I speak/minister at a woman's group the first Friday of each month. All of last week, I spent the week asking God what He was doing with the women and what He wanted me to teach on. (It had been one of those difficult weeks with lot's of "stretching" experiences that left me feeling that I was walking at a lower level of intimacy with God than I liked. He "felt" more distant that I was used to. I would sit down to pray and wait on Him, and my mind would drift. I was beginning to get frustrated with myself in my walk in Him.) Come Thursday, I still had not heard anything from God for the Friday night woman's meeting.

Late Thursday night I sat down once again and asked God, "Lord, what are you doing with these women?"

"Teresa," the Lord answered, "they are going through the same thing that much of the church-at-large is going through." The intimacy and deep communication were back and my spirit rejoiced. The Lord continued to talk to me about what was happening for over an hour. This is a season where many in the body of Christ are experiencing attacks and frustration. In some cases it is a single overwhelming item where they are being pushed to their limits. In many others, it is not any one big thing, but a bunch of smaller things that add up and make the believer feel overwhelmed and pushed to their breaking point. The Lord went on to explain that He was not orchestrating this. It was a strategy of the enemy against the church to distract and discourage it. But God was allowing it because He determined to work in it to strengthen His church, to teach them to war and become victors in this. The Lord reminded me of Romans 8:28 and how He works in all things to bring His glory and goodness to those who are called by His name and love Him. He showed me how He was going to turn all of these attacks and frustrations to His glory (even though the enemy intended them for evil) by giving us the victory and later we would be able to draw on these experiences to be even more effective when we were in ministry situations. God is pretty smart.. He did that with Calvary too.. He allowed Jesus to go through a horrible experience that the devil initiated to attack and kill Him. But turned it gloriously around for His kingdom purposes... making a way for all mankind to be saved through Jesus' atoning sacrifice.

After our chat, I had the topic for my teaching. I got up early and prepared a teaching entitled "Ministering from our Experiences". I discussed how God works His glory in all things (Ro 8:28), some of the reasons God sometimes allows seemingly bad things to happen to us, and the does and don'ts of how to draw from these experiences when in a ministry situation. I taught about Joseph and Job and how, when Satan orchestrated "bad experiences" against them, God turned the situations around to work His glory in them. It turned out to be quite a good teaching, if I may say so .

I dry ran it a couple of times.. I even practiced my teaching on my hour commute home from work that day... moving my lips and gesturing as I silently "preached" my sermon ... and getting some very strange looks from those sitting near me on the BART. I may have looked silly to the 3 or 4 people sitting near me, but I was fully prepared to minister that night. I felt that I had great and relevant material, and that I was prepared in my presentation. It was "all systems go," I was ready.

I got home and had dinner and then got in my car to drive to the woman's meeting. It was a 20 minute drive to the church. About 10 minutes into the drive, the Lord said to me, "Teresa. I really like your teaching. It is very good. You did a good job preparing it."

"Thank you, Lord!" I was beaming. I knew He'd helped me, but I sure enjoyed having Him tell me He liked it.

"But..." He continued. ".. That is not how I want to minister tonight. "

"What?!?"

"I don't want you to teach that tonight. I want you to teach them about how to minister My refreshing to one another. My heart and desire is to refresh them because they have been through a lot lately."

"But... " I had a lot of 'buts' I could have brought up .. but I don't have anything prepared on that topic.. but the meeting starts in just a few minutes.. but they are expecting a scripture based teaching and I need more time to prepare it .. but I already did so much work on the other teaching...

I stopped my thoughts.. Had I not entered into a covenant with God that He is the boss and I am His bondservant? Did He not have the right to tell me to do whatever He wanted to do whenever He wanted to do it? I did not express any of my "buts" to the Lord.. though I am sure He had heard them flash across my mind.

Instead, I said, "Lord, you might have given me a little advanced notice."

"Teresa," He laughed, "I did give you advanced notice. I could have waited until after the meeting started."

I shut up.

Then I started thinking about what I might say. I needed some sort of scripture to begin with to teach from. Immediately two scriptures came to my mind, the 2nd half of Psalm 91 and Isaiah 12. "Thank you Lord!" I whispered.

"You are welcome."

Then I realized my real concern was not whether or not my teaching went well. It was whether or not God would back it up and come minister his refreshing to the women. What if I taught an clunky and unrehearsed teaching on God's refreshment and afterwards the ministry time fell flat? I would look like such an idiot if I changed my plans and then God did not show up.

"You are planning to show up and minister Your refreshing, right Lord?"

No answer. I knew better than asking. God had already told me that He wanted to refresh them tonight. He was going to do that if I was obedient to Him. In my mind's eye, I saw refreshment looking like the 'ole time renewal meetings, with people drunk in the spirit and laughing and such. "Teresa, it might not look like that... don't look for a specific expression of my refreshment and teach them to be open to whatever I want to do in each of them."

By then I'd pulled in to the parking lot. I was running late. The meeting was supposed to start at 7:00 PM and it was already 7:10. Folks were still milling around and visiting / talking, so I did not feel late, but I also did not have time to prepare any sort of last minute replacement teaching.

The meeting started with a prayer time and then some other stuff. When it was time to get up and teach, I started by sharing the story of how I really did prepare a teaching, but God was asking me to talk about something else instead. I "apologized in advance" if this did not come out very polished.

One of the ladies called out, "Maybe God is stretching you, too." Everyone joined me in laughing over that. I shared some of what God said to me Thursday about the nature of the enemy's strategy to overwhelm people. Then I began to speak about what God wanted to do about it.. about refreshing people, meeting them with His presence, coating them with His oil. I can't really tell you what all I said.. all I know is that an anointing came on me while I was talking. It ended up being so easy to talk to the ladies. I was having a blast, and so were the women who were listening. It really was not all that different that prophesying.. I would just open my mouth and out would come all sorts of excellent things. I was not thinking ahead to consider what I was going to say next... out it all just came. I sure do wish I'd recorded it. All of the women were attentive and "with me". Each was watching me with interest, nodding their heads, smiling, laughing from time to time. We all had a great deal of fun!

At one point I remember realizing that I was preaching, not teaching. I made a comment about that to the group, intending it as more of an aside. But they keyed onto it and began to applaud. One lady said, "I sure am glad God is stretching you.. this is great!" I demonstrated a few types of prayer, using real people and inviting God to come on the women. As I did, the Lord showed up and met them. It added a neat dimension to the teaching. The goal was not just for them to be refreshed that evening, but that they learn how to minister the refreshing prayer to others. While I was speaking, I began to feel the Lord's tangible presence on me. My hands were both tingling and it felt like I was holding balls of "sweetness" in both hands. It was a very pleasant sensation.

Then we went into worship and after that. When the worship began, I started moving around the room and praying for various ones who the Lord pointed out to me. I prayed for Marcia and Roberta first, because God had told me that they were going to be some of His key players that evening. God seemed to meet them. Roberta even got drunk in the spirit. They I began to look around the room until God fixed my eyes on someone. Then I'd go pray for that person for a while and then move on to the next who God pointed out to me. Some of them were hit by God's presence in tangible/observable ways. Others just soaked in quietly. It wasn't the drunk in the spirit and uncontrollable laughing that I had sort of envisioned in my mind's eye. But God was clearly meeting most of the ladies.

I remember praying for one lady, and it did not look like much was happening with her. I could see God's peace all over her and she was swaying like she might fall down, so I put a catcher behind her. I asked the Lord to increase what He was doing, and she began to back up, until she backed the catcher against the wall. Then she stopped and just stood there with eyes closed and a big smile on her face. I moved off to pray for someone else. I noticed that Marcia and Roberta were praying for one lady and God was visibly touching her. After that, Marcia moved about the room praying for those God led her to. And from observing her across the room, I would say that God was using her very powerfully. In fact, later on she grabbed me and prophesied to me and I felt very met by God and ministered to by her word.

After about 45 minutes of worship, I invited the women to begin ministering to one another. I was already 10:00 PM. A few left because it was getting late, but many stayed and prayed. God met the people in different ways, but it looked very much like He was meeting almost everyone. I went to pray for one lady and she began to describe a physical problem that just suddenly came on her when the ministry time started and only lasted a few minutes, but it had "weirded her out". The Lord told me it was a Word Of Knowledge, so I asked if anyone in the room had the condition she'd experienced, which was a pain on the left side of the stomach, a little higher than the belly button. One lady raised her hand, so I sent this woman to go pray for her. She looked at me like I was asking her to do the impossible, so I briefly explained how to pray for the sick and then she went and did it. I got to prophecy to a few women, but mostly I just invite the Lord to come and meet them, come and fill them, wrap His arms of love around them, etc.

It must have been a successful meeting, because many were still there at 11:00 PM at night when the worship leader's guitar fingers gave out and she had to stop playing. God blessed the people. About then, I saw the lady who'd had the pain in her left side, the target of the earlier word of knowledge. I asked her how she was doing, and she had this incredible smile and said "Wonderful!"

Then I talked to one of the intercessors who'd been sort of frozen in one spot in the hall. She shared briefly about having a marvelous experience with God and of being unwilling to leave that spot until He released her. A few others shared with me neat experience they'd had with God, of how God had met them during this ministry time.

The lady I'd prayed for earlier who'd backed the catcher into the wall was quietly sitting in a chair. I sat down next to her and two people told me, "she's drunk." I remembered thinking to myself, 'My, she's a quiet drunk!' After a bit she began to share with me how God had met her powerfully three times in her life. The first was when she was initially saved. The second was the first time she'd visited a spirit-filled church. She stood up for worship and was ushered into God's presence. The worship ended and everyone sat down, except her. She was still in God's presence and did not even realize everyone else was seated. She remained standing and worshipping the whole teaching and altar call and ministry time and she missed the whole church service because she'd been directly in God's presence. That was a long time ago. She said that this evening as the third time in her life where God met her in such a tangible way. He spoke to her about who she was and broke some enemy oppression off of her. Her spirit was soaring and she was literally radiant with His glory. It might not have looked like much was happening to observe her, but God met her more powerfully than ever before and she is sure she has been "forever changed" by the encounter.

Personally I was not drunk, but the anointing was all over me and I felt "so wonderful." Marcia had a word for me earlier during the ministry time, and it ministered to me deeply. I felt like I'd been met and ministered to as well as ministering to others. God had certainly taken such good care of me. It had felt scary to "throw away my notes" and preach an impromptu sermon.. but the Holy Spirit showed up and helped me immensely. Then He came and met people in wonderful ways during the ministry time. I finally left well after 11:00 PM and there were still a few lingering there when I went home. God had shown up and refreshed people. It was delightful having the Holy Spirit minister God's refreshment to us. I am so glad He "showed up!" and superceded my plans with His.