God started working on me long before I got to the service. Yesterday I had missed a special half hour prayer time that I try to set aside with the Holy Spirit each day. I felt so bad about it, especially when the Holy Spirit told me that I had hurt His feelings by putting watching a movie on television above spending our daily time together. He told me He forgave me for standing Him up, but I felt SO bad about it when I realized what I'd done, and I spent a fair amount of time apologizing to Him about it. I was up at 5 AM today to work on some ministry-related stuff -- writing some lessons and doing some work on GodSpeak's www pages. But since I'd missed my half hour time with the Holy Spirit, I decided to set that time aside before I left for church.
I half expected Him to be distant because I'd stood Him up. But He is not like that. When He forgives, He forgives and does not hold it against us. Still, I started praying to Him even before I set the timer and put on the worship music to have my half hour with Him. While I was getting ready for this half hour of intimacy time with the Holy Spirit, I found myself yearning for Him and praying, "Holy Spirit, I want more of You!"
His answer caught me off guard. "Teresa, if I answered your prayer and gave you more, what would you do with Me?"
I did not know how to answer that. At first I interpreted that question in the same light as, "Teresa, if I gave you a million dollars, what would you do with it?" I pondered it for a few minutes and I could not come up with an answer. "I .. uh.. well... um ... can you please help me out with that question, Holy Spirit?"
Then He clarified the question for me. I had a sense of His pleasure and amusement and I strongly suspected He was grinning. Then the interpretation of the question changed to mean something more along the lines of, "Teresa, if you and I were to do something together, what would you do with Me?" That question made a lot more sense. I had a chance of answering that... what would I like the Holy Spirit to allow me to do with Him if I had more of His presence and more of His anointing? I started to formulate an answer and then I told Him, "You might have phrased it that way in the first place. When you first asked the question, I thought You meant something entirely different."
"I know," He replied. "I did it that way on purpose, because I had so much fun watching you try and figure out how to respond to Me on that."
We had a good laugh, and then I began to ponder the ways that I wanted the Holy Spirit to use me and move in my life. The half hour was over far too quickly, so I spent an extra ten minutes with Him. We were deep in conversation and it was one of the best Holy Spirit Times I'd had since I started setting the time apart for Him two weeks ago. I would like to have spent more time with Him, but it was time to leave for church.
Today was a "youth day" at church. About 8 of the youth from our church had gone to Brazil with Randy Clark on a missions trip, and they were to share their experiences during the main service. The youth worship team lead worship and it was excellent. In fact, I had a really good connection with God during worship. And I found myself praying intently, "Holy Spirit, please take more of Me! I want to give you more of myself." He commented to me on it. He said, "Teresa, earlier you were asking Me to give you more of Myself, and now you are trying to give Me more of yourself. Which is it? Which do you want?"
"Both!" He seemed satisfied with that answer, but I decided to press it a bit further. "Can I make you a trade? I will give You all of me, and You give me more of You in return?"
"Teresa," God said, "You are not capable of keeping that agreement. While that might sound desirable to you, you are not really at the place where you can give me all of yourself. But we will move more into that direction."
Worship ended and the youth's testimonies of their experiences in Brazil began. They were interesting and some of them were humorous. The service went quickly and then it was ministry time. This particular day, the youth from Brazil and the youth who went to Bill Johnson's Youth retreat the previous week were the ministry team.
Just before the ministry time began, God spoke to me and said something unusual. "Teresa, don't be afraid of what I am going to do to you today during the ministry time." I began to ponder what He might mean. Would it be something so powerful that I would wonder if I were going to survive it? Or would the Lord do something so deep that I would have to face repressed issues of the past? Or would I be caught up into the heavenlies in a vision and come into His very presence and experience the fear of the Lord. What could He mean?
It was about 12:30 when I went up to the altar for prayer. I had been having some aches and pains so I asked Liz and Amanda to pray for me for healing. There was some improvement in the symptoms and then after they prayed that through, they began to pray for God to fill me. I could feel His sweetness around me and was aware of His nearness. It was not a real strong presence, but it was very nice. I sort of relaxed into Him and ended up on the floor. I laid there for a little while, just enjoying His nearness. Suddenly I felt this wave of power wash over me and I sensed that someone was standing near me. I opened my eyes to see who it was. Shandy's right foot was about five inches from my head and he and Jason were praying for Brenda. I tried to ignore them and focus on God. I felt another wave of God's power wash over me and spent a few minutes shaking under the power -- and that was just the backwash from the anointing from them praying for Brenda.
I decided that I would stand up and ask them to pray for me when they finished praying for Brenda. They were both prophesying to Brenda. As I stood there and waited, God began to talk to me. He told me several encouraging things about His plans for me and the ministry I head, and He used a few key words, like He would be opening more doors for me. And then He told me that He was going to confirm what He had said to me by having someone prophesy the same thing to me today. Since Shandy and Jason were prophesying to Brenda, I just assumed God meant that Shandy and Jason would prophesy to me and confirm what God had told me privately.
After they finished with Brenda, I told them how I felt the wash of God's power when they came near me to pray for Brenda. I told them I wanted some of that, so would they pray for me.
Shandy did something really odd. He asked me to move over about 3 or 4 feet to my left, pointing to a precise spot on the floor. I complied, thinking I might be humoring him but feeling it would not hurt anything to go along with what he wanted. I asked him if I was standing in the right spot. He told me, "I was trying to listen to God to put you right where He wanted you."
I said ok and thought, "maybe I wasn't humoring him after all, maybe God really wanted me in a particular location. Then they began to pray for me. It was mostly the "fill her" and "more fire" prayers. Jason had a short word for me that I had been receiving cool refreshing water from other ministries by sitting under them and receiving from them, but God was about to turn my water into wine and launch me into more ministry. Shandy gave a follow on word along those same lines. They sort of touched on what God was saying to me while they prayed for Brenda. But their words were very short and not really a direct confirmation.
But the power of God was beginning to hit me, so I did not think much about the words or looking for prophetic confirmation of what God had said to me. Something unusual was happening in my body. My top half was trying to fall in the spirit, but my bottom half (especially from my knees down) was firmly planted, as if my feet were glued to the floor. And I was shaking and jerking. I must have looked really weird if anyone cared to look at me. Fortunately, most people were very busy receiving blessings from God. People were laughing and shaking and some were screaming as the power of God hit them. It was a riot and there were bodies everywhere. SO I don't think anyone was looking at me, which was probably a good thing since my body was doing something really odd.
Jason and Shandy moved over to pray for someone else. As they left, there was another wave of God's power and presence and my body was busy going ballistic for a while. It felt very very hot, like the fire of God was hitting me. I wish I could say that God spoke to me a lot during this time, but the truth is that I was just reacting to His power and presence. I could not concentrate on anything but God for a while, maybe ten minutes or so. One of the youth who I did not know came and prayed for me, and again I was very lost in God's nearness.
After a while, I became aware of my surroundings. I wished I could just fall down, or even sit down, but my feet seemed to be firmly stuck to the carpet. The rest of my body felt very light and fluid, but my feet felt very heavy, as if there were 500 pounds of weight on each of them, pressing them into the ground. They began to hurt a bit from the pressure of the weight, but it did not hurt excessively. Suddenly I realized I was stuck to the ground. I was not going anywhere. That had happened to me once before at the Todd Bentley meetings, just after he'd prayed for an impartation for each of us. But this felt totally different. The only similarity was that I was stuck to the floor and could not move my feet.
After a while, most of the activity drifted to the other side of the altar. I was on the far right side (as you face the platform) and most of the activity was on the far left. It looked like a lot of fun down there. People were getting drunk in the spirit, waves of laughter were hitting groups of people, God's power was being released as they prayed for each other. I wanted to go over there where the action was and get in on the fun. But I was stuck to the floor, I could not move. So I stood where I was, all by myself. Part of me felt left out because I could not go join in on the fun at the other end of the room. But, in all honesty, it is hard to feel very left out when God's power is on you in a tangible manifestation the way He was on me.
I asked Him what was going on, but He did not answer me. The youth worship team was still on the stage and they were still playing worship music, so I decided to just worship along. I kinda drifted in-between three states. One state was lost in worship and enjoying the presence and sweetness and nearness of the Lord. One state was being hit by waves of His power that would come over me from time to time. And the other state was being aware of all that was going on around me and sort of thinking about it and trying to analyze what was going on with me. At one point I tried to convince myself that I wasn't really stuck to the floor, that I just did not want to move, and that if I tried, I would be able to pick up my feet. So I tried ... really hard ... and I discovered that I was wrong. I was definitely stuck.
These analytical moments really did not last very long. I do remember telling myself, God will unfreeze you when the worship stops. Then the worship team was playing one of my favorite songs, so I was soon lost in worship. After a while God's power hit me and then I went back to worship again. When the worship team stopped playing, they put on a tape. I was so busy worshipping and enjoying God's presence that I did not even notice the transition. But after a while I opened my eyes and the youth worship team was off of the platform. So I figured I would be able to move my feet now. Wrong again. I was still glued to the floor.
The ministry time continued with the taped music. A few people passed near me and I mentioned that my feet were stuck to the floor. They kind of looked at me funny and moved on, more or less ignoring me. Then someone prayed for Debbie very near me. She began wandering around, staggering backwards, as they prayed for her. Then she sort of collapsed into me in a heap and her friend, who was trying to catch her, crashed into me. That really should have knocked me down. But my feet remained glued to the floor and I did not budge when the two people crashed into me.
Then I was back to worship for a while. Then I had another analytical moment. What if God kept me here for days. Would anyone bring me food to eat or water to drink? It was a very practical concern.. then my mind drifted back to the Lord and I was lost in His presence for a while.
After a while, I saw Mark up on the platform. Mark is in charge of sound, and I needed to talk to him about setting up sound and taping for the prophetic team's dropin prophecy session this coming Wednesday night. I really wanted to go up on the platform and talk to him, and it was very important. But I was still frozen. I became so concerned about this that I could not focus on God at all or receive from Him. But my feet still remained frozen to the floor. It was getting annoying. I began telling God how much I needed to talk to Mark. That did not convince Him to unfreeze me. Fred passed near me, so I asked Fred to go get Mark. Eventually Mark came over and I was able to work out the details for the Wednesday night ministry -- and all this while I remained glued to the floor. I looked at my watch -- it was 2:15. I had gotten stuck to the floor about 12:45. That means I'd been there for an hour and a half!
I began to wonder if God was ever going to release me. I knew they were planning to have a small evening meeting, some type of training session, in the sanctuary at 6 PM. I had a mental image of me standing there in front of the altar, still glued to the floor as they tried to have their meeting. It was not a pleasant prospect.
A bit later I noticed a friend sitting on the front row, just behind where I was standing. I remembered thinking to myself, "I hope she comes over to talk to me." She did, few seconds after I thought that. She wanted prayer for something, so I prayed for her, still glued to the floor.
I worshipped a bit more -- it wasn't like I had a whole lot of options. When I worshipped and put my focus on God, I could feel His nearness and His sweetness. Maybe this would not be so bad after all. Then suddenly this thought went through my head that I could move my feet now. So I tried it and, sure enough, I could move them. I was so excited that I exclaimed out loud, "Hey! I can move my feet!"
Then I looked down. There were really deep imprints in the carpet where I'd been standing... they looked like they'd been made by something that weighed ten times what I weigh. The carpet is very short pile carpet, and the imprints were very deep. It was not physically possible for me to have made those imprints by just standing there -- but there they were. Five minutes later, the imprints were still clearly visible. Fred walked by with his digital camera, so I asked him to take a picture of them. He did. Then he took a picture of my feet to "show what went with those imprints." I sat on the seat and talked to my friend for a while. Twenty minutes later you could still see the imprints where I'd been stuck to the floor!
I don't really understand what that was all about. When this first started, before I knew I was stuck to the floor, I had an impression of being empowered to stand under the anointing. Near the end of the time I was glued to the floor, a phrase ran through my mind several times, that God had firmly planted me in this church. Was that God speaking to me, or was that my imagination? I don't know. After it was all over, I had a brief chat with Rodney, our pastor, who said it was some type of prophetic statement and thought maybe it had something to do with being firmly rooted in the faith. So far God hasn't told me more but I suspect He will later on.
Well, that was quite a day -- an experience with the Holy Spirit in my home before church and then that unusual but powerful experience during the ministry time at church. You think that my God-experiences would be over for the day. But no. God still had more in store.
That evening I stopped by the GodSpeak #prophetic-school chatroom during our facilitated time, which starts at 7 PM my time (10 PM EST). I was there because Brenda, that evening's facilitator, had send me an email that they were having thunderstorms, so she might have to shut down her computer during the session. I wanted to be there to take over the room should the storm force her to log off suddenly. Dottie, an old friend of mine from Florida who I hadn't talked to in months was in the chatroom, so we began to "catch up" by private message.
Suddenly my attention was drawn to the room when one of the participants had started to prophesy to me. The word was short and did not make sense to her. She was almost afraid to give it and said she was "stepping out in faith" to share it. But it made sense to me. It was something the Lord had discussed with me recently. It got my attention. I was about to give her feedback when another person began to share a word for me.
Do you remember how God had spoken to me before Shandy and Jason prayed for me and told me He would confirm the word to me prophetically? Well, this word, given by someone who did not know me at all, was precisely what God had told me in church. Some of the phrases were even word for word the same! My mouth dropped open as he typed the word into the chatroom. God had told me that He would confirm what He was saying to me prophetically. I had assumed He meant through Jason and Shandy since they were about to pray for me and I knew them to be prophetic. When that did not happen, I assumed I'd heard wrong. Now it was happening from an unexpected source at an unexpected time! God meant what He said and He kept His word -- only He did it in a totally different way than I expected.
But God did not stop there. He had 13 different people prophesy to me. Many of the prophecies touched on what God had said to me today or were related to the experience I had today. All of them were very encouraging. I almost never get prophesied to in the chatroom. I think in over 5 years of running the chatrooms, I have been prophesied to maybe eight times, and most of those times it was only 2 or 3 people who prophesied to me. It was amazing to me to receive so many words and for almost all of them to hit the target so squarely.
Wow. What a day this has been! God is so awesome!
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