Prayer Cabin Day Four

The Lord awoke me early to seek Him. What a glorious encounter I enjoyed with Him. Such a deep enriching time followed that by 8:00 a.m. my cup was already overflowing. The time in His presence persisted for three and a half hours. I got so caught up in Him I lost track of time and my surroundings. I will long remember this time with Jesus.  That one encounter was worth the whole trip.

I went on another prayer walk and went down to the pier where I sat for an hour. The wind blew stronger yesterday. I watched the water moving in much bigger ripples than the previous day. Then something dawned in my mind. The water yielded to the power of the wind and flowed in the direction the wind blew it. That is what I am supposed to do. That is what God’s church is supposed to do. We are to submit and give ourselves to flowing in the direction the wind of His Spirit blows us. That means we must get rid of our predetermined agendas. The water did try to resist the wind. The flowed wherever the wind wanted to blow it.

We come to God with our plans, our traditions, our set ways. We say things like, “This is the way we have always done it, or we have never done that before.” None of that matters. We must flow like water in whatever direction the wind wants to blow us. Worship must be Spirit led. Life must be lived influenced and driven by the Spirit. This is foreign to many. Just like there is power in harnessing the wind and yielding to it so is there in the Holy Spirit.

I had another interesting experience on my prayer walk. I traversed the long dirt road from the cabin back toward the entrance of the property. A massive bull slept against the barbed wire fence under a shade tree. All week I’ve noticed this hulking creature of power. I guess he did not hear me because of the wind blowing. My feet caught a rock and kicked it startling the bull awake. In a flash he jumped to his feet bewildered who or what had snuck up on him.

My host told me an interesting story about that bull. He purchased him a week ago. The bull went into the pasture with the other cows thinking he was the new king. Only problem is a much smaller bull had ruled that pasture for some time. The smaller bull had fought off other bulls over time. The bigger bull had never had to face or fight another bull. He got soundly whipped by the smaller bull. After that, the bigger bull would not even graze near the other cows but stayed to himself.

Satan is like the bigger bull. Intimidating. Powerful. Yet, we who make up God’s people, though smaller can defeat him if we know how to fight in prayer. For way too long the enemy has intimidated the people of God into silence and defeat. We see the end results in our society. It is time to take the fight to the devil and take back ground he has stolen in our lives, families, congregations, and communities. It will not be an easy fight. Let us remember we face a defeated adversary operating on borrowed time.
With that the prayer retreat has come to an end. I leave for home on Thursday. I leave full, focused and fired up. I look forward to seeing Brenda and my sons. I also look forward to seeing the Spring Creek