And the wind blew.....

I have been enjoying this bi-monthly edition of Everyday with Jesus. Selwyn Hughes has been looking at the various emblems of the Holy Spirit used throughout Scripture.

As I was reading over some of the devotional material, my mind hearkened back to the Children's Prayer Network event I attended last year with a team from the Church of the Good Shepherd. It was one of those 'desire of my heart' type trips where the Lord took me somewhere I had yearned to go, and He allowed me to share it with my daughter Kiyana as well as dear sisters/friends in the Lord.

Despite being 16 weeks pregnant (and historically very ill) with baby number 5, the weekend was just pure testimony of God's grace to me. He showed up both personally in being my strength throughout the trip, in our team, in the way He worked in individuals lives, and corporately, as we all took part in praying for this great nation, Australia.

The Lord took me through a season last year where I seemed to experience 'signs' in a new way in 2006. I hadn't really had this kind of experience before and to begin with I wasn't really convinced it was 'really happening'. Don't get me wrong, I have had signs of God's very real presence in my life in areas of answered prayer, protection etc but this was a different season for me.

Before we left for Uluru in one of our Saturday morning preparation/prayer meetings I happen to be the person leading the devotional that morning.

The Lord had given me the following passage to exhort the group from 1 Kings 19;

11 The LORD said, "Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the LORD, for the LORD is about to pass by." Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. 12 After the earthquake came a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.

I remember standing standing in the line that the we had made surrounding the whole of Uluru, praying for specific things in our nation. We had just finished praying for the Holy Spirit to come upon our nation, and I know I personally had been praying for Him to 'whoosh' through like in the book of Acts upon the believers in that upper room.

All of a sudden I looked down the line, and the wind seemed to be bunny hopping trees that lined up almost parallel to the prayer warriors there. The gentlest breeze jumped from tree to tree right up the prayer line. I shook my head to make sure I wasn't imagining it, and took a look up and down the line. As I did this Pastor Robyn Peebles who was to my right called out, 'did you see that"? I then knew I hadn't imagined it. I looked up to my left where the rest of our team had lined up and were now worshipping. Almost directly in front of them the wind formed a Willy-Willy, tunneling upwards towards the heavens. It was quite remarkable to watch.

Soon after we were told it was time to put on our yellow t-shirts to reflect the glory of God upon our nation, and her being readied to reflecting His glory through revival repentance. We put on our shirts and began to pray. Out of no where, the June sun that had been quite pleasant up until that point, began to brighten and beat down upon us, it was as if God as conductor was focusing the sun's rays right back upon us as we sought to lift Him up and see Him glorified in our nation. It felt like fire on my face, but I felt that strangely I would not be burnt by the sun's rays at that time.

Again I thought, perhaps I am just imagining this. But when we returned to our groups, others too had experienced the same thing.

This was my first 'real' intercessory prayer event. Don't get me wrong I have been in a lot of prayer meetings over the years, and certainly ones where we were there to intercede for a particular thing, but this was the first of this kind I have attended.

The hardest thing I found coming home from this kind of trip, is trying to explain to people what we did. When Josh and I went to Fiji in 2005 I could come home and say, we taught here, did a kids club there, danced in that church, did a school out reach in this school... tangible things. But with an intercessory prayer event it is hard to put a finger on what happened in the 'spiritual' realm as a result of prayer.

Whatever happened at the end of the day is the Lord's concern. I do know however that the Lord was there with us that weekend. I also believe He showed His presence to us in tangible ways as well, in that still small voice that I hope we never fail to recognise!

~Hallelujah~