written by Sarah Hascher

It’s all His story, our life story is held within His.

When I was very young I had an encounter just outside heaven. There were two white pedestals, one had a hand with a black gloves protruding out the top and the other had a hand with a white glove. I stood pondering and perplexed as I ventured to decide which one I was to choose. See, I thought the obvious answer would be the white glove, but then again, what if the enemy was being a sneaky snake and deceiving me. When I thought to grab the opposite hand, the black glove, I questioned weather or not God would be wearing a black glove.

Years past until recently the Lord revisited that place with me and gave me the simple but profound answer. “My hand is behind everything, because I AM all powerful.” He said. I suddenly had a deeper revelation of the might and majesty of God. A paradigm shift happened.

I had struggled with wanting to make the right decisions in life, but had not realized how often I had counted myself too important when doing so. Maybe that’s why I made some stupid choices, thinking…. “I’m obviously not making the right ones, so I may as well deliberately make the wrong ones.”  See, I had not gotten what I thought I wanted from the “right” decisions I was making so I gave up. I forgot to factor God’s timing and also forgot that God still works His plan. In the end He is still God and I am not.

It isn’t about getting caught up on making the right decision, because that still points back to self, it is simply about knowing who God is.

When I realize that He truly does “hold all things together” (Col. 1:17) My focus shifts from trying to choose right, that I may have some place of controlling consequences, to surrendering in humble, intoxicating abandoned love to the great I AM. When I KNOW that He is good and that He is “making all things work together for the good of those who love Him” (Rom. 8:28), I live a life of freedom and prayer-in constant communion with God. This constant communion brings revelation waves of His goodness that can’t help but elevate my spirit to overflowing. I was never meant to live out of self-effort.

I talk to so many who sincerely desire to make the right choices to follow God’s lead, God’s timing and to surrender everything to His care. This is so important. I have stumbled many many times enough to know my impatient heart just wants things now and have suffered the consequences thereof! I can hear my mom saying, “Sarah……slllllllooooow down.” Thankfully, I am learning to sllllooooww down, and yet to keep moving.

I know God is a God of balance and devine order. I also know that I will not always get it perfect and He has accounted for that. God seems to be more concerned with the hearts of His people than them not missing it or messing up. When I’m more focused on making the right choice rather than the Chosen one, I lose the very essence that will equip me to make the right decisions.

In other words, instead of contemplating the black glove or the white glove, I focus on the face. I focus on His power. I focus on the fact that He is orchestrating a symphony of highs and lows that will bring the perfect harmony of all the black and white areas of my life and I dance to the rhythm. When the dance is done, I know what choice to make, I enjoyed the process and have a confidence in who is leading the dance. And when I fall, I get up with a new revelation of His sovereignty spite my mess-ups and that makes me want to delight in Him again. The wrong choices still lead me to Him. He doesn’t ever loose, therefore, in Him, I never do.

by Holly Stabin – Intercession Plunge

For the entire month of August 2011, I was immersed in prayer.  Intercession Plunge for Media became my world for 30 days.

I literally felt like I was plunging into deep “living waters” by day two.  About a week before the program ended, we slowly began to ascend.  But I’ve got to tell you, my feet are still dangling below the river’s surface and I’m never taking them out!

One of the biggest surprises was that intercession is not what I thought it would be.  You know, the stereotypical “church ladies” sitting in a quiet circle for hours with heads bowed and hands clasped?  There were periods when we did something similar to this – but it wasn’t the norm.

First of all, intercession is serving as a bridge between God and the events, situations, entities, person or persons you are interceding for.  It is also serving as an anointed stop sign between the enemy of God and who or what it is that you are interceding for. 

How you serve as that bridge has an infinite range of possibilities; and that was very exciting for me.

Now God loves variety and He created us with strengths in different areas.  Being a creative person, I found that the best expression for me was in movement and song.

But by the fourth day, I realized that I had a shortcoming when it came to prayer.   I was used to praying in tongues – not in my native language of English.  So, when I was in the midst of speaking out a prophetic prayer, my tongue just couldn’t produce the right words fast enough.  Of course the enemy tried to tell me that this proved I didn’t have what it takes – but I kept pressing into God.

My prayer group and I praised Him for quickly removing this difficulty.  Thank God for “suddenlys” because our prayer was answered shortly thereafter.

What was the highlight of Plunge?  That’s about as difficult a question as which part of Heaven do I prefer to visit?  I say that because the Plunge was probably the closest experience I’ve ever had to living in the Glory, all the time.  The cares of the world became strangely dim, indeed. 

But, if I had to choose a moment that’s not too private to share, it would be the day we learned to intercede by singing our praises. 

Perhaps you’ve been to a conference and right in the middle of praise and worship, you hear a wonderful harmony amongst the attendants?  Well, imagine that 100-fold.  I believe we experienced connecting with the angelic choruses in third heaven by bringing their sounds to the earth in song. 

Several of the Plungers had professionally trained voices – but even those who were not “trained” were harmonizing beautifully with heaven.  We all chose a different verse out of the Psalms to sing.  I chose Psalm 148:1-4 and the first verse of Psalm 149. 

As we sang at random and moved about the house, some of us looked at each other pie-eyed – as if to say, “Can you believe what’s happening here?” 

Gorgeous tenors, angelic altos and soaring sopranos filled the air with praise.

It was glorious.

The Holy Spirit showed me that there’s a quantum physics effect within movement and song during intercession. 

Praise, oh let them praise the name of God – he spoke the word, and there they were!  He set them in place from all time to eternity; He gave his orders, and that’s it!  

Psalm 148:5-6 MSG

Our sounds and movements literally transform the material and spiritual atmospheres by reverberating upon the colorful “strings” God’s inter-dimensional creation.  This is how the Sons and Daughters of the Most High God carry His atmosphere upon the earth. 

This key unlocked a mysterious door.  I no longer question if any of this is “real” because almost everything we prayed for was answered quickly – praise God!

There is absolutely no question we were created to make a joyful sound to the Lord.   I am eternally grateful for such a holy privilege.  

Yeshua Jesus is so worthy of our praises and worship!

- word submitted by Steve Ecker

 Do you ever find yourself sitting with your best friend; someone that you have known a long time, perhaps for as long as you can remember and although they are talking to you, your mind is somewhere else?  That although you are nodding and saying the right words at the right moments in the conversation, you are not “taking in” what your friend is saying to you and in fact you can’t even recollect what they said to you afterwards?

I think I have been guilty of that on many occasions and recently the Lord has shown me that in fact I do it to Him too!  Yes I may seek His face in prayer and listening and waiting; yes when He comes to me, in words, or pictures or impressions in my mind, I may take the time and effort to write these thoughts down …… but then afterwards, do I go back and look again at what I received?   Do I go back and “unpack” these puzzling, teasing picture parables; these pearls that He gives; these strategies on how to deal with issues and obstacles that so often when I look back, He had been warning me or guiding me on how to handle, in advance of their “arrival” in the natural in my life?

Or do I go and bury these pearls somewhere in the field of my life; the daily rush; only to stumble back on them later, more by chance (or grace) than by my own effort…only to see that if I’d just spent a bit more time listening and thinking about what He’d been showing me, I would have been better able to deal with the issues of life that come my way each day?

The Lord brought this message to me clearly the other morning.  I woke early and spent some time seeking Him and His face.  After a time of waiting I had a sense of His presence and saw in the spirit the outside of a great building, with soaring towers and impossibly tall white spires climbing upwards hundreds of feet; a spiritual cathedral, a place of blessing and power; a place in the spirit where I sensed there would be insight, revelation and power when I opened the great sturdy doors and went inside.

So in this vision, this time of prayer, I asked the Lord if I could enter this magnificent building and in His goodness He said, “of course”.  I did so and found myself not in the interior of His throne room, not hearing the sound of voices praising Him in songs of gladness and worship, not entering the gates of His temple but instead……..in a tiny plain whitewashed broom closet, barely tall enough to stand up in; with a ceiling sloping down to the floor about 3 feet in front of me.  No room to walk forward, no room to the side – nowhere to go!

And at that same moment I heard the voice of the Lord, saying gently and with just a hint of teasing, “Entry is for believers only”. And in that same instance, I realised that what He was saying was this:  “Steve, I’ve been talking to you in many different pictures and words and impressions and images; you’ve had a banquet feast of words and advice from me…yes, you’ve noted down what I’ve said to you but have you really listened to what I’ve been saying?  Are you feasting at the banquet, without really tasting any of the good food?  Have you actually believed what I’ve been showing you?

And He showed me too the words in James 1 :6 “But ask in faith, never doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, driven and tossed by the wind, for the doubter, being double minded….must not expect to receive anything from the Lord”.

“Entry is for believers only” – my prayer is that we may take so seriously our times with God.  May we learn to trust and believe we have heard from Him and that however faint or strange or unfathomable our Lord’s voice may seem to us, we try with His help to understand how He is trying to guide us further on our walk with Him.  And let’s not limit God, don’t let’s reduce Him or His guidance, His voice, to something as small as that broom closet – that’s no way to treat our best friend!

submitted by Steve Eker, Prayer Shield and Intercessor, prayer@xpmedia.com with Patricia King

Recently the Lord has been showing me some strategies of how the enemy tries relentlessly to wear away our resolve and determination in following God.  Like waves breaking against the cliffs or a gale force wind trying to blow us sideways, the enemy is relentless and will seek out any unguarded thoughts or areas of our lives that are not openly and honestly accountable and daily placed before God.

These strategies can be quite subtle in their methods and only a few weeks ago I realised that through an expansion in my work life responsibilities, I had unwittingly allowed fear and fatigue to get a toehold in my thought life.  Schedules suddenly seemed unmanageable; commitments and church engagements appeared impossible to fit in with the apparently insurmountable challenges faced in the work/life balance.

As a result and in an unguarded moment of fear of defeat, I dashed off an email to the church pastor advising that sadly I would not be able to attend a small evening service that I had been invited to lead, in two weeks time, as I did not have the time or resources to devote to “doing a good job of it” owing to other commitments.

Almost immediately after I had pressed the “send” button I sensed that I had wounded the Holy Spirit and that I had chosen the wrong course of action.  Very soon after I received a very kind and gracious reply from the church leader, fully understanding my position and praying for my situation.  At the same time I heard the Lord say to me “Never give ground to the enemy – what I won for you, don’t give up”.

As if to confirm this principle, the next day at my workplace I was told that a colleague in another department had gone sick and that I would be likely to be required to stand in at short notice for that colleague to deliver a seminar to 2 separate groups of people over the next fortnight.  What I sensed was the Lord saying to me “my grace is your sufficiency – you now have to lean on me fully and not fall on your own idea of how much time and capacity you have”.  So from feeling saturated at having to put together a small church service, suddenly I had gone to having to put together 2 complex presentations on topics not familiar to me, to a critical group of work peers.

But God is always good and gracious and after a time of prayer, repentance and worship I placed myself entirely in His hands, giving Him all my fears and feelings of failure.  In so doing, I sensed His kindness, goodness and mercy restoring me.  The sick colleague unexpectedly got better and returned to work, taking back the presentation.  I had learned a lesson from God – “never give ground to the enemy” in whatever area is pressing in on you – be it fear, fear of overload, depression, rejection, temptation and so on.  We are called by God to work the ground that He has prepared for us – be that in commerce, church life, relationships with neighbours or wherever else He directs us.  Yes we will face trials but He is there if we just stop and listen to His Spirit and don’t give in to our Goliath facing us.

As it says in Hebrews 12:1 “let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us”.  Trust Him – through the Cross of Jesus Christ He’s won that ground for you- now go work it!

by Dana Roman, Patricia King’s Prayer Shield and Intercessor

I was driving down the highway on the fast lane and all of the sudden my car started sputtering and even though my gas gauge said a half of tank there was no gasoline in my car. The traffic was rushing by me and I knew I would be in trouble if I didn’t do something immediately. Boldly I spoke to my gas tank and said, “Be filled in Jesus name and get me to a gas station safely.” The engine stopped sputtering and smoothly I transitioned over to an exit and safely arrived at a gas station.

It was a declaration for a creative miracle! I love what Genesis 1:26-28 says in the New Living Translation, “Then God said, “Let us make human beings in our image, to be like ourselves. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.

“So God created human beings in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. Then God blessed them and said, “Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.”

The first encouragement in this scripture is that God said to Jesus and to the Holy Spirit, “Let US make man in our image.” The creative power of the Father, Jesus and the Holy Spirit fashioned and formed us in their image.

The word image means to be a reflection, representation, to be formed and shaped in the same likeness, or to look alike. When the Godhead made Adam and Eve He placed in them the same creative power that He had so they could rule, reign and govern the earth!

You and I have God’s creative power inside of us to also speak forth with His authority over danger, darkness and sin.

The winds were bending the Palm Trees half way down to the ground one day as I arrived in Orlando, FL on a plane. There was a Tornado watch and no one was supposed to leave the airport. It would be the next day before a flight would take me back home so I called a friend in Orlando and asked her to come pick me up so I would not have to sleep on the Airport Floor overnight. She said, “I cannot come there is a Tornado!” I went over to the huge glass airport windows and said, “I command the winds to stop in Jesus name and the Palm Trees to stand at attention so that Dolly will not be in any danger to come pick me up.”

Within a few minutes the winds had stopped and the Palm Trees were standing at attention. Dolly came and picked me up and I had a good nights sleep at her nice, comfortable home.

Jesus was in a boat with his disciples and a raging wind started rocking the boat back and forth. The disciples felt so afraid and it says in Luke 8:24, “And they came to Him and awoke Him saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” Then He arose and rebuked the wind and the raging of the water. And they ceased, and there was a calm.”

Luke 10:19 says, Behold, I give you the authority to trample on serpents and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy, and nothing shall by any means hurt you.”

It is so awesome to know that God’s creative power lives in us if we have Jesus Christ as our Lord and Savior!