A little over a year ago, I was given a "birthday" prophecy that God I would have some divine visitations. Given the context of the prophesy, we assumed this meant they would occur over the next year. However, that year came and went, and I did not experience divine visitations from God. In fact, I had my next birthday about a week ago.

As I went to bed last night, I was reminded of that prophetic word. So, I asked God what happened, how come I did not experience the divine visitations that had been prophesied to me? Had I done something wrong to prevent this visitation? Or was it a bad word? Or what? I went to bed that night crying out for God to please visit me.

I was awakened about 3:30 AM to pray. So I went to the guest room (my prayer closet) and stretched out over the guest bed to pray. About 4:00 AM, I had this vision of sorts. I have had visions before, and this was both similar and different. It was as if the Lord actually entered my room and His presence filled it. Suddenly I was kneeling before His throne, and I was hugging His legs with my cheek resting on the top of His feet. I could sort of see this when I opened my eyes, but I could also see the guest room. In fact, I could see the guest room a bit more clearly than I could see Christ's feet and throne. But I could literally feel His feet against my cheek, and His legs felt very tangible and real as I had my arms wrapped around them. While I had these visual and tangible sensations, the most overwhelming sensation was a spiritual one. There was a sense of His presence in the room.. very real and very tangible.

At first, it was wonderful just being in His presence. I found that I drifted between being lost in His presence and praying .. e.g, talking silently to Him and hearing Him reply in my "mind's ear." I was not doing any sort of petition prayer, but I do remember discussing various things with Him, and the clarity and accuracy of hearing was incredible. God spoke about some things that He was doing in my heart and He reminded me of some things He had done in the past. He reminded me of one thing I'd really been asking Him for in prayer, and He told me that He was going to give that to me. It was so wonderful.

Then the sense of His holiness began to increase. At first it was sort of gradual and I barely noticed it. But at some point it reached an intensity where it became frightening. God's presence can be "scary." I was having trouble breathing and wondered if I was going to "survive" this experience. I remember hearing Him say that He was not going to "kill me off" just now because He had kingdom work for me to do. I rested in His presence a bit longer, but was feeling more and more frightened. At one point, I literally got off the guest bed and practically ran out of the room, hardly aware of what I was doing. It was like I was on autopilot, trying to get away from the scariness of God's presence. I was already down the hall and almost to the kitchen when the Holy Spirit stopped me.

"Teresa," He said, "What are you doing? You are running away from God. Turn around and go right back to Jesus. Go kneel before Him and apologize to Him for running away."

As the Holy Spirit spoke to me, I realized how ludicrous my behavior was. For the longest time I had been crying out for God to visit me. Now that He was actually doing it, I was running away from Him! So I opened the door and went back into the guest room. But His presence and the vision were no longer there. I knelt down and began to apologize to Him. Suddenly I was back in the vision. I was before His throne and kneeling at His feet. I wrapped my arms around His legs again and sort of rested my head on His feet for a while.

After a while, His presence began to permeate my very being. I can't find the words to describe the experience... but it lasted about an hour. God did some deep inner stuff in me as I knelt before His presence, and I knew that I was being changed from the inside out. I can't describe what that time in His presence was like. Part of it was just sitting there with Him, and part of the time we talked... but He did most of the talking. I don't remember everything He said, it was like His words were going into my spirit instead of just into my mind. I do remember being very aware of my cheek resting on the top of His foot, and suddenly He was calling my attention to the fact that my point of contact was His feet. He reminded me that feet were for walking, for going, for being sent forth. He told me that He was sending me forth, and that is why I was "at His feet" in this encounter with Him.

When it ended, I just knew that here was no way I could just have "life as usual" today and go to work. So I decided to take a day of from work and make it a God day. It was about 5:30 AM. I went upstairs to my computer to read my email. God spoke to me and told me to go to the Tuesday morning prayer meeting at my Church. I had never been there before, but a few of the pastors and intercessors from the city of Hayward meet there at 6:30 AM every Tuesday to pray for the city. So I got dressed and drove to this meeting. I had no idea what to expect because I had never been there before. They started by sharing some of what was going on and various prayer needs.

Somehow Rodney, my pastor, got on the topic of an upcoming ministry trip to Africa, where he would helping to train and equip some pastors. It was originally scheduled for September but got rescheduled for early December. Revival is spreading like wildfire there. As he shared, my heart was doing flip flops within me.. the Lord has given me a vision/passion to help with training and equipping the pastors being raised up in the revival in Africa. In fact, I hope to go there and doing some training on hearing God's voice sometime the first half of next year. But as I listened to Rodney share, I was still stirred by the sense of "being sent" from His presence (the vision earlier that day). Every part of my being yearned to be a part of this trip.. even though I know it was impossible.. it is a closed (invite-only) team and besides, I have speaking engagement in the Bay Area on Dec 1 and Dec 3, which is probably a time-conflict with this trip. But my heart so resonated with what they are doing there because God has so put it on my heart to help train and equip the pastors He is raising up from the revival in Africa. So I began to tell myself that God sent me to this prayer meeting to give me a prayer burden for Rodney and the team he will be with on this ministry trip. But God had even more than that in store for me this morning at the meeting.

After a while the sharing stopped, and we began to pray. Rodney started the prayer. I heard the first part of it, and then God's presence began to fill the room in a very tangible way... at least I could sense His presence very strongly. I have not compared notes with the others there, so I am not sure if they had the same experience of His presence. I was momentarily back in the vision again, kneeling before Jesus' feet as He sat on His throne. My whole being was yearning for Him, crying out for more of His presence. Suddenly a pair of little black arms wrapped themselves around my left arm. I looked down, and saw a small black child wrapping his arms around my arm, sort of hugging me. I saw his body, his face and his hair, as well as his arms. This sounds odd, but the part I remember the most distinctly was his dark arms.. and the fact that the palm of his hand was not black like his arms, they were much paler, similar in color to my own palms. His hair was not coal black, like I would have expected. It was lighter and had sort of a reddish tint to it. The child smiled at me, both inviting and shy at the same time. The little boy had the love of God radiating from his smile. Suddenly the Lord told me that His presence was on His people, and that we were to be carriers of His presence.

The vision ended, and I was back in the prayer room, kneeling on the floor by my chair. But the sense of God's presence was still strong. I could feel His power coming on me. I began to shake, and my hands began to make chopping gestures as I knelt there beside my chair. I felt such an intensity of His presence on me, and my whole being was yearning for more of Him. My head starting shaking quickly from left to right, like it used to do when He would fall on me in the renewal meetings. After enjoying a few moments of experiencing Him, my mind began to kick in. I was reminded of past awesome experiences in renewal meetings and how this felt just like the "good old days." Then I was aware that I was manifesting and became concerned. After all, this was a prayer meeting and I did not want to be a distraction or disrupt the others. Then I decided that I was too hungry for God to worry about it. If God was doing something that made me look silly in front of the others, including my pastor, I was not going to resist Him. I wanted more of Him so badly...

Then God told me that I did not need to worry about it.. that the others were praying with their eyes closed. He said that they were focused on God and what He was doing in each of them, so they would not pay much attention to me. Grateful for the anonymity, I turned my focus completely back on Him.

Suddenly I was flooded with a yearning for God's presence to fill this area... Hayward and surrounding cities. I had a mental glimpse of the Lord visiting the unsaved with dreams and visions and angelic appearances. Then these unsaved people were seeing out the Christians to explain what they had experienced to them. I began to pray and intercede along those lines, crying out for God to bring a divine visitation of His presence to our area. I believe that I had caught a bit of God's heart in this.. that He desires to bring His presence, His reality and His goodness to the people who live here.

After the prayer meeting, I talked to my pastor. I tried to tell him about the two visions and the spiritual experiences that I had this morning, but I had trouble finding the words to describe it. I tried to share the yearning that has been going on in me these past 2 to 3 months for more of God's presence. I must have sounded like an idiot as I tried to share all of this with him, because I just could not find the words for it. But Rodney was very patient and encouraging. He shared how God had been giving him a similar longing for more of God that started about 6 months ago, and he shared a few of his experiences. He also shared how God's presence is so key in the revival in Africa.. he has already been out there once and will be going back again soon. Rodney shared some of his vision for revival or spiritual awakening for this area.. of how God's tangible presence will be a key ingredient in it. God wants to do here (and in each of our cities) what He is doing there.

People of God, let it start with us. Let us hunger for Him, cry out for more of His presence, wait before Him and be hungry for Him. It is time to stop looking for His power and His anointing and to start seeking His very presence. I believe that our goal has to be Him, not what He can do through us as He empowers us. Yes, His power will accompany His presence.. but we need to seek Him .. to worship and draw close to Him, instead of seeking His power and anointing. When God shows up, awesome things happen. Let's learn to get better at ushering in His presence in our cities and neighborhoods.