More Wednesday Night Ministry Time

I decided to go get some more prayer since it was my last night and all. In the back of my mind, I remembered the Lord promising me this afternoon that He would bless me that evening. So I headed to the back of the room full of expectation. There was not a lot of prayer going on back there -- most of the prayer team had finished for the night. I stood for a while and waited. Then I noticed an elderly guest ministry team woman from Texas. I asked her if she was still praying for people and explained that it was my last night here and I wanted some more prayer. She said she'd go round up a catcher and be back shortly. She came back with another ministry team person (a man also from Texas) and his catcher. The man asked me what I wanted prayer for.

The words came out of my mouth almost before I could formulate them in my mind -- I explained that I was a captain of the renewal ministry team back at my home Church and that my Church had sent me out this trip. I wanted to bring more anointing home to my own Church. The man grinned and thought that was a good request. Then he started praying for me.

He said to imagine myself as a sponge soaking up and absorbing all sorts of water. I would be full and heavy to take back to my Church. He said that the Lord would wring me out over my Church's ministry team and pour the anointing out on them. He said that even as I'm wrung out, and the anointing is imparted into others, the anointing will not leave me. I'll find that the anointing is there even when I'm tired and think I have nothing left to give. I could feel a sweet gentle presence of the Lord and felt faint. So I allowed myself to go down. This was not a powerful experience, as previous prayer had been. His style of praying was more like prophesy and he was praying exactly for what I'd asked for prayer for. I felt like the ministry had been good, but not much seemed to happen after I was down. I laid there for a few minutes just in case God wanted to do anything. Then I got up.

I have to admit that I was a little disappointed. I did not feel very blessed yet. In my mind's eye, I had pictured being very drunk in the spirit and full of joy before the evening was out. But I was cold sober. So I headed back up to the front. I stood there waiting for prayer. Two of the less sophisticated Texans were selectively praying for friends up front. They skipped praying for me, but did pray for some of the people around me. They were on the obnoxious side. At one point they brought someone up to where I was standing for prayer and pushed me aside to make room for this person. They never said excuse me, or offered to pray for me or anything. I got frustrated with them and decided to go stand behind the stage to get away from them. I was sort of irritated at them and was trying to stay in a right relationship with God instead of getting caught up in a tuff. As I waited there, I felt like the Lord showed me a lot about wrongful ministry and how to handle it. I will be doing a writeup on it for my Church and will probably also publish a copy on new-wine. I started to wonder if God didn't purposely dump me into a couple of wrongfully administered ministry situations so He could teach me how to teach others how to deal with it. Suddenly those two obnoxious Texans weren't so annoying -- now they were an object lesson.

There were still some people out under the power in the area I was in. One of the ministry team people was moving from person to person, soaking them. I sort of hoped that he'd come pray for me so I'd have one last good prayer experience before I went home. But He did not come my way. The enemy started whispering in my ear that I was being passed by -- that God was rejecting me and that I was not being blessed that evening (even thought God had promised to bless me). My mind instantly replayed my first trip to Toronto when I could not get anyone to pray for me and I made plans to fly home the next morning. But then God ended up freeing me from a spirit of rejection. He had to let it surface so I was willing to allow Him to deal with it. I remembered the Lord's faithfulness back a year ago. Then I replayed the day in my mind's eye. I realized that God had been incredibly faithful and good to me that day. I suddenly felt impressed to say an authority prayer -- "rejection, if you're trying to bother me -- go take a hike. The Lord is good and faithful to me and I place myself under the shadow of His wing. You have no place in me rejection, so be gone. Instantly, I could feel that sullenness lift off of me and was again strongly aware of the Lord's sweet presence. Then, about 30 seconds later, a prayer team person came and started praying for me. I ended up getting that final prayer after all, even though I no longer felt like I needed it. I could feel the Lord's presence really increase on me, but I did not go down. After he finished praying for me, I felt like it was time to go home. I felt very satisfied with the trip.

But God was not done with me yet. More fun was to come.

I grabbed my stuff and headed towards the exit. On the way out, I ran into Barbara and Bryan. We greeted each other. They were also bummed out because some of the Texan on the prayer team would not pray for them. Barbara is local, but Byran is from New Zealand. That's an awful long way to come to have people refuse to pray for you. So I had this brainstorm. I suggested that we consider ourselves a group and pray for each other. After all, last night they did give groups that knew each other permission to pray for each other. Bryan had a friend with him, so the four of us stood in a circle and joined hands and invited the Lord to come fall on us. Barbara and I were instantly drunk in the spirit. The guys started complaining to each other that God had fallen on the women and skipped them. So Barbara and I picked ourselves off the ground and started praying for the guys. Soon Bryan was also very drunk. Another lady came over when she saw us praying for each other and wanted to join us. She wanted me to prayer for her. I explained to her that I was not part of the ministry team and had not been released to pray for anyone here. She said that she didn't care -- that she wanted prayer and it was really hard to get the visiting Texas Ministry Team people to pray for her. So I started praying for here and she started shaking and laughing. The Lord told me that He was giving her an anointing for prophetic intercession. So I started blessing that and calling it forth. She went from mild shaking to rather violent shaking. She was very happy with the prayer because she was praying along -- "yes, Lord! Yes, Lord!" By then, a few others who wanted prayer had wandered up and joined our group. I think they were friends of this lady I'd just prayed for. So we were all praying for each other and God was showing up and we were having a blast. We were all getting a bit tipsy.

Then I saw Sigrid and Ron walk up. My first reaction was delight -- Oh Good, they're still here. I can say good-bye to them. My next reaction was remembering that I'm not supposed to be praying for people here and that they're on the ministry team. I was sort of caught red-handed with my hand in the cookie jar, so to speak. So after expressing delight that they were still here, I admitted that I had been naughty and was praying for some friends here. Sigrid was very nice about it and said that since the group (Barbara, Byran, me, etc) knew each other and it was so late, it was fine for us to pray for each other.

Anyhow, we all decided to go out to Tim Hortons (a doughnut shop) for coffee. By now I figured that the Lord really was done -- after all, I'd been very blessed when we all prayed for each other and got sort of drunk and laughing in the spirit together. But God was not quite done with me yet.