Day 94 of The Red Shoe Project was a crazy, rainy day. It poured non-stop! That's okay, because sometimes the rain paints a prophetic picture of God raining down blessing on His people. (No umbrellas, please!)I was out the door before sunrise to attend the "Champions for Children" Hospital Fundraising Breakfast. There I was sporting the classic RED high heels, and looking for God. He wasn't difficult to find. A young teenage girl courageously gave her testimony of how, with God's help, and the support of the hospital team, she was able to overcome the devastating effects of child sexual assault. I didn't have time to "stick around" after the program. I had another appointment to attend. But I couldn't overlook The Holy Spirit's prompting to go over and thank the young girl for sharing her testimony. Obediently, I headed over to her table, thanked her, and BOOM! there was God speaking through me, great words of encouragement to her. I love that about God! You see... I don't have to know anything! All I have to do is follow His lead, and He'll do exactly what He wants to. That's Divine Partnership at it's best!
Before I knew it, I was on the road and headed to the church for the final session of another "Seeker" class that meets on Thursday mornings. Today, four of the five attendees all boldly proclaimed Jesus Christ as Lord. The fifth person confessed honestly that he felt that he understood so much more, but that it was all still very much in his head and not in his heart. On the spot, the Lord revealed to me that unforgiveness was blocking that passageway. So again, I followed The Holy Spirit's leading and asked the man about it. He confirmed that he was harboring unforgiveness and resentment. Because it was raining so hard, we couldn't leave the building. So we decided to hold hands and have a closing word of prayer. During this time, the man released all his resentment and unforgiveness, and asked God to take it away and replace it with a relationship with Him. Praise God! It was a powerful meeting!After resting briefly in the afternoon, I was once again in RED shoes and heading off with my daughter to the Heidi Baker Conference. What a POWERFUL worship service! I had forgotten how some people are divinely gifted to usher large groups of people right into the presence of the Living God! Sometimes God can just do it all -- right there -- during worship. He can take care of everything in your life before the Word is even preached. This type of worship, I know, would be different for some.
They call it "SOAKING" in His presence.
"Soaking" means... steeping -- drenching -- sopping -- saturated --
completely absorbed in.
I closed my eyes and just allowed The Holy Spirit to carry me into the Throne Room of God. At first I was just praising him quietly. "Glory... Glory... Glory to You, God." But before I knew it, I found myself before The King of Kings and weeping profusely.
In my mind, I saw a picture of my heart... strangely blackened with disease. I began to sob as I shouted out...
"My heart is wicked, Lord!" "Forgive me! Please forgive me!"
To be honest, I thought I'd taken care of everything with God. But there's something about standing before Him... How did Isaiah put it? (Isaiah 6:5 )
"Woe is me! It's all over. I'm doomed!
for I am a sinful man."
Now mind you, I'm standing in a church with several hundred people, all worshipping God. Nobody is talking about any of this. This is all happening within me... to me. I don't know what everyone else was doing or experiencing. I can only account for myself... because it was as if nobody else was there.
Right then, I remembered how I had just talked about "unbending the hose"
-- taking care of the stuff in your life so that God's Spirit could "gush" through you. Well God showed me a hose... one attached to a power-washer. He was power-washing all the corners, crevices and vessels of my heart. The water was gushing through it, flushing out the sludge, and the blackness disappeared.
So here's the cherry on top of it all. It was 10 pm before the preacher even came to the platform. He talked about all sorts of good things. But his concluding summery went something like this:
"Intimacy with God is about being vulnerable in His presence. It's about opening up every part of yourself... every fear to Him. It's about letting God into every corner of your heart, and allowing Him to pour through you and cleanse you of all sin!"
I looked at my daughter and nodded my head in shock. I opened my little notebook. There it was. During the worship I had written it all down so that I wouldn't forget it. The preacher had just confirmed verbally - almost word for word - what had happened to me during the worship.
Yeh... we serve an amazing God!
See what happens when you wear RED shoes!
Rain... Rain... Don't go away!
Come again, any day!
Gail
