God usually stops by on Tuesday mornings. Our prayer meeting is every Tuesday, and it has been going for the better part of the last 14 years. Patti and I often try to figure out when we started, but the closest we can get is that her daughter Jackie was an infant.She is 15 now.
I have learned so much about intercession from just doing it. I don't know where to start; so much happened today. Adam was home from school as he has not been well. There was a temptation to close the meeting today, but I really felt that the Lord wanted us to meet. It seems that I was right. We spend most of our time worshipping the Lord, and the prayers come out of that worship. Today, during a pretty intense time, Adam came over and flipped open his bible. I had brought it out for him as he will come and join us, or watch t.v., and come back again and ask to see HIS bible. That is just what he did today, but when he flipped it open, I felt the prompt from the Lord to look. He had opened to Ezra 10:1. "Ezra was praying and admitting to God that his people had sinned. He was sobbing and throwing himself down in front of the house of God. Then a large crowd gathered around him. Men, women and children were there. They too sobbed bitterly." ( New International Readers version) This is the Super Heroes Bible,and has stories as well as scripture, to explain what is happening. I read all of this story to the girls at the meeting. It tells how Ezra knew the people were still sinning in spite of the fact that the Lord had set them free from slavery.They still had not asked God to forgive them.
The presence of the Lord increased dramatically, and so did the intercesson and the weeping for the lost, and for the sins of God's people. I guess you had to be there, but it was truly powerful. We prayed for ourselves, for our church, for our nation...we confessed our sin and our need for Him. It was a very anointed time.
I have often heard a phone ringing during our meetings. I always look to see if it is my phone, and it isn't. I always ask the Lord "what is that?" He hasn't given me a clear answer until today. My pastor has recently had the same thing happening, and someone told him,"God is calling you." I remembered that, and felt like the thing to do was to answer the phone. So I did. " Hello LORD Hello, LORD." And I began to sing to Him about His calling to us. And He WAS calling. We were overcome by His presence. Just awesome. I remembered how when I was a little girl, my mom would come to the front door to call us in from playing. She would call us by name, and we would answer.. "I'm coming!" And we began to answer His call in the same way. "I'm coming, Father, I'm coming!" What a flood of joy followed!
He wants our hearts. He wants us to come to Him in the simplest of ways, like a child. This is what we did today, and our Father stopped by. He stayed for a long time. We loved it.
