A Taste of the Age to Come
Friday, July 24th, 2009
I love living and working around the students at Bethany College of Missions. They provoke me to live wholly for God. The Bethany campus fasts together on Tuesdays and we gather at noon to worship and pray together and I get to lead worship for it! This last week one of the mentors, Rachele Ward, and others went to promote Bethany at a local music fest and awesome stuff happened. I’ll let her tell you the story. I pass this on to encourage you to love God with everything and step out even in uncertainty!
It all started after setting up the BCOM booth at Desperation in Colorado Springs. Amy went into the bathroom and heard a junior high girl saying, “It really hurts, I think I’m going to have to go back to the hotel.” Seeing her in obvious agony Amy went up to the girl and asked if she could pray for healing, the girl agreed and her friends shyly joined in. As Amy was walking away she asked how she was feeling. The girl’s stunned reply was, “It actually feels a lot better!” Encouraged by this experience Amy mentioned this in her Facebook status. I saw this the next day as the Lord was challenging me
Several people, including myself, all promoted Bethany College of Missions at Sonshine Fest. Saturday morning I felt the Lord heavily speaking to me, “Rachele you are here to bring my Kingdom not to promote BCOM.” We are to bring the Lord’s Kingdom wherever we are… sometimes I forget this. He was really stirring in me. I went to the other two girls and I began to tell them what the Lord was speaking. One person mentioned the scripture in Hebrews 6 that says, “Therefore, let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance from acts that lead to death, and of faith in God, instruction about baptisms, the laying on of hands, the resurrection of the dead and the eternal judgment.” The Lord began wrecking our hearts. They classify raising people from the dead as elementary teachings?! That is crazy! We also talked about the verse, “the same Spirit that raised Christ from the dead lives in us.” That is crazy to think about.
I went back to my tent and left the girls and the promotion booth. I told the Lord that if He wanted me to step out and lay hands on people and pray for random people I would but I needed Him to back me up otherwise I have nothing to work with. As I waited on Him and I still felt like He was saying He wanted to break in at Sonshine. I also felt we needed to bring a Kingdom perspective – but how?
I went back to our booth and a few more students were there and I told them what the Lord had been stirring in our hearts. One got excited and said he was going to make signs. He made one that said “NEED PRAYER?” and another that said “NEED HEALING?” We prayed and asked the Lord to bring only who He wanted. From the time we began until four hours later people didn’t stop coming. We began laying hands on people and praying for their requests. At one point one of the girls asked this guy if we could ask the Lord for a word or prophecy for him. In my head I was like, “Do not sign me up to prophesy.” But the Lord quickly reminded me that He is the Shepherd and I can hear His voice. From that time on we prayed for people but we also all listened to see if the Lord wanted to speak to us about the people. This is how the Lord allowed us to bring a Kingdom perspective. We began calling them forth into who the Lord created them to be. We spoke truth over them and prophesied. People began to come up for healing and they were being healed! The first time we prayed we would ask how they felt and they said better so we prayed again until they were healed! I am not sure why the Lord waited 2-3 times but He did. A guy’s back was healed, a shoulder, ankles, depression, schizophrenia, sickness. We prayed for a lady who was addicted to narcotics and was beginning the withdrawal process. Some of the girls prayed over her and later she came back and said the Lord was healing her but she was being attacked by the enemy. She was shaking and stuttering. I believe she was manifesting (a demon). We prayed over her until she stopped shaking.
People were running to get their friends and brought them back for the Lord to heal them. It was beautiful. One guy came up and said that He wished he knew what he was doing. He wished he could do what we were doing. I told him we didn’t know what we were doing either. I told him the process of the Lord speaking this morning. I asked him if he felt weak and then told him to jump on board. He was able to lay hands on people with us and see the Lord heal. It is amazing how the Lord delights in our weakness. How in our weakness He just asks for obedience. Simply beautiful!
The vendor next to us was running her booth by herself all weekend. If she wanted to go to the bathroom, she had to lock up all of her stuff. So we went and got her food sometimes to make it easier on her. Saturday night her husband showed up and I introduced myself. He said that he knew a little about us. I thought that was an odd statement for someone you just met. He said when he got here his wife leaned over, pointed to us and whispered, “Those people are the real deal, honey.” I started crying. The Lord really spoke to my heart through that. I felt the Lord’s heart for the end time church. I thought about that scripture that says they will know us by our love. I always wondered what that would look like. I feel like I got a glimpse. That love is going to come through obedience in our weakness. We are going to love the Father and people are going to see the overflow of our hearts. Not in just hugs and joyfulness but in obedience in laying hands on people. It was beautiful. The Lord is beautiful.
Be encouraged! Living on this campus is a blast and I am excited to see what else God does in and through us. This is just a taste of the age to come. These students and mentors are “the real deal, honey”!