(Originally published March 1, 2007)
And I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten, the cankerworm, and the caterpiller, and the palmerworm, my great army which I sent among you। And ye shall eat in plenty, and be satisfied, and praise the name of the LORD your God, that hath dealt wondrously with you: and my people shall never be ashamed। Joel 2:25-26
No matter how long I walk with God I will never cease to be amazed at the awesome clarity of His word, nor will I ever cease to be amazed at the greatest miracle of all—that God would talk to a man!
This past week was a turning point in my life and ministry. I have been through a long storm in my life for almost exactly three and a half years while I sought to build the ministry God called me to do, get direction in my life, and start bearing fruit. Raised in Apostolic Pentecostal circles, I received the Holy Ghost at a youth camp, which is not uncommon, yet at an early age I knew I had a calling on my life and that I did not fit in with the kids in my youth group. God dealt with me at an early age (as early as 11 years old) and I began to fast, pray, seek God’s face and be a witness. It was nothing for me at 13-years-old to have a group of adults cornered in a store, restaurant, market or park witnessing to them and sharing what God had done in my life.
I was the odd-ball, the fifth-wheel, sticking out like a sore thumb in my middle school, high school and even at youth functions with our church like a sore thumb. I didn’t talk like they did, act like they did, or dress like they did. Even with the church youth I was a sort of novelty. I wasn’t the one that got called for nights out, gatherings, van trips to rallies, youth conferences, etc.
As a young adult I went through low times, got to travel overseas and then here in the US as I moved through college and changed jobs, finally fitting into my niche in one church, helping the young men, many who had callings to the ministry. I have found over the years that it is an immutable law of God that you reproduce after your own kind! That’s a subject for another blog entirely, but it makes me feel sorry for all the people I ever won to God!
I’ve developed some very solid friendships on here, and made some awesome acquaintances. I’ve always had a burden for helping the hurting, the wounded, the broken, and this has spilled over into those times when working the altar that through the gift of the word or knowledge I was able to minister to people and bring them to a break-through or deliverance in the situations they were facing, or their individual walks with God.
I’d like to be able to say it was a cake-walk, but it was not. I’ve had hard times more than most, even to the parting of some friendships because of the latent misconceptions of many among us that feel that if you are constantly being bombarded by storms, turmoil, strife, trouble and walking through spiritual darkness, that something must be wrong with your walk with God, or you are backslidden or hiding sin. I lost my best friend a couple years ago over exactly that misconception!
I’ve learned that if you are going to be used of God in any great measure you have to be willing to more than just talk about it, dream about it or long for it. You must leave the shoreline behind, let go of the boat—and launch out into the deep! Some people are content to go all their lives just splashing around in the shallows or wading around in waters to their waist. Yet there are some among us that hear a cry out on the deep waters, a calling to launch out into supernatural waters to swim in. To those of you that have ever felt this call, this blog posting is affectionately dedicated to you.
They that go down to the sea in ships, that do business in great waters; These see the works of the LORD, and his wonders in the deep. For he commandeth, and raiseth the stormy wind, which lifteth up the waves thereof. They mount up to the heaven, they go down again to the depths: their soul is melted because of trouble. They reel to and fro, and stagger like a drunken man, and are at their wits' end. Then they cry unto the LORD in their trouble, and he bringeth them out of their distresses. He maketh the storm a calm, so that the waves thereof are still. Then are they glad because they be quiet; so he bringeth them unto their desired haven. Psalms 107:23-30
Returning to my home church after a brief stint overseas in the US military, I was on fire for God, and beginning to operate in the gifts of the Spirit, helping young people in my home church who had never witnessed, prayed anyone through to the Holy Ghost or been used in the gifts to start to grow and function. My pastor urged me to go for licensing in the ministry and I did not do it, feeling I had not really paid my dues yet. I thought after several years I would regret that decision, but I have found that I do not, because I learned even more after that about several of our Apostolic organizations and the movement as a whole, and I didn’t need a piece of paper in my pocket to tell me whether I was a minister of God or not. I knew that from the time I was a child and was blowing my pastor and pastor’s wife’s minds at an early age.
I have worked with several Pentecostal movements in the past 25 years and some have the mistaken belief that if you do not carry a card with their organization you are not called of God. What nonsense. They will tell you this is not so, but go to one of their conferences, camps or seminars and see the walls go up. Those walls are getting ready to come down. …From the inside out I might add. Get ready.
I’ve been privileged to help several people on here since the creation of my new account and one in particular sticks in my mind because I feel so much of what they have gone through is very similar to my past in some areas, yet not all. She feels like an odd-ball too, a “strange bird” so to speak, sticking out in the hell and situations that were her life, yet desiring to be used of God to help in the healing, restoration and recovery of those who have been cast up on the beaches of life, broken, torn, cast aside and rejected. In this particular instance, God has given me a very peculiar insight like nothing I have ever seen. Even just this week, God gave me a word for her, and after ministering this to her, the very next day my pastor spoke a word of prophecy for her during a conversation while I was driving with him and talking about the situation.
I followed up on that conversation, telling her about what God had given me, trying to pour myself out in the anointing as much as she would allow. When helping hurting, wounded and bruised people, sometimes just touching their wound is enough to get them to withdraw from you and pull away. The only thing is that like any master surgeon, Jesus wants to lance the wound, get out the poison, infection and filth before gangrene or blood poisoning sets in and kills the wounded individual. God gave me a word of restoration for her and her home and marriage. I don’t know that she accepted it because I haven’t talked to her in several days, yet God impressed on me to give her Joel 2:25-26 (listed above) and to let her know that he was going to restore all the years that the enemy had destroyed out of her and her husband’s lives and use them mightily to do as I have tried to do in a weak way to help restore and preach deliverance to people, homes, families and young people. I feel God wants to take her and her husband into a dimension that far surpasses anything I have ever seen in the apostolic movement.
I felt in this particular situation that God had hidden his face from her for things both she and her husband had done and wrong choices they had made concerning forgiveness and resolving issues in their home, their marriage and their church, but that God was drawing her and her husband into a very powerful ministry, not only to help restore broken homes and marriages, fallen backsliders, wounded, hurting souls, and also to help restore fallen ministers. I feel that both she and husband have a prophetic calling on their lives, but that the devil had tricked them into a divorce because of the hardness of their hearts. I know God is dealing with both of them from what she told me so I will say no more until I start seeing God blow into their situation as spoken that he would.
I know from experience that God will not use a man or woman in any great measure in an area unless he has taken them through that situation intimately. God is going to restore their home and marriage and bring their scattered children home. She told me a little about their situation and it blew my mind the things God has brought them through and some of the situations God has placed them in during the past. I am awed by the power, sovereignty and divine will of our God! This woman and her husband have been THROUGH IT! I’m expecting to hear great things in their situation. It’s a lesson to me not to take out my frustrations on another person in my storms, because if it is in the divine will of God even your best friend will wound you and do stupid stuff that makes absolutely NO SENSE, not because they don’t care about you, but because God is going to find out how you will react and treat someone who wounds you WITHOUT CAUSE! It blew my mind when God told me that. Job, King David and Jesus himself knew all about that experience!
My kinsfolk have failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me. Job 19:14
Yea, mine own familiar friend, in whom I trusted, which did eat of my bread, hath lifted up his heel against me. Psalms 41:9
Now he that betrayed him gave them a sign, saying, Whomsoever I shall kiss, that same is he: hold him fast. And forthwith he came to Jesus, and said, Hail, master; and kissed him. Matt. 26:48-49
God turned the captivity of Job when he prayed for his friends who talked bad about him even when he didn’t do anything wrong, but was enduring (unknowingly) the testing of a bet between the Almighty and the devil. David would not strike down Saul even when he was delivered into his hands, refusing to touch God’s anointed, even though he rebuked him for his actions. Jesus endured the death of the cross after being betrayed by one of his most trusted chosen group of disciples. I don’t think he stopped loving Judas. It wasn’t in his nature. Judas chose to withdraw from contact because of his betrayal, but Jesus never stopped loving him.
This weekend, after delivering my friend the word the Lord had placed on my heart for her, I went to church and my pastor came to the pulpit with a prepared message…but God smoothly lifted it from him and poured everything I had received last week into his mouth over the pulpit, down to the very scripture passages God had given me for my friend. He even announced that God had spoken to him and changed his message with an anointed word of prophecy concerning restoration. He told me that the prophecy was also for me after the service that God was going to bring me through the end of my storm and that the day was dawning, just as I had prophesied to my friend the day before. He told us that God keeps good records and that we will be repaid for all our suffering, that he is a God of balance. God is so awesome!
I realized then that the grace and mercy of our God is so powerful. He will not only send a man or woman to minister a word of restoration to a hurting soul, but also minister restoration to that messenger and the church at the same time. God knows how to fill vessels with the over-flow!
My word to many on this blog is to not let bitterness or unforgiveness over situations God orchestrates or brings into your life or the storms he calls for to create character in you rob you of the divine will of God in your life. Don’t let the enemy trick you into using human reasoning to miss the divine intent God has in calling for the storm in your life and for God’s sake don’t blame your brother, sister, spouse or pastor! If God called for the storm, GET OVER IT. You are going to go through it no matter what you do, it is called for on God’s divine time-clock and calendar. I will tell you something now, you can kick, fuss and cuss, bang your head into walls, scream at your friends, pastor and your spouse, but God wants you to build CHARACTER, more than he wants to answer the WHY-questions in your storm. You know what I mean. Why did this happen? Why did they do this? I thought they loved me, WHY did they do that? Why did God let this happen? Why me? The answer is always found in God’s word.
Oh that men would praise the LORD for his goodness, and for his wonderful works to the children of men! For he satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Such as sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, being bound in affliction and iron; Because they rebelled against the words of God, and contemned the counsel of the most High: Therefore he brought down their heart with labour; they fell down, and there was none to help. Then they cried unto the LORD in their trouble, and he saved them out of their distresses. He brought them out of darkness and the shadow of death, and brake their bands in sunder. Psalms 107:8-14
I didn’t have anyone come help me in my storm. I sometimes got a word from God in my Bible study and prayer time, or from my pastor, but the most devastating thing to me was having a God who talked to me intimately on a daily basis on many subjects go completely silent to me on things I desperately needed (or thought I needed) the answer to right then! I knew I was not in sin. Talk about frustrating! Then when I hit the mid-point of my storm and fell and God restored me like it was no big thing, then immediately returned to silence, I wanted to pull my hair out, until God showed me a verse in Acts 27 where Paul was caught up in the mighty storm Euroclydon. I learned to turn into my storm and let it drive!
And when the south wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their purpose, loosing thence, they sailed close by Crete. But not long after there arose against it a tempestuous wind, called Euroclydon. And when the ship was caught, and could not bear up into the wind, we let her drive. And running under a certain island which is called Clauda, we had much work to come by the boat: Which when they had taken up, they used helps, undergirding the ship; and, fearing lest they should fall into the quicksands, strake sail, and so were driven. And we being exceedingly tossed with a tempest, the next day they lightened the ship; And the third day we cast out with our own hands the tackling of the ship. And when neither sun nor stars in many days appeared, and no small tempest lay on us, all hope that we should be saved was then taken away. But after long abstinence Paul stood forth in the midst of them, and said, Sirs, ye should have hearkened unto me, and not have loosed from Crete, and to have gained this harm and loss. And now I exhort you to be of good cheer: for there shall be no loss of any man's life among you, but of the ship. For there stood by me this night the angel of God, whose I am, and whom I serve, Saying, Fear not, Paul; thou must be brought before Caesar: and, lo, God hath given thee all them that sail with thee. Wherefore, sirs, be of good cheer: for I believe God, that it shall be even as it was told me. Acts 27:13-25
There comes a time in your storm that you don’t know which way to go. You can’t continue in the direction you want to go. During this time they lightened the load and got rid of a bunch of the junk on the ship they didn’t need, even some things they DID NEED during normal operating conditions. There is a time when you won’t know what to do but knowing the ship and how it operates (GET INTO THE BOOK!!!) you can just turn into the storm and LET IT DRIVE! Fast. Pray. Seek God’s face. Witness. Be a testimony. Work for God. Help the homeless, the hungry, the wounded. Do ALL THE THINGS YOU KNOW TO DO and do it with A VENGEANCE! Give God glory IN your storm!
He WILL bring you through it! God bless.
