The Lord spoke to me on Thanksgiving day that I was NOT to eat sweets after Thanksgiving was over (He let me have a little on Thanksgiving itself). It was tempting, but I did pretty much OK with the sweets on Friday (except for one small piece of pumpkin pie). But this morning when I came downstairs for a cup of coffee, the box of French wafers that my husband Ed had brought back from Europe practically jumped off the table into my hands. The next thing I knew, I had the box open and was eyeing my favorite... these little hollow chocolate coated wafers. They were almost gone.. only a few left... Ed has definitely been into these... if I did not have them soon, I would not get any...
Well, I found myself taking one.. then another. Then the Holy Spirit seemed to remind me that I had agreed with God to put my eating under His lordship and He'd clearly told me no sweets. That slowed me down for a little while. But on my way to get the second cup of coffee I passed the box again. Before I knew it, I had the box open and was going for those wrapped tube-type of wafers. I had a sense that the Lord was saying that if I did this, it would be willful disobedience... I tried to ignore this little nagging voice.
With the first bite, I had a sense that God would "punish" me if I continued to choose willful disobedience over laying down my desires to obey Him. "Aw, come on", I told myself, "it's such a little thing... God won't punish me." Then all nagging was gone and I enjoyed 4 more wafers.
Half an hour later, God spoke to me again. He said, "Teresa, I told you that I was going to punish you if you continued in willful disobedience, didn't I?"
"Uh.. yes, Lord." I had a sense that I might be in a bit of trouble. It seemed like such a little sin at the time, but...
"Do you understand what you did wrong and why I am addressing it now?"
"Yeah, I ate some cookies that I should not have eaten."
"No. That is not it. The sin is that I explicitly called to your attention that I want to move in on Lordship of your eating and that if you ate these cookies, it would be willful disobedience... not a slip, not an accident, but you explicitly choosing to disobey Me."
Uh-oh... it sounded really bad when He put it that way...
"That is why I am going to discipline you. You asked me to coach you in My ways and I am doing it now. I am not angry with you, not rejecting or disqualifying you. I am not withdrawing My intimacy or My presence. I have been allowing you to move in a higher level of the prophetic recently and with that comes a higher degree of accountability. It is because of that higher level of accountability that I am going to discipline you as a loving father disciplines His children. Do you know what I am going to do?"
"I'm going to be sick, right?" I was prepared for it... after all, it was a natural outcome of eating wrong.. I have hypoglycaemia and am not supposed to eat sweets, so I assumed I'd bear the natural consequences of my action...
"No, Teresa." The Lord said, "I want to tie closely in your mind the relationship between obedience and anointing for ministry. Since you have been disobedient, I am lifting the anointing for ministry off of you for today. I am not withdrawing My presence from you.. but if you try to minister to anyone today, there will NOT be any anointing on it. If you try to intercede, I will not listen to your prayers for them..."
My mouth fell open. I never expected He would punish me in that way. Withdraw the anointing for the day. Yuck! My favorite thing in the whole world is to minister under His anointing. What a terrible thing for Him to take away from me.
"Lord, is this reversible through prayer and repentance?"
"No it is not. I have lifted my anointing off of you for the rest of the day. Do not try to minister to anyone today because My anointing will not be present if you do."
"Will I be allowed to minister under Your anointing tomorrow at Church?" I asked. (I am part of the ministry team.)
"That depends on you, Teresa. If you are obedient the rest of the day, and tomorrow morning, I will not lift the anointing off of you at Church tomorrow. But if you willfully disobey me, then I will lift the anointing. You must learn that if you want to move in greater levels of My power and My anointing, you will be held accountable to obey Me at a higher level."
Then the Lord said something very interesting... "Note that I have not withdrawn My presence or My intimacy from you. Even though you are being disciplined, you are invited to press into intimacy with Me. I hope you will choose to do that."
I did choose to press into Him and He spent a lot of time reassuring me that He was disciplining me because He loved me and because He wanted to release a higher level of anointing and gifting in my life.. but I had to learn to walk in this higher level of accountability. Mistakes were still OK to some degree, but willful disobedience (e.g., consciously choosing to do my will over His will) simply would not be tolerated, even in seemingly little things.
Well, two situations came up during the day where I would normally have been seeking Him for divine wisdom on another's behalf or praying with someone... and in both cases I had to explain why I could not minister to them... I have to confess that it certainly keeps one humble to admit to someone that God has lifted one's anointing because one was disobedient.
I cannot tell you how many times God has spoken to me about this today. He keeps telling me that it is because He loves me so much and because He wants to release a higher degree of anointing on my life that He is disciplining me. He kept telling me that being disciplined does NOT disqualify me from ministry or from participating in what He has for me. And He kept reminding me how important it is to obey Him because I love Him.. not because I fear Him but because I love Him.
It is odd... even in the midst of being disciplined, there was so much love and so much warmth from Him.. He made it real clear what I did wrong and I hope I will be less inclined to do it again in the future. I am going to be going to bed soon and when I get up in the morning, my discipline will be over. It is very odd to me to not be able to flow into ministry and I don't like it much. I don't want to get myself into this situation again... But even in the midst of this, I feel so loved and so assured that He has placed a call and anointing on my life...
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