I felt the Lord's presense and power from the instant I walked into the room for pre-service prayer. I was, infact, the first to arrive and unlocked the room and set up the fan. I knew God had something awesome up His sleave and could hardly wait for prayer to begin. I was also scheduled to give a testamony of what God had done in Toronto when I was there earlier that week. So it promised to be an exciting evening and I was really looking forward to it.
We started with about 15 minutes of intercession for the meeting. During that time, I felt strongly impressed to pray two things: 1) for an increased release of the prophetic in the meeting and 2) that God had permission to do whatever He wanted to, even if it changed the order of the service or redefined what ministry looked like. We all agreed that this was to be God's meeting and He could do whatever He wanted to in it -- little did we know that He already had unusual plans up His sleeve.
When we started praying for each other, it got very powerful. We were soon all drunk and shaking and jerking. I had picked up a new move in Toronto -- sort of stomping the ground with one foot and then lifting my knee very high and then repeating the whole cycle. That started happening and everyone was teasing me that I'd picked up something new in Toronto. ('Actually,' I was thinking, 'I had picked up something new in Toronto, an increased prophetic anointing and more power/faith for healing and miracles. I just hope they'd really came home with me.')
Our regular pastoral staff was all away at the conference. So the meeting was led by Pat Curtin, who is one of our worship leaders and quite prophetic. (Someone else was leading worship that night, Pat was just leading the meeting.)
God kept giving him personal words for people in the meeting -- so much so that he never got around to the teaching he had so painstakenly prepared. But God's anointing was very strong. Pat had words for about half of the people there and spoke powerfully into people's lives. There were a few people there who I knew and who Pat did not know, and his word to both of them as quite accurate. It was really neat watching that gift in operation, especially when the person doing it was someone I knew. I kept hoping God would have a word for me -- I've never been called out for a word even though I've been in this type of prophetic setting many times before.
Eventually, Pat asked the worship team to come back up and lead us in some more worship, which was also spiritual warfare. At first I stayed in my seat and tried to worship. I was feeling really heavy hearted that God did not have a word for me. I finally knelt down by my chair and prayed about it. God basically told me to stop feeling sorry for myself and go minister to Pat. Worship was still going on. Two of the ministry team were already praying with Pat. I went and joined them.
Pat is one of those who usually doesn't manifest much). But God came on him so powerfully that he was shaking, jerking, crying out and even roaring. While we were praying, I got a strong impression of "Elijah anointing" for Pat. So I mentioned to him that I kept hearing Elijah anointing. Pat said that this has been spoken over him before. So I started praying over Pat about the Elijah anointing. The Lord had me recall different things that Elijah did and bless Pat with similar -- such as the authority to command nature to align with God's plans and purposes (as to pray that it not rain for years or to call back the rain at the Lord's command), the ability to meet needs of others from what little they possess being multiplied through the power of the Lord (just as Elijah fed the widow for years from a portion only big enough for one last meal), the abilty to stand and provail against the prophets of Baal, etc. The Lord's presense showed up so powerfully as He led me to pray this over Pat. (I'm always a little nervous about praying over the really prophetic types, but God certainly orcherstrated this one.) I had a strong sense of God's sanctifying fire burning away anything that would hold Pat back. About the same time, Pat said that his head was on fire, that God seemed to be doing something in his head. So I prayed and blessed God's sanctifying fire through Pat, inviting Him to burn away anything that would hold him back and then had a few words of knowledge about specific things God was purging away. The fire spread over all of Pat's body and also over myself until I also felt like I was on fire and that God was also sanctifying me for His purposes -- oh my gosh, my hands are burning hot just typing this.
When we moved into ministry time, it was powerful and effortless to pray for people. I would open my mouth to say "bless them Lord" or "fill them Lord" and prophetic prayers would pour out instead. Somehow, these words of knowledge seemed to cut to the quick and build faith and God was able to touch each person very powerfully and very quickly. He appeared to be moving equally powerfully through the rest of the ministry team.
For instance, I started to pray for someone I met at a kinship the day before. While I was praying, I started thanking God that He was pouring out word of wisdom on this person. I went on to explain that word of wisdom was teaching people how to apply God's truths practically to their every day lives. He went down under the power and I moved on. I had a mild sense that was a word from the Lord to him, but I did not realize how powerfully it impacted him. He called his kinship leader that night to tell him about it was very excited because it was a confirmation of something the Lord had already been speaking to him. The kinship leader told me about it the next day at a planning meeting.
Mimi is a friend of mine and an intercessor who prays for ministries I oversee. I had just released her to be in the prayer team that evening, and God used her powerfully. At one point, I felt led to go pray over Mimi for an increased anointing and for refreshment of anything she'd given out in ministry. I also ended up rebuking any fear of inadequacy in ministry. I walked away wondering what Mimi thought of that prayer and hoping she'd not be upset with me. She was so excited that she called me the next day and told me that the prayer could not have been more right on. She was just starting to feel empty when I came up to her to pray and was struggling with whether or not she was doing an adequate job of prayer ministry. She said that she had just been overcome with fear before I walked up and prayed for her about it.
Desta is a friend of mine who gets headaches from time to time. She used to be on the ministry team and is very gifted at praying for people. But now she is usually on the worship team, which means she no longer gets the opportunities to pray. At one point she came down from the stage and asked me to pray for her because she had an incredible headache. I started to pray for physical healing and God gave me a word of knowledge about the root -- I started breaking that root in incredible detail and again I hoped Desta would not be upset with me or think I came from Mars. She eventually went down. I never got a chance to talk to her again that evening, but on Sunday morning she caught me and told me the headache (which usually lasts a few days) was totally gone by the time she went home that evening. She also confirmed that my word of knowledge was accurate.
There seemed to be an incredible amount of God's power in the room. I remember playfully waving at one of my friends who is "easy to recieve" from across the room. She went down and started laughing. Even people who traditionally have a hard time receiving from the Lord were being powerfully ministered to that night.
At one point, one of the newer ministry team members came running up to me and pointed on a woman laying on the floor. She seemed fairly quite, but her eyes were rolling so that only the whites showed. The newer ministry team member told me, "She's manifesting." I was immediately reminded of the lesson I'd learned in Toronto of letting God be in control. I replied "Don't worry about it." She seemed upset by this, so I went on to explain, "God is much more powerful than the enemy and He's in charge of what He's doing in her." The team member looked at me doubtfully and then went back to soak this girl in some more prayer. I breathed a quick prayer to see if I should go over and intervene and the Lord replied that I was right to leave control in His hands and that was was going on with her was NOT a demonic manifestation but a deep work He was doing in the woman.
Much later I asked Pat to pray for me. He grabbed Donna, who is on the ministry team and is also a friend of mine. As they started to pray for me, Donna said to Pat, "She wants some of that prophetic anointing you've got" and Pat replied "It's already there on her." That caused flashbacks of the last two days in Toronto and I had a sense that all of that jerking I was doing was a physical response to God pouring out a new level of prophetic anointing on me. Pat started blessing "what was already there" and praying for an increase of faith. Then He started praying for God's sanctifying fire to burn through me -- again both of us were on fire. God's presense and power were incredible. I ended up crying out, I simply could not stop. At first it was not words, just cries that almost sounded like screams. Then it went into tongues. I was crying out very loud in tongues for about 10 minutes solid. This is very unusual for me, as I usually do not like to pray in tongues at all. I've always found it uncomfortable praying in tongues unless I was in a warfare situation because my mind starts wandering when I pray in tongues. But not that night. That evening every word seemed to bring more power and draw me closer to God. I kept saying the same fairly short phrase (about 8 or 9 words) over and over. I had a very strong sensation that this was what it was like for the 120 gathered together in that upper room when the Holy Spirit first fell on them. I had an incredible sense of empowerment as I prayed in tongues. I literally felt like I was being baptized with the Holy Spirit. In one way, that did not make sense, as I was spirit-filled in 1973 and have spoken in tongues since then. But in another way, it made perfect sense -- God was pouring into me of Himself and I was receiving it. (Later that night, I asked God what I was saying when I was crying out in tongues. God told me that I was saying "Your will, O Lord, be accomplished.")
I did not stay down very long, maybe 15 or 20 minutes. I felt that God had accomplished what He wanted to in me and that it was time to get up and minister some more. I'm not sure which was more of a powerful experience for me -- being prayed for or praying for others. There was an abundent supply of His power and I never felt drained or tired. In fact, I only felt more and more energized as I prayed for people. At one point I started doing that jerking, bowing thing where I also raise my knee. I was in the middle of praying for someone. Since we don't have the same rule that TAV does about not praying for people if you're manisfesting, I kept praying for the person. They had their eyes closed the whole time and could not see what I was doing. But they started doing the same thing I was, jerking and bowing and lifting one leg up and down (sort of like a horse stamping the ground with it's hoof). I got the impression that maybe the Lord was giving them a similar anointing to what He's given me, so I started praying along those lines -- wow did the power of God fall...
After the service was over, Don, the worship leader pulled me aside and told me that he though we'd "finally broken through". I think it was more the other way around -- God broke through in our meeting and made it His meeting. And He runs it so much better than we ever could. I just hope He decides to take over the meeting next week as well, and the week after that, and the week after that...
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