Taking It To The Streets (a little anyhow)

Saturday morning I woke up. I sort of expected that maybe there'd be a little anointing left over from the last night, because it had been so strong on Friday night. But I was perfectly normal.

I had to go to work both Saturday and Sunday this weekend because of a big "crunch" at work. I got up, got dressed and headed for the Bart station. (Bart is our public transit system -- sort of like a cross between the monterail at Disneyland and a subway.)

As I parked the car, I started reflecting on how good the Lord was and how I'd like to be used to take His anointing out of the Church to the streets. I took about three steps and all of the sudden, the Lord fell on me. I ended up sort of twitching/jerking visibly from my midsection.

"Oh, Lord," I prayed. "Not here. I'm in public. What will people think?"

"Well, you told me that you want me to use you to take it to the streets," the Lord replied. "Part of that means letting Me be in control, even when I'm doing things differently than you want me to."

I ended up jerking/twitching the whole way to the work. Mostly people pretent not to notice, but a kid did point me out to it's mother and ask about the "weird lady". When it first started, I was almost horrified. But as it continued, I became really aware of the Lord's presense and also filled with His joy. Somewhere about 1/3 of the way through the commute, I stopped being embarassed. Then I could feel faith welling up within me. I started asking the Lord what He wanted to do and asked that I might do it with Him. I half expected to pass a crippled begger in the streets. If I did, I was truely prepared to take him/her by the hands and say "in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth, rise up and walk."

It was almost a disappointment that I didn't pass any crippled beggers. I twitched the whole six block walk from Bart to work. When I was about half a block away from my work, I heard a familiar voice calling my name. I turned around to find the program manager of the project I'm on. We walked the rest of the way to work together. She politely ignored the twitching. She started asking me some questions, but soon I was laughing so much that I could hardly carry on a conversation.

Inside, I was having mixed feelings. Part of me was crying out, "Oh Lord, this isn't fair. You're hitting me where I work. This could mess up my job." And another part of me was crying, "Lord, come and show your glory. Win the whole office to You." And part of me was enjoying the Lord's presense so much that I did not care.

After about a half hour at work, the twitching stopped. I appeared to be normal, except that every so often I'd break out laughing for apparently no reason. I suspect some of my coworkers thought I was drunk. I am not sure why God choose to do this to me at work, but He did. (Maybe it has something to do with that "inconvenience" lesson I had the week before when I was so sick?)

I thought that something spectacular would happen or that I'd at least be able to witness to someone. But nothing of any particular noteworthiness happened -- except that God established that I cannot set boundries for Him if I want Him to use me to take His anointing outside of the Church.

I learned an important lesson. I tried to set boundries for God -- Lord don't embarass me at work. But God told me that if He was to use me to take His anointing to the world, I was not to set any boundries. Saturday appeared to be a "practice run" for me. It was almost as though God was testing me to see if I'd let Him be in control and call the shots. I felt like He was telling me, "I'm showing you what it looks like to take my anointing to the streets. Now that you know what it looks like, are you sure you really want it?

Yes, Lord, I still want it.