confirming it to me. Why is it important? Because more will be accomplished on accident when I am focused on His presence than on purpose when I am focused on performance. Waiting two hours in a meeting for the Spirit of God to show up in power will create far more miracles than by just praying for people from the start.

I think that is another thing that God is trying to teach me: to co-labor with Him. He doesn’t want to do all the work and He doesn’t want me to do all the work. He wants me to partner with what He is doing. We co-labor with God. We co-labor next to God with what He is doing. He doesn’t co-labor with what we are doing. We are to co-labor with what He is doing. Yet we rest because we only do what we see the Father doing. Amen to that!

Language of the Spirit

God has really been drawing me in recently to seek His voice. With the events of this week there have been a lot of questions that I have been asking. Most of the time my question has been about trying to understand what He is doing, such as, “God, what are you doing in this?”

As the school year nears its end, I can’t help but realize that I need some new goals for the summer. Right at the top of that list is to understand the language of the Spirit. While I might have maturity, character, and other things down solidly, I feel that I am definitely lacking in the area of understanding the Holy Spirit and even what my own spirit is feeling in any given circumstance.

Growing up one of my biggest frustrations was never feeling like I could hear God. I would ask God about things and never hear his answers. It was like a person who is only five feet tall trying to dunk (yes, Muggsy Bogues dunked a few times, but he was 5’3”). After so many times of trying and never getting an answer I began to expect that I would not hear God’s voice. I would even tell people that I don’t hear God or worse yet, that I can’t hear Him.

Since then I have learned that it is not a good thing to say things like that about yourself because they become true. They also create an escape route out of any circumstance that would require that ability (some even call it an excuse!).

Without going into the details of what I was asking in one of the situations, I basically said, “God, I know you are good, but I don’t like this and you gotta make it stop by a certain day or I’m gonna make changes so that it has to stop.” Well, I said that Friday night and on Saturday it was fixed. My deadline was tomorrow night, so I am pretty happy that God worked ahead of schedule.

With what God has put on my heart to do, I understand the importance of being in step with Him and with what He is doing. Jesus healed everyone who came to Him, but not everyone in the world got healed while He was in ministry. He went where the Father sent Him. While I love the idea of praying for every person I ever come across that has a healing need, the reality is that it is not practical for one person to try to bring healing to the entire world. There must be an army of believers who are mobilized, not just one who takes on the task of praying for each person they come across who sneezes or wears glasses.

I want to walk into a store and understand that the Holy Spirit wants to do something, not spend every free moment out in the city looking for the next person with a limp. I know that my schedule will become such that I will be traveling enough that I will be trying to get the most out of my time at home so it wouldn’t be practical if I returned home just to spend hours at the store because I kept seeing people needing physical healing. Many of the great Healing Revivalists of the 1950s got burned out because they would minister constantly and people would line up for prayer at their homes. The majority of them were only in effective ministry for a few years. I don’t believe that God would want us to do something that we can’t keep up for very long. Jesus would even go away to be with God. He would just go hide up in the mountains so that He couldn’t be bothered. We should probably do something like that. Minister and then rest. Jesus knew what the Father was doing. I want to follow His lead.

Dreaming with God

I have been dreaming a lot recently. Last night was the first night in probably the past two weeks that I woke up and couldn't remember having a dream. The thing about my dreams is that they have always seemed to be very short. I could write them out in four or five sentences on my computer. On Wednesday at youth group, Linda read some dreams that some of the youth were having. Some of them were really long and when I found myself asking God to give me longer dreams I remembered to be thankful for the dreams I have been getting.

Well, that night I had a longer dream. It had many sections to it which is very unusual for me. The next night I had an even longer dream which took up almost two pages typed out. So on my way to the church that morning I was asking God why I wasn't having dreams that were of real life events that I would see unfold. Again I remembered to be thankful for what God had just given me, realizing that I have seen an increase in dreams over the past few weeks.

After spending some time praying and soaking I had the unique opportunity to minister to the Pastor on Call team at church. Joaquin, who is one of the first year pastors and also the director of the healing rooms (he also led the mission trip I was on), led the meeting. He began talking about Benny Hinn learning about the Holy Spirit through watching Kathryn Kuhlman. She would wait for the presence of God before she would ever go out in front of a crowd. Then she would preach for hours until she recognized a shift in the spirit, at which time she would begin calling out words of knowledge and point to different areas of the crowd and people would get healed without anyone ever praying for them.

He also talked about how when the apostles prayed in the book of Acts they were so engulfed with the Spirit that when they went out the Spirit would just leak off of them to heal people. Men like Charles Finney would walk into a room and without saying anything people would fall to their knees crying out to God, repenting of their sins. There is something huge about moving with the Spirit of God. I am just beginning to realize how important this is.

At school we got to hear from Pastor Bill. We watched a clip of him on TBN Thursday night. God, help me to honor people as much as he does! I have never heard him say anything negative about a person before. It blows my mind. The last question that someone asked him was about a subject he had talked about maybe two weeks ago. I mentioned it here as well because I thought that it was so important. He stressed to us that a radical encounter with God does not make us anything better than someone who has never had such an encounter.

He again stressed how we must give honor to the small things that God gives us. The presence of God being in our midst is as big of a deal as a big encounter that could change our lives forever. The problem is that we put a measure on it, deeming it unimportant. He also told us to engage God's presence and not just enjoy it. I believe that is what great revivalists have done. They recognized the presence of God coming into the meeting and then engaged it. Sure some may have worked out of their anointing, but when they wait on the Lord, they aren't waiting so that they can fall asleep, they are waiting to set up an ambush, so that like Kathryn Kuhlman, when the Presence comes, the miracles immediately follow.

Blowing up the Methodist church

This morning we got to sleep in (relatively) and it was my friend LeAnn's birthday. We had the morning off and team time in the afternoon. I was trying to find some place to be alone and after our pavillion no longer fit that description I hung my towel over my bed from the top bunk to give myself some privacy. I was trying to soak but was just not in a good mood.

When it was time to go to lunch one of the guys came into the room to see what was up. We talked for a while and he was able to explain to me some of what was going on and the reasons why. It was good. I was so thankful that he had come in, since he was actually in the other room. I still wasn't really wanting to be around other people though. You know that feeling when something has happened and then you walk into a crowd and they are all looking at you. Yeah, didn't want to do that.

But I went to lunch anyway as late as we were. After lunch was more team time. Geez. I said I didn't want to be around anyone! :) Luckily my beat up hands did not effect me playing the djembe which I still had to do. Talk about not being in the mood to try to lead others into worship. We went into team soaking time led by one of the gals on our team. That was good. Finally I had some peace. I hadn't had my iPod on the trip because I left my earphones in Atlanta and so I had no way to listen to any music, so getting some soaking music helped ease my nerves.

We went to another taco stand for dinner. This one had beef and chicken, at least until they ran out of chicken. Spending some time talking with LeAnn helped cheer me up and got my focus off of myself. We went to the meeting and I was starting to feel good. I was gonna be on the ministry team (finally) and so I was really getting excited as we prayed as a team. I actually wrote down probably 6 words of knowledge and was ready to see God move!

After worship we moved straight into a healing service. I went to pray for a blind man who had been receiving prayer for a while from another guy on our team. Then I noticed a woman in a wheelchair so I went over to her. Finding someone that could get the interpreting job done I found out that she had polio and that she was pregnant. She had a miscarriage a previous time and so although she can walk, she was in the wheelchair as a precaution.

I began to pray for her and specifically that she would regain strength in her legs. At one point she did report that her legs were feeling stronger but she did not want to get out of the wheelchair. Another time I asked her if she was feeling anything on the outside of her right ankle, pointing to mine and then also to hers, although hers I couldn't touch because of the wheelchair. She reported that she was feeling a sensation on it.

Then she said that she would only like us to pray for her baby, so we did that, declaring life over it and I shared a prophetic word with her from a man in my small group who said I would pray for a pregnant woman. Several hours later, after the meeting was over I found out from another guy on our team that her right leg was wooden from above the knee down. I asked the translator (someone who is from Bethel but is now a missionary there) to verify and she confirmed it. So, I don't know how to explain it, but she was feeling a sensation on her right ankle even though her leg was wooden from above the knee down. Creative miracle? I hope so!

I never got to go up for ministry time after all but did have fun mostly video taping the rest of our team get drunk. One of the translators who was not yet a Christian got saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit and delivered at the meeting! Many miracles happened at this service and the people stayed until almost midnight when we finally left. As we rode back to the base, I started to pray for the people sitting around me and when they started getting whacked I wasn't left out this time! Praise God! I was so thankful to be included this time as just the night before I just watched as everyone else got blasted and had incredible encounters.