Our pastor had recently been to minister in Mozambique with Rolland and Heidi Baker and he received a powerful impartation while he was there. Mark Dupont was there at the same time as Rodney, and he prophesied over Rodney that God had brought him to Mozambique to receive the revival anointing of the land, and that he was to bring it back to the SF Bay Area and that 2003 was "his year." I had known for about two weeks that Rodney was planning an impartation service this Sunday to impart into his congregation what God had deposited into him on that trip. I had been looking forward to this service for a long time. Nothing was going to cause me to miss it. I had injured my back on Wednesday, and was in a lot of pain -- to the point where I would have been well justified to skip church and simply stay home. But I chose to go to the service because I wanted to be there for the impartation.

The Lord met me a bit at church on Sunday, but it was nothing what I'd been expecting and hoping for. I think I had a picture in my mind's eye of what the impartation service would look like, and my mental picture looked a lot like the renewal services at Toronto Airport Christian Fellowship in the early days of renewal. But the way the impartation ministry time worked out was quite different than what I had pictured. It was very quiet (no worship music) and it was not the typical laying on of hands for impartation that I was used to.

It was more of a stay in your seats and God will touch you individually type of service. I could see a tangible anointing on Rodney. I think I was "seeing in the spirit" instead of in the natural, but I am not sure. Maybe the anointing was visible to everyone. But because of the presence of this anointing on him, I was pretty sure that he was being God-directed in how he ran the ministry time.

God chose to do it in a different way than I was looking forward to and expecting. I knew God was in the room, but I could not feel or sense much happening to me personally. I began to wonder if maybe somehow I was missing it -- what if God was touching most everyone else but not me? What if the unspiritual past three days, where I'd been vegetating before the TV with my sore back, disqualified me? What if I'd somehow become unreceptive to the moving of the spirit and I was missing it?

Now, I knew in my head that the idea was ridiculous. I knew God does not disqualify us just because we have a few bad days spiritually. But my heart (emotions) were not totally convinced. So I began crying out to God to please not pass me by in His next move. I told Him that I wanted to be a player, that I wanted to do His agenda His way and to have a heart and attitude that pleased Him in all of this. I asked Him to impart into me too. (The impartation was to be a "carrier" of the upcoming revival in our area, to have a heart of compassion and a love for the lost, to have a greater measure of God's presence/intimacy in your own life and to be effective in bringing people to know Jesus.)

I knew (in my head) God was touching me but I could not sense that touch. I had been hoping to be transported into His presence, to see His glory, to have His power surge through me. None of that was happening. I do remember thinking that God often does things in different ways that we expect, and that is why so many people miss what He is doing -- they are looking for it to happen another way. So I prayed for God to please help me to recognize what He was doing, make me sensitive to His spirit and that my preconceptions and expectations would not get in the way.

Somewhere in the midst of that intense prayer, I heard Rodney's voice near me praying "more Lord" but I did not pay much attention to it. I realized He must be moving around the room laying hands on some of the people. But I did not know if he would get to me or not. It did not seem to matter so much at that point, though earlier in the service I had really longed for it.

Then a few minutes later, Rodney came by and laid hands on me. He prayed a short prayer asking God to impart into me and give me "the whole whammie." I agreed strongly with the prayer, I wanted it all! I could tangibly sense the spirit on me for a short time and I knew God was really doing something in the service, even though He had chosen to do it differently than I expected. Then God whispered in my ear, "OK, since you wanted laying on of hands for impartation, I am giving it to you. First we did it My way. Since you submitted to that, I will now do it your way too."

It was not one of those "fall out of your seat shaking" types of touches. It was not one of those "get electrocuted" types of touches. But it did leave me feeling closer to God and more aware of His nearness. When things seemed to be "over" for me, I glanced at my wrist watch -- a whole hour had gone by since we'd first started praying. It sure did not seem that long!