Dear hungry friends,
How hungry you are, not just hungry for food, but HUNGRY to see what God has been doing in your lives all along. It has seemed like a wilderness for such a long time but God knows what he’s doing! I felt God lead me to fast ahead of the fast and I completed my 5 day fast yesterday. That way I could encourage you all with what he was doing and give you hope in the hard moments. This will be long. You may want to soak on part of it at a time. It took two weeks for me to have all of these “aha” moments. I did a lot of waiting on God. I asked. Then I waited. Then I heard. Repeat.
God will reach us anywhere if we seek him like this, not just during the Chasing God evenings (for my Vineyard friends), but wherever we seek him with all of our hearts. God started breaking down my walls before the fast. Now, I should explain. I didn’t have an awareness that I had walls, but I did have an awareness that I was not as compelled as I have been in the past to love on people. I loved people, but I know what it felt like to flow like an unhindered river of love and it just wasn’t happening every where I went, so I was asking God why? What happened to me?
I found myself feeling vulnerable and letting it happen. I consider myself a pretty vulnerable person… but perhaps I was wrong. Love hurts you know. It hurts. I’ve loved a lot of people in some crazy, deep ways. Are they all sending flowing love back to me? Guess. Nope. They fail. But also – I fail. Yes. We all suck at times. I had a little fit about it one night.
Very early the next morning I woke to the words of the song “You Are Not Alone”. I got up and curled up on the couch, turned on the song and tears began to flow. I left it on repeat. I couldn’t read my Bible or do anything. I had to just sit with God and let him heal me. No matter what I did, the tears leaked. I tried doing something, so at 6:30 a.m. I sat at my jewelry making project. No creativity came. I was blank – just leaking tears out of my soul. I think years of pent up sadness were leaking out. Things I’d “gotten over” were still hurting and held on to. I began to see them and confess them. I just sat and asked God, “Come and take it. Heal me.”
I entered a fast. It wasn’t my first fast, but in this one, God let me see that I had to surrender my will. I was HUNGRY, physically, and had to pray to for him to give me the food from heaven he gave to Jesus. He did. He’s so good. This has not always been the case on previous fasts, but on this one I was in pain, literally. But, I learned there was still pain in my soul. I didn’t really know why I felt alone, or why I felt sad, but the tears came and I was thankful that God was sovereignly taking over my emotions. God washed my soul with tears on this fast. He let out the sadness and the pain I couldn’t put my finger on.
My story will be different than yours, or course. The promises of God will become real in your life if you choose to endure, even just a little while longer. Put your lives in order. Choose to be steadfast. It’s time to let go of the emotions, the fears and hand them to the Lord. It’s time to open the wells of your heart and let out what has been buried. “If you will listen to my voice,” I hear the Lord saying, “I will lead you out of the wilderness and your ministry, your new life of action with Jesus will begin.”
God led me to Matthew 4 this morning and showed me the process Jesus went through just before his ministry launched. If you need hope on your journey right now, pay attention to the model of Jesus’s life. He is the firstborn of many brothers and sisters in the family of God.
Here’s how Jesus launched. If we are like him, joining in his suffering and growing up into the fullness of Christ, where are you in this process?
- He went to the wilderness with no suitcases, no defenses, vulnerable and dependent.
- He chose to live by every word that God spoke – no food for the flesh.
- He went where there were no distractions, but the devil, of course.
- At the end, Jesus decidedly declared to satan,
“Worship the Lord your God and serve Him only.” - The devil left.
- Angels came to minister to him.
- He went to Capernum. He began to fulfill the prophesies over his life.
- He began his life message, “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven is near.”
- He selected his new family of brothers. This would grow as more believed.
- God had prepared them also, and they left all to join him.
- Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people.
1) I realized something and confessed it…I had a longing to be loved by people I love. I wanted to be loved back.
God showed me that Jesus didn’t get that for a season either. He still doesn’t get that from us in the way he longs for. In the Garden he asked his friends to pray and keep watch but they fell asleep while he interceded for himself to the point of sweating blood. When the soldiers came and as he hung on the cross his friends didn’t want to suffer with him. They could not let go of their fleshly lives. On the cross, while he hung there for others who were dying in their sin, he was alone. Have you felt alone? Know that Jesus understands.
2) Loyalty
God spoke the word “loyalty” to me. What did he want to teach me about that? How did I handle when people weren’t loyal? I hurt. I just hurt. I got over things, but I was made in the image of God and I was a jealous for the affections of my children. I let that out. I shared that I was hurt. I sobbed in front of my family and let them comfort me. Yes, there was some self-pity in there. It was a little ugly and selfish, but I needed to be known. Have you ever felt like that? Have you longed to feel known?
When I got it out, I was clear and I could hear. Then I realized I was not loyal either. I had been a bad friend on so many occasions. How many times had I grieved God when I passed a hurting person or said a harsh word. I repented to him and to my family. But it’s not all bad. God feels like I feel, but he loves anyway. God reminded me of Hosea and how he showed us his nature as a jealously in love God. God is jealous for us and we are made IN HIS IMAGE. He is jealous for you, for your loyalty and your love. We are so like him. Think about how he feels about you. He just wants you for his own. He wants your full attention, for you to be FULLY PRESENT and FULLY ENGAGED with him like a couple newly in love who have eyes only for each other. They can sit on the couch all night and be content because it just matters that they are together. That’s how our loving Daddy holds us in his heart. I love that kind of love. I was reminded that we love, because he first loved us. That’s what makes it work.
Of course we want loyalty, but we have to love unconditionally, like Jesus did, even when all those flee or just are too busy.
What stops that? Then God reminded me of the principle of judgement. When we have a judgement, it affects how we love the people we judge. It stops the flow of love and power. In addition to that, we have to be love conscious and not enemy conscious. Our enemy is not people. They know not what they do. The stumble around in disappointment wondering if God sees them, but if we see like Him, we will know their pain, that they long just to be loved and for something they can hold on to so they can rest. We are an unfaithful people, disloyal in so many ways.
3) God has emotions. We can have emotions and we can let them out.
Jesus wept. Jesus is the exact likeness of the invisible God. If Jesus weeps, our Father weeps, his emotions come forth. He created us with all the emotions he has but he has no walls so he lets them out.
If he’s a jealous God he has emotion. He has longing. We see from the story of the Lost Son in Luke 15 that the Father saw his son from afar he broke down and ran. He RAN to him. No matter what his son had done, the longing in the Father’s heart was for him to return.
He needed his son home because he was a part of him. We are a part of God. His breath is our breath and he misses us when we are far away in a distant land. “Come home,” he says to us. I feel the pain of the Father in the story of the Prodigal Son as I imagine what it was like in the years his son was gone. Can you feel the sobbing heart of the father as he sees the empty place at the dinner table, he’s crying inside… “come home”. Just come home. Our father loves us that much. Nothing can stop him from embracing you when you come to him, even if your expectation are low, even if you expect just to be a servant, Papa God says… “NO! You are my SON! Bring him the best robe! Put a ring on his finger! Give him new sandals. Celebrate, MY SON is home.”
4) If you feel you have fallen short…
God has been freeing me of limitations I have put on myself, AND of the feeling of obligation. What I have felt like I have’t been able to do, God has been doing for me. I have only understood in part and grieved about what I could not know. This is why God says, “Be anxious for NOTHING but in EVERYTHING give thanks.” It’s hard to do that when we want to know when and how and why, isn’t it? He showed me last month that the seeds of prayer that I planted were in good soil. As I saw this in a vision, tears began to flow. Tears of thanks. Those tears fell on the soil and the seeds grew into beautiful sunflowers.
Post fast – Today God showed me HOW he had been filling in the gaps when I felt like I was not getting all the things done that I wanted to see done through my life. I sobbed this morning as I saw the visions and dreams and words and prophesies come together in the form of a timeline, all interlinked. Revelation and understanding started flooding my spirit! The pieces began to come together all at once so I could see his goodness! God is alive and real and working on your behalf. He shows us the dreams of his heart but not all the details. I suppose this is so we will learn to trust him. Has he whispered that to you lately, “Do you trust me?’
5) We are one Body with many parts. You don’t have to do it all.
We are ONE BODY. Have you been doing your part? Have you wondered if you were? If you have been obedient in the moment to God, then be encouraged. He’s been working on the bigger plans and the house is being built. You may have felt like something had to be done, but you didn’t get to do it.
Sometimes we think what we see is our assignment. As an intercessor, I used to get really hung up on this. I’d see things and think I had to do them all. Thank God – NO! I was to pray them into being. Sometimes they were mine, but I wasn’t to carry the load of all that I saw needed to be done. As a mom, I feel that way too at times. No – we’re a family and families work together. Thankfully, God’s got resources and gives grace. He knows we are human. I have longed to write a book but have had many other things that seemed to get in the way. I was feeling like I missed the mark on that, but it wasn’t coming together.
Was it my time? As I write I am sitting with a book my dear sister in Christ wrote. I just came out! Her first book! It’s full of testimonies of miracles and how they flowed. Her journal entries are like many of mine. I felt such relief as I read it and thanks! I just kept thanking Holy Spirit for giving her those words. Yes, I could have written a book, but I could use her book on this topic to do so much! She did her part and I can do my part! I was so excited ( I write more about the story below.) What if God may have been using someone else who had time to accomplish the work you would have like to have done while you were doing what was in front of you. Let them get the credit for the good work. It’s ok. Let go of YOUR need to be known or to be celebrated. If you have been walking on the path with Jesus, then rest easy. What you have been doing matters to God. What matters is that people come to Jesus.
4) You are not unknown by God – A Picture of Intimacy with Holy Spirit
I know this is a lot of writing, so I ask you to take a deep breath before you read this part.
Pause….
Don’t be impatient. Breath in and out, relax, let your body go limp for a minute and invite the Holy Spirit to come. Wait for him.
Now, read this word and meditate on it.
Job 33:4 “The Spirit of God has made me,
And the breath of the Almighty gives me life.”
He is close. He is as near as your breath and is your breath. As your breath goes in and out of you, picture that breath as the presence of God, a cycle of how he works.
Breathe in…. and he is with you. He hears the whispers of your heart.
Then, breath out. He goes out carrying those prayers and making them happen.
He is an intimate God. He is a personal God. Your spirit is one with His Spirit. He says you are one, but YOUR connection to God is unique, because half of is YOUR DNA. One body, but many combinations of amazing uniqueness.
He hears every thought and knows you intimately. Even as we breath out, not all the air leaves. His presence, like oxygen stays in our lungs, keeps us alive while he works on our behalf.
As you inhale, He quickly comes back in, because we need more of him to live. This is the life cycle of our connection with the Holy Spirit. It is what keeps us alive. Remain in him. Take him in. Release some of him. Get more of him. We can’t live without that next breath and when we hold it in, if we TRY to hold it in, eventually we pass out, don’t we! We think we can hold back, but God just chuckles, I’m sure. Like a kid who threatens to hold his breath, we keep working to control our environment…Yet a wise parent with experience says, “Go ahead! I wonder how long you can hold it?!” Like this child, who will eventually pass out and start breathing again so the breathing, the intimacy with God, can resume. No, we can’t fight intimacy with God, like we can’t fight breathing.
Today I listened to the song “He Knows Your Name”, thanking Holy Spirit over and over again for my friend’s book and the miracles recorded in it. The tears began to flow again. I saw all that my Papa had been working on to help the Kingdom grow through my connection with my sister, through her friends, and the through the people I had been ministering too and with. He knows my name. It doesn’t matter if anyone else does. 🙂 My Papa knows my name. He sees me. I don’t care who else affirms me or recognizes me; I only want to fulfill his purposes and see my Papa smile. I realize that that is all the affirmation I need.
My prayer this week has been “Deliver me from evil.” Now, at the end of this fast I pray, “Thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”
Let it be so, Lord. Let it be so. Amen.
I hear this word from the Lord for you…
“Walk with me on the journey. I will enlighten your soul. I am coming to rescue you. I have seen and heard your heart and I have been fulfilling my promises. Don’t lose faith in Me, the Lord says. Don’t lose faith! No eye has seen, no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love him and who are called according to his purposes.
For those you have been praying for, remember your own conversion. Remember how it happened. If you haven’t really given your life, now is the time! Give is ALL. Give all that you are, all that you have, all of you! That is what you will pass on to others, because, you see, that you will receive more if you surrender more. That is what you have to pass on to others, to your family. What you sow, you will reap. Not just the bad, but the good. Your children will inherit the good as well. You have chosen me and that example is your testimony. Lead by example and establish what your children will inherit, your physical children and your spiritual children. It will be like day and night. As quickly as night ends and day comes, what we’ve hoped for will happen.
Was what lost, will be found. (Luke 15)
How do I know? Because God reminded of how it happened for me One day, long ago, I woke up in the pig pen and said, “What am I doing? This isn’t working for me?” I had been resistant, willfully resistant, because I hadn’t tasted and seen yet. I knew nothing else but what I’d experienced. But at that point, I had nothing left. I was empty and needed something more, so I said YES to an invitation that changed my life. I said YES. And in an instant, resistance left and I was a new person who God filled with purpose and hope.
REMEMBER! Remember your testimony. Remember other testimonies. That is how quickly God can move in the ones you love and for those you have HOPED for. Don’t worry a minute longer, just keep extending invitations. God will do the work in their hearts as they see where they are sitting. Rejoice, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
God is putting the pieces together for me today and it is bringing me such joy that I can’t hold back the sobs. “This is true worship.. Your life is your worship to God. When you fully yield to all of yourself to him, and let go of all of your pride, you will find him. I pray you will see how intimately connected all things are and how he has been working on your behalf from the moment of the cross. Let your joy be complete.
God has been working in us to show us our need for him. When we truly see our need, there will be worship that will attract the host of heaven and the glory of God. We will see like never before who our God is. Our beautiful, amazing, incredible God, who loves us like a Papa loves his babies and fights for them to the death.
From “You Know My Name”…
“…I’m walking in your victory, because your power is within me, no giant can defeat me, because YOU hold my hand. I don’t have to be afraid anymore.. YOU hold my hand! I’m so in love with you. I’m so in love with you!”
In Christ,
Anne Huffman, Daughter of God
Testimony of JOY:
God will remind you of what he has shown you and show you what he has been doing. Years ago I had an encounter with God. He showed me an open blank book. I didn’t know what to do with it or why he showed it to me. I always assumed I was to write it. He said, “Pour my blood on these pages.” Around that time, God was beginning to teach me about miracles and healing. I was getting so hungry for him. I journaled all that I saw and how it happened at that time. I was seeing the power of God in so many ways that I was just wrecked over and over again. I was so expectant and wanted to teach others how to live in the supernatural ways of God.
Then, we came to a new church and life got different. I really didn’t know how to fit in. My life of street ministry and women’s prayer groups changed. It’s like moving to a new town and trying to figure it out. My husband went on staff as a pastor and I jumped into intercession for him and church. That’s who I am, an intercessor. I stand in the gap for people. Who were these people? I stretched and grew in new and different ways. My dreams of a book were set aside. There were people who needed deep healing, kids who needed teaching, a pastor husband and the church to pray for and it took TIME. In the doing and praying, there was little time for writing. I used to write all these cool testimonies of miracles and healing in my family journal. I never knew where to share them. I had some amazing stories in the works, but they were yet unfinished.
I felt guilty at times that I did not write that book. Was I disobedient? The accuser did a number on me at times. But, I could not turn away from the people in front of me who needed my attention, and then my family who needed more of my time too, and then our homeless guys we helped, who I wanted to keep loving on called me. My journal of testimonies got dusty. I just couldn’t write it down anymore. I wasn’t living anxiety about this.. I didn’t think… I knew I had to do what I was doing each moment. I’m pretty prayerful about my days.
This morning, God opened up a picture of a timeline to me and I saw how years ago he put someone in my life to walk with, a sister of my soul. We talked of writing often but neither of us had anything published yet. This week I learned that she had been putting all her journal entries together and published a book and now it was in front of me! I have a book in m hand by my dear sister’s name on it called “My Supernatural Life”. I felt such joy! Such joy! It was like holding her close and feeling known all at the same time.
We have this picture that we are like an Oreo. Two parts divided by the state line and about 35 miles.
Her book is so raw and simple. It’s just her journal, much like mine in some ways, but with different experiences and according to our unique place in life. She explains things with clarity though, each encounter is filled with detail so you can understand. Isn’t that what we all want, to be understood?
As I read her book of amazing testimonies of miracles, and of one mission we did together, I went back to MY journal and reread some of the amazing testimonies I’d recorded too. Two sides of the same story! Something started to well up in me and I understood something. What I hadn’t been able to do in writing all these testimonies down, God was beginning to accomplish through my sister! There were things I always wanted to do and explain to people and she had done that. Relief filled my heart as thought of all the people I could share this with who would understand ME better through HER writing. It would help train up those I was helping along the path.
I remembered that in Christ we were one body. My sister was doing what I couldn’t do while I had another purpose. Tears started to flow and I felt a sob welling up in my soul. What I dreamed of, she had done. I was so relieved. I saw how all the parts were coming together and what I could do now that my heart had been revealed through her words. There were like experiences, and new experiences, and things I have always wanted to put into words for people.
I thought of all the people who she sought out to teach her, some I knew and some I didn’t, and over the years, many of us sought each other out for knowledge and faith that could only come by sharing the testimony. Those were food for our soul!
Now, God is bringing us together in a movement. Some of us have felt stuck but God is saying “Come up here. It’s time for you to get out of the little place you’ve been holding up in and working. It’s ok to get out of the life raft and onto the boat. Tears well up as I write this. Jesus said, “Make my joy complete by being like minded, being one in Spirit and of one mind.” Philippians 2:2
Book Link: “My Supernatural Life” by Lisa Beth Adams
