I was attending a Leader's Advance in Redding California. There are many neat things the Lord did that would make great testimonies in their own right. I am not sure I will have time to write them all up, but I did want to take time to write up this one testimony.
I need to give a tad of background. The leader's advance Monday afternoon and went through Wednesday morning. They are big on redeeming the arts at Bethel and one of the things they do is to have a few artists on the platform with the worship team, painting what they call "prophetic art" as the rest of the worship. Monday night there were six artists on the platform. One of them painted a giant wave crashing into a wall. The wall was made of large shiny white stones. Another lady painted a pair of feet that looked like the feet of Jesus walking into the meeting. There were four other paintings as well. They left the paintings on the platform the following day (Tuesday). Tuesday night the same six artists got up to paint. Four of them removed their earlier paintings and started new ones. Two of the artists kept their original painting and added to it during the second night of worship.
The lady who did the wave crashing into the wall added to it. She just kept painting more and more detail and texture into the wave the entire service. The wall was still perfectly intact and the wave was breaking right on top of it, waves spraying from the impact. When you looked at it you could almost expect to see those waves carry the stones away. When she was done, it was a very powerful painting.
Another lady did a picture of dandelion seeds being blown off of the dandelion, which reminded me very much of the verse where Jesus asks us to pray for more laborers for the harvest and then of Ezekiel's response to God's "Whom shall I send?" question -- "Here I am, send me." I was more drawn to that picture of the dandelions than to any other painting, because it represented being sent to the nations to me. However, I was almost as strongly attracted to the painting of the wave crashing into the wall.
A lot of other people were attracted to those same two paintings, and there were many conversations about them between sessions. The painting of the wave crashing into the wall was referred to as the "break through" painting in many of these conversations. People saw the wave as the move of God breaking down any walls in our lives/churches/ministries that would try and hold us back from the full flow of God's Spirit. Some saw it as inner healing, a breakthrough through the walls we put up. Some saw it as a break thought in relationships. One lady saw it as ending the division in her church. The interpretations were all along those lines... the wave of God's spirit/power breaking down anything that got in the way of all God desired for us.
God had a different interpretation for that picture, which He made clear to us in the morning service. But I need to tell you a little about the Tuesday night service, because it is important background.
Bill Johnson spoke, and he talked about his hunger and passion to live in revival and to see it sustained for future generations. This is an oversimplification of Bill's teaching, but he saw revival as the church as a whole doing the works that Jesus did, that Jesus was our standard and definition for revival. That meant we should see healings and deliverances, but it is more than that. It is all about seeing God's kingdom reigning on earth, through us, who are empowered by the same power that raised Jesus from the dead. He talked about how we should see food multiply and how we should have power over the weather, just like Jesus did when He calmed the storm. The Holy Spirit challenged each of us to not be satisfied with anything less than the full measure of doing what Jesus did and seeing and sustaining God's kingdom here on earth.
The next morning (Wednesday) worship started at 10:00 AM. The prophetic pictures painted during the Tuesday night service were still on the platform, each on it's own easel. My attention was particularly drawn to the picture I most identified with during worship... the dandelion seeds being spread to the winds. But I also kept noticing the picture of the wave breaking into the wall. I was a bit surprised that I had my eyes open and was looking at this stuff instead of closed in worship, focusing on God. But we were singing a song that had a part about speaking to the waters in Jesus' name, and that seemed to fit the prophetic picture of the wave.
Usually worship goes for a good 45 minutes or so. But Bill Johnson came on the platform as the second song was ending and stopped the music. He said that he had a missions team in Thailand from his church and had just received a phone call from them. There had been an 8.1 earthquake in the area and a Tsunami had formed and was heading towards them. Impact was expected in the next 15 or 20 minutes. They wanted us to pray. Bill encouraged us to command the weather in Jesus name to still or turn the storm so that the Tsunami did not do any serious damage or cause loss of life. We stopped and prayed for about 10 minutes, first all at once and then Beni (Bill's wife lead us in a corporate prayer.)
I felt led to command the forward motion in the waves to change direction, going to the side instead of forward and causing the large wave the was forming to dissipate. Bill was praying into the microphone, so I could hear his prayer as well. He was commanding the wind to stop the wave's forward advancement and cause it to dissipate. Everyone around me was praying as well. I was so intent on my own prayer that I did not listen to what the people around me were praying, but I had a sense that they were taking authority over the storm in Jesus' name. As we prayed, one of the pastors attending the advance felt led to move the picture of the tidal wave hitting the wall right next to where Bill was standing on the center of the platform.
Suddenly, the interpretation we all had of that picture changed. We no longer saw it was God's wave breaking through any wave of resistance. Now we saw the wall as God's protection, standing against the onslaught of the destructive Tsunami. Perhaps that is why the wall was solid in the painting and not breaking as the wave crashed on it.
Anyhow, Beni Johnson (Bill's wife) got up and reminded us that Jesus slept through the storm and was not frightened by it because He knew His authority over it. Then He got up and started speaking peace to the storm. She had us all turn in the direction of the Tsunami and then had us all stretch forth our hands and speak peace to this storm. As she did that, Bill noticed the painting. When we finished speaking peace to still the Tsunami, Bill began to draw parallels from this painting, which the Holy Spirit had prophetically given us during the past two worship services. It seemed to be God telling him that the wall of protection would stand and the storm would be calmed. Bill was so sure of the prophetic content of the painting that he did not have us pray any more. Instead we went back to corporate worship, singing the first song again about speaking to the wind and waters.
When that song was over, Bill got up and reported that he had a call and the Tsunami had been downgraded by 2 points. That was good news. We all cheered and celebrated God's glory, then did another worship song. At the end of that song, Bill announced that the ex-Tsunami had hit Thailand and that the waves were only 2 or 3 feet (sorry I can't remember which) deep. It did not do any life-threatening damage. Again we all celebrated God's glory over the whether.
After service, John (an intercessor from GodSpeak ministry) and I went to lunch together at In-And-Out Burger. We ran into a few others from the conference there. One of them told me this, "When we prayed about that Tsunami and it stilled down to almost nothing, I was praying over and over, 'God, You Rock!" Then God said to me, 'No, you guys rock!'"
Instantly the Holy Spirit bore witness to my spirit that God was so pleased with us because we rose up in the authority of Jesus and stilled that storm. The whole reason that Jesus gave us His authority was so we would use it to do the Father's will here on earth.
Anyhow, it was a neat experience to see the power of Jesus operate on the Tsunami and have real-time feedback of how the storm stilled as we used the authority of Jesus to bring God's kingdom and His glory to the situation.
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