This was my first renewal meeting since I had gotten back from Toronto. There had been some prophesies over me that I was going to see an increase of God's power and anointing in my ministry, so I was very eager for this meeting (which was almost a full 2 weeks since I'd left Toronto).
The ministry team pre-service prayer was very powerful. I could really feel the Lord's presense since the moment we started praying. During the prayer time, the Lord showed me a picture of a spinal column. It was as clear as if I was looking at one of those skelletons you see hanging from a metal stand in science classes. I could see the spine in great detail. The Lord called two things to my attention as I looked at it. There were some odd little ridges in the middle of spine (about two inches above the bottom of the shoulder blades). These spiky little ridges looked like they were putting pressure where the nerve was and I got the impression that there was great pain when the person moved. Then I saw the bottom of the spinal column in great detail, just above the tail bone. One of the disks between the bones looked funny and misshapen, and I got the impression of constant pain in the lower back. The picture was so graphic that I almost reached out to touch it.
We have a time when we share any words of knowledge that the Lord may have given us during prayer. I shared the picture I'd seen, explaining that I'd never seen a picture that clearly before.
Usually during pre-prayer, the ministry team prays for each other after the time of intercession. But we'd gotten started late, so we did not have a chance to do so. I remembered thinking that we should have prayed for each other, but it was no big deal. Then we went downstairs for the service. I still felt the Lord's presense resting lightly on me.
I was doing the transparancies on the overhead projector for the worship time, something I do not normally do. The worship leader was not following the list, so I was having to hunt up transparancies, etc. This was a little distracting and I could not enter into worship as fully as I'd like to have. Bill, one of our pastors, was leading the service. He started sharing the words of knowledge at one point and asked me to come up and explain the picture I'd seen. (So much for remaining anonymous... I hoped that the word was accurate. It would be really embarrassing if there was no one with a bad back to pray for sometime during the evening.) Then Bill did a teaching on healing. After that we had more worship and then started ministry time. I recruited a catcher and started praying, expecting a very powerful anointing. The anointing turned out to be about the same as usual, maybe even a little less powerful than I was used to. I was sort of disappointed because I was really expecting the Lord to come in power. He was touching people, but I'd have to soak them in prayer 5 minutes or more. I like it much better when God invades the ministry time and the pray-er is almost incidential. It is much more exciting when the Lord comes in incredible power.
After a while, I stopped praying and went over to Bill to mention how good his teaching had been. He said that it was a really powerful night. I was surprised, because it did not seem that powerful to me; it seemed sort of average. I told Bill that since he seemed to have so much anointing, I'd love it if he would pray for me. We couldn't hunt up a catcher, so I just kneeled on the ground. Bill started praying for me and I could really feel the Lord's presense increase. It felt like someone was pumping electricity into my body. I had a real sense of being empowered and started feeling full to overflowing. The term I use for that feeling is "dripping full." I could hardly remain kneeling, I felt like I was going to fall over backwards. But it is technically difficult to fall over backwards from a kneeling position unless you are a gymnist or something. Eventually I did end up falling over backwards and was laying there under the Lord's power. It felt good to be in His presense and I decided that maybe I'd just stay there for a long time. But a very very heavyset lady came and stood almost directly over where I was laying. She was acting like she was about to fall on me and I decided to get up and move to a safer location. I stood up before I was ready to get up and found that I had difficulty controlling my movements. It was like I was drunk. The plan was just to move a few feet away and then lay back down.
But I noticed a leader from my previous Church. She was just leaving. I decided I should greet her. She had just stepped out of the room into the hall, so I followed her out. We had a brief discussion. During that time, I happened to touch the young man who was with her on the shoulder. He went down -- no catcher or anything. I wasn't even praying for him, I just happened to touch him. The Holy Spirit came on him powerfully and he was shakeing a lot. About the same time, my "drunkenness" in the spirit went up about 400%. A friend walked by and I playfully waved at him and said "more Lord." The next thing I knew, he was on the ground shaking violently and laughing his head off. Then my hands really started tingling, so I decided to pray for the shoulder of the lady I'd gone out to greet. I put my hands on her shoulder (she had a chronic condition) and they got really really hot. I tried to pray intellegently. I did manage to ask the Lord to increase His healing anointing. But then all I could do was laugh. So I stood there with my hands on her shoulder shaking and laughing. We stayed that way until the heat went away, about 5 minutes later. Meanwhile, both of the men on the floor were in hysterics. People were leaving the main room and congregating around us to see what was going on. She said that it felt really good where I was touching her and after we were done praying she said that it still hurt, but not nearly as much as before.
The Lord fell on one of the people who'd gathered around us to watch. He was laughing and having difficulty standing. So I staggered over to him and wave my hand at him, asking the Lord to give him more. There was no catcher, and we were in a thinly carpeted hallway. I never touched him, but down he went. (I should say that we have rules about not praying for people without a catcher. Usually I am very good about following ministry rules and guidelines. But I was pretty drunk and techincally was not praying for people. They were just sort of falling out around me and laughing like crazy. And no one was hurt. All the same, I should have been using a catcher.)
I was so drunk myself that I was having incredible difficulty with technical things like standing and walking. I am told that I was doing motions that were almost physically impossible. But I hardly noticed. I could feel the Lord's presense and power and was having a wonderful time. It was so much fun. It felt like God was filling me so full that the overflow was hitting the people around me. I literally felt like a little kid with a squirt gun (filled with blessing instead of water). I was going around squirting everyone who got near me. And many of them were powerfully effected. There was a laughing convention going on in the hallway outside of the room that the renewal was meeting in. I don't know what was going on in there at this point, but I suspect that there was more power in the hall where we were than there was in the ministry room itself.
Desta is on both the worship team and ministry team. This evening she was doing worship. She had been sick with the flu all week. She wandered out into the hall, trying to go home a little early. I asked her how she was feeling and she said not very well. So I offered to pray for her. I tried to be serious and pray for healing -- and I even recruited a catcher to pray for Desta. Within a few seconds, she was on the floor and began laughing.
Tim, one of the ministry team members, walked out to where I was. I greeted him and then started splashing spiritual blessings at him. Tim is very "easy to receive", and he was almost immediately drunk. The hallway was pretty intersting by then -- there were about 5 or 6 bodies on the floor laughing and shaking -- and two ministry team members drunkenly trying to stand up against the wall and laughing their heads off. There was so much joy and presense of the Lord that it was incredible. Some people came to watch and from time to time the Lord would hit one of them.
I had two very strong impressions. The first was that the Lord was pouring into us (especially to the ministry team people) all of the anointing we would need to do whatever He was doing. The second was that we were to take this outside of the Church, which is why there was a stronger anointing in the hallway (i.e., near the exit) than there was at the altar area of the ministry room. I remember, even in my drunken joy, telling the Lord that I would very much like to work with Him to take this to the streets. I asked Him if He would please use me to do so.
After a while I wandered into the main room. The worship team had stopped playing and the ministry was mostly over. There were still a few people laying on the ground, resting in the Lord.
I walked over to a few people from the worship team, feeling very playful in the spirit. Before I had a chance to do or say anything, the bass guitar player turned to me and said -- "You know that back you saw the picture of? That was me. I've had a back problem in my lower back since I was 13 and have been in constant pain. And a few years ago I hurt my back in the middle of the spine, right where you saw those spikes."
So we decided to pray for him. I laid my hands on the two places where his back was sore. Someone else was ready to catch and another person was standing in front of him, with her hand on his forehead. We asked God to come with His healing anointing. All of the sudden I felt this flush of fire shoot through me and my hands got burning hot. Or maybe his back got burning hot. We're not really sure which got hot first but soon both were on fire. I felt like electricity was going through me and started pogoing and shaking as I stood there with my hands on his back. He went down and I followed him down, keeping my hands on his back until the heat diminished some. I tried to pray intellegently, but often would break out laughing in the middle of a sentence. I noticed that he was in a very ackward position for someone with a bad back, but he did not appear to be in any discomfort. When he got up, he said that is back, which had been in constant pain for years, felt better. No pain. Praise the Lord.
My hands were still hot, so I was letting people feel them to see how hot they were. When Loni touched my hands, she shreaked and collasped to the floor laughing.
A little later, Loni prayed for me and I could barely contain the blessings that were coming my way. It was almost too much. Part of me wanted to ask for the Lord to stop and part of me wanted more. Then Loni felt led to pray the blessings of Abraham and the blessings of Jacob over me. Again, it was like someone had connected me to a live circuit. Then Loni got a bible and read the blessings of Jacob over me. It was very powerful. I was both drunk with joy and empowered all at the same time.
They decided they'd better pray over me for a safe drive home because I was so drunk and I have about a 20 to 25 minute drive. I sobered up enough to staggar to my car and started to drive. Everything was incredibly funny and I could not stop laughing. I was so full of His joy that it was bursting out from me. Fortunately, I had no difficulty controlling the car and made it home safe-and-sound.
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