A Different Worship Experience

Dec 31, 2009

You know if we looked for the equivalent of the psalmist who wrote songs & poetry ( in Hebrew ) about their walk with God in today's' age, I think one would have to be Stephen Curtis Chapman. I love this man, he is also like those who wrote the traditional songs like, 'In the Garden' & 'A Mighty Fortress'. These are men who write about living the life! They put their experiences , trials, faith, love for God, hope of eternal reward in words that make us say , 'Yes!! That is how I feel!' 'I've been there!'

Well, I've been going through this battle with frustration & dissatisfaction. I called on the Holy
Spirit to get me out of this slump. I wanted to appreciate what God was doing in my life & having His Presence with me & not take it for granted. I started praying in the Spirit on the bus yesterday. I got on this bus hoping I was heading in the right direction. I wanted to go somewhere else but this bus route was long & few passengers were available to be fought over so , there are only two drivers who work this. Buses are owned by private citizens here. So a number of owners could have a bus on one route & you the drivers race each other down the road , cutting each other off & speeding through short cuts to gain a lead & get more passengers. Not so with the one I wanted. I passed me just before I reached the corner. I said , God must want me to go in another direction because it would be almost an hour to see Jimmy again. I had to resist being upset.

So whiles on the other bus, as I said I prayed in the Spirit & claimed peace & joy that the Word promises belongs to me. I said in my heart I need to be determined to defeat this & walk in peace. I am always giving others my testimony concerning this. I also had to be a witness to others. It was later than I wanted to be out. I claimed the favor of God. I claimed favor with the person I was going to see, who was always out of his office when I went. I asked God to keep him there & touch his heart to keep his promise.

He was there in a meeting. He did keep his word & the people he was having a meeting with also chipped in & helped me as well. I still felt the temptation to be dissatisfied with what I got. I prayed again.

"Lord, help me to be grateful & not have this negative attitude all the time. You keep helping me, help me now to appreciate this. Help me to appreciate how You are moving in my life."

I talked to three elderly people about the Lord. These conversations always seem to boil down to the change that Jesus brings when you are born again. They all thought I was a bit over the top. I got my groceries & had to pray again to not be ungrateful. Isn't this ridiculous? God meets all my needs & I'm upset because : I'm out to late , I did not pay off the whole rent one time (I'm still in the place & they put others out for far less than what I've been allowed to owe) , I got a ride most of the way but not right to the front door. On & on - I'm thinking this is not acceptable. I need to feel awed at all God is doing!

I began to feel lighter & that negative mood lifted. I came back to this place with far more than I should have come back with. I usually hate missing Billy Graham on Wednesday evenings but I countered that thought with the fact that I can listen to old messages from their site on my lap top. I did get to catch most of Jack van Impe. I went to bed again & did not get evicted.

I woke up to have devotions before the sun came up & not miss that experience again like the last three days. It just seems to have far more impact to get in the Presence of Jesus as He demonstrated when He started His prayers 'a great while before day'. I could not get into my usual worship practice. I had a song in my heart. I did not know all the words but I could not shake it. It was 'The Change' by Stephen Curtis Chapman.

I listened to this on my laptop over & over again. I felt like a river of life was running through me. I got a huge cup of tea with lemon. I listened to more of Stephen Curtis & was taken in by the description of walking with Jesus now. I sang the song I knew all the lyrics to , 'No Better Place'. I listened to 'Heaven in the Real World , Dive, Lord of the Dance, Speechless' & more. I realized the Holy Spirit was ministering to me! He was celebrating with me. It was the message in 'Speechless' that spoke what He really wanted to convey, what I really wanted to feel again.

Hey!! We are a very privileged few. We commune with God through the Spirit of Jesus Christ living on the inside of us. I needed to appreciate not so much what He was doing as He is alive in me. I was lead by the Spirit. God heard & answered my prayer. I am changing!

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Written by

leona

Humble Servant of All

â€œIn answer to your inquiry, I consider that the chief dangers which confront the coming century will be religion without the Holy Ghost, Christianity without Christ, forgiveness without repentance, salvation without regeneration, politics without God, and heaven without hell.â€ William Booth quote

I used to be tormented with anxiety, panic attacks, depression etc, & I really longed to feel the love of God. I felt as a child He was far away in the heavens, I always wondered how I was to love a God I could not see, hear or feel.

I found you have to press into that encounter with Him yourself. It takes time & determination not to give up until you get your desire. It takes consistency in going after Him everyday for a while without giving in to the moments when you want to give up or have great doubts. It takes faith - this is where name it & claim it is appropriate.

Now, there are always the few who experience things instantly but that is not the norm. That usually happens to those who have the feeling that they are so far from the grace of God it would be impossible for them to be reached without signs & wonders. Saul, also called Paul, is a very good example. He said he was the worse of sinners because he persecuted the church so much that the scriptures said the whole church had rest in the empire after his conversion! The Muslims in the middle east who consent to the killing of Jews & aide those who commit terrorist acts are usually saved with great visions & manifestations from God.

I knew a lady who used to do things like jump down three stories from the top of stairs over & over to force herself to have miscarriages when she got pregnant. She used to have affairs with married men & slept with women, she stole money from people but her real talent (as is true for many in the Caribbean) was the art of manipulation. She lived for herself & thought she could not change. Every time she prayed for money instead of reverting to her old habits to get it, by the time she said ,amen, someone was walking in her door with money in there hand.

I felt I was really the most sinful person in the world as a child. I thought something must be wrong with me. I was molested here in the Bahamas before I was in the first grade. Looking back I know I had the symptoms of depression at that time as a toddler. I used to leave school after feeling like I was invisible to everyone & walk down the street back to our tiny room & lay down in the dark. I used to fantasize to escape reality. This was an opportunity for my uncle to molest me. I started having sexual fantasies after this. Kids who are molested act out sexually. I thought I was a dirty girl by the time I was 6 years old. I was told I was by a 12 year old boy after I did what he asked. He told me I would never be married. A man told me the same thing when I was 6. These incidents happened in the states. There were other men ,one after the other, you could not tell me there was nothing wrong with me. They often showed me pornographic magazines & I had a teacher in Catholic school who passed a dirty joke book around in school. I was always in church & felt strongly that I was supposed to win souls to the Lord. This was the first grade. I knew I was wrong when I read the dirty book like everyone else (who could read anyway).

I prayed all the time for God to forgive me & went up at every altar call. People often came up to tell me they could see God had His hand on me & the devil wanted to kill me every time we visited a new church, which was often. God was drawing me but I could not see that. My mother met a man in a Baptist church in Miami who operated in the gifts of the Spirit. He used to tell people things that happened in their past & would talk about what God said to him. I longed for that. After she divorced my father who used to beat her black & blue & bring his dates to the room for her to say hello to them, she married this man. Richard was very charismatic but carnal, like the church in Corinth that had all the gifts in operation but were very carnal. They were proud of this & Paul commended them for 'coming behind in no gift' before giving them a good thrashing. Everything Richard wanted, it was because God was directing him. Whenever someone did not want the same thing, God was angry. God wanted them to be alone together & for me to be sent back to the Bahamas to my grandmother. She wanted me to 'help' around the house.

You just can not get more rejection. I was very suicidal after going through so much abuse & neglect here. I was in a deep hole that I felt I could not possibly get out of. I really felt tormented all the time. I cried because of depression, sometimes I did not know why I was crying but the tears were pouring & I felt so sad. No one had anything good to say to me. My dad is from Haiti not the Bahamas & Haitians are very low on the totem pole here. I have an uncle who I never heard call my name. It was always that little Haitian or stinkin' Haitian. That uncle put a knife to my throat one night & told me that my mother did not call to talk to me, no one called to talk to me or came to see me. No one cared for me. He said he could cut my throat with that knife & no one would care. This after spitting on me & pushing me. Abuse always gets worse as time goes on.

How could you feel loved in these conditions?! I could not sleep because of my depression, no matter what pills I was taking, they only made me drowsy. I was in high school. Honestly, things have gotten worse for me here. My family have completely disconnected from me. My pastor for over 15 years let me know that he did not want me in the church. The pastors & other members harassed me with very cruel treatment until I left. I was slapped in the face when I went up for prayers & had my eyes closed & my hands raised praying & waiting for her to pray for me. Many in the service were laughing as I walked out & tried to commit suicide.

Now that pastor is on the hospital authority board & the doctors are under his management. That includes those who would be responsible for listening to my story about what happened to me whiles I was working at Bahamas Faith Ministries. This place is so small that even if he was not on the board he would have a lot of influence through members of his & other churches that are involved in the medical profession. This is also a place where if you know someone you could call them at them & find out anything you want about any individual, nothing is sacred. These 'professionals' have gone out on the street & told people I am a mental patient. So men try to take advantage of me. We have the highest rate of rape per capita in the world.

He also has many who are either retired officials from the police force & those who still work there. There are many who are with social services & people of influence from every sector of society. I have not worked for 3 years. I am harassed by the police. Every time I go to the police I am threatened. When a man assaulted me they accused me of being a prostitute. Three days later one female yelled as I walked downtown that Sunday that I was a professional prostitute. I was homeless at them time because of the harassment I am going through & my family refused to allow me in their home.

So what is the good news? I'm sorry, I am very long winded. I know God loves me. I sense His Presence with me. He talks to me. When I sit & wait on Him to feel Him near me & in me, to rest in Him, He always does. I am no longer depressed, I have no panic attacks. I no longer hate myself. I am not lonely. I desire companionship & want fellowship but I am not tormented with loneliness.

There were many lessons along the way. I had to go through many practical situations to realize Gods' grace & grow in experience. I had to listen & obey when I felt foolish or afraid. I had to learn to put to death thoughts that contradicted what I know to be true according to the Word. I had to speak what the Word said for months every night & read the bible every time I had the opportunity & thank God for the understanding every time I put it back down & went to bed with no more understanding than I had before I picked it up. For months, I got up & walked the room reading & holding up the bible & praising God for giving me understanding every night.

For months, I told God how much I loved Him & desired Him more than anything else in life when I felt I was talking to the walls in the room. I had no feelings to back me , I only was plagued with the thought that I was going crazy. I did have that one night when I read Jesus words that seemed to speak to me, 'it is given unto you to know the mysteries of the Kingdom'. I did have the time when I was given a book by my aunts' husband about Aurthur Blessitt going through the Central American jungle. He was talking about experiencing God & having the fellowship of the Holy Spirit even though all who went with him left him alone very quickly. People do not make it walking through that jungle alone. He was not alone. He had what I was praying for. I did have that eureka moment months before where I was reading the psalms & saw that David prayed almost word for word what I was praying. It hit me that God was pulling him & drawing me by His Spirit. It occurred to me that He must then want this more than I did.

I read that verse that confirmed this which says, You said seek ye my face & my heart said, Oh, Lord, Your face will I seek. Your prayer was a response, like the widow who fed Elijah. God said He instructed her to feed him. He already spoke to her heart before Elijah asked. In James he writes, do you think that the scripture says in vain, that the Holy Spirit longs over us with jealousy. He longs for you to show a real passion for him through your determination to press towards the mark of the high calling & keep praying for a real encounter with God. Jesus came & died then was raised to bring 'sons' to glory. God is your Father.

I asked God to change me when I began to hear His voice. I asked Him why I was the way I was. I did not understand myself. His answer broke my heart.

He told me that He would not just change me & take away all the pain I felt inside & make me feel better about myself. He would not make all my dysfunction go away. I broke down in tears as He told me that I would have to go through a fight to be free.

He showed me a tree with rotten roots & rotten fruit as a symbol of how things buried deep inside me from my past experiences were the root cause of my behavioral problems that everyone could see. I reacted to things that touched on those open wounds. I responded out of fear of being hurt when something reminded me of a painful event without being conscious of it. I just knew it triggered something buried inside.

He showed me a battlefield that was vast & dark. Actually, I had the impression I was standing on this field in Roman armor & a sword in my hand & a shield in the other, looking through a visor at a light at the very far end of this sea of humanity in a terrible war. I had to fight my way to the other side.

He showed me door ways that went on infinitely. He called them doorways of pain. He said that every time I internalized a negative event I made up my own truths that controlled how I thought about certain things. It determined how I felt about myself. I was programmed by unhealthy experiences & not the truth that is only found in Jesus.

Later, I was listening to WLVJ from Florida & a lady named Joyce Meyers was speaking about Beauty for Ashes. She talked about how she acted & how she could not understand herself. She asked God why she was the way she was. He showed her a tree with rotten roots & rotten fruit! He showed her doorways of pain! She wrote a book called 'Battlefield of the Mind'!

I pray you will experience Jesus in a great way today,

Your sis

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