As my small group of conference attendees gathered around to see how God wanted to minister to us last Saturday morning, one of the ladies present said that she thought that she heard the Holy Spirit impress upon her that there was someone with a back problem. I had been suffering with a lot of pain in my lower back for about 4 weeks. I had been prescribed muscle relaxers and was still not getting much relief. My condition stemmed from an accident years ago and I had not experienced this much pain in many, many years. It has been one week now and my back doesn’t hurt anymore. I am able to lift things now with no pain that I could not have even thought of lifting before the Lord healed my back.  Glory be to God for His mercy and healing power!

ShareThis

Brenton Dowdy, Josh Carroll, and Brady Bruton, three members of our worship teams, listened for God’s voice in a public place following the Prophetic Conference this past weekend:

Monday after the conference with a fresh reminder of the absolute necessity to be listening all the time, myself and two friends were having some lunch together. The restaurant was unusually busy for a Monday. A large table of twenty or so had consumed most of the attention of the under manned wait staff. It was a half hour before we received drinks and over an hour before we had gotten our food. At that moment we felt the tug of the Holy Spirit to look beyond ourselves and our inconvenience. After talk of the conference and testimony, we decided to ask God to give us some supernatural encouragement for our waitress, recognizing the pressure she was in and that she seemed to have a lot on her mind even outside of work. So instead of griping and throwing a fit, we listened.

As we waited one of us verbally chimed in along the lines of, “Lord, speak to us, give us something to give our waitress.” I immediately heard and saw “Butterfly.” I hesitantly said it out loud after a minute or two for another to say, “Get out of here, I saw that too.” We waited some more and the other with us said, “I heard caretaker.” We found it ironic, considering the condition of our service, but we all agreed with the word from the Lord. After all, an under manned wait staff was far from her fault. We had a lot of ideas of what might have been the interpretation for the butterfly, including that it was possibly just a word of knowledge of something that was specific to her, but we remained unsure. When she came to bring us our ticket I said, “We are Christians and we wanted to be able to encourage you, so we asked God for a way that we could do that and he showed us a Butterfly, we thought you might have a butterfly tattoo or a favorite shirt with a butterfly? Do any of those mean anything to you?” (We thought we might have seen these specifics, the Lord corrected me for reading to far into this one in this case or at least jumping in to quick for the answers this time. But He was gracious). She replied after a second or two of a contemplative and uncertain look, “Well, I don’t think so, but I my nick name for my daughter is “Madame Butterfly,” we call her that all the time, and I’m actually really stressed out here at work because I am needing to get home to my kids and I’m not sure if I am going to be able to get out of here in time because we are much busier than normal. My son isn’t feeling well and I have to get home soon to get him to a doctor’s appointment.” We explained that we noticed she had a lot on her mind and that we had also heard from the Lord that she was a “Caretaker.” We encouraged her with that and I shared, “I think God showed us some of this stuff to let you know that he sees you, sees what’s going on, and He loves you very much.” I had to leave at that point, but the other two guys stayed back and got to pray a blessing over her. A great experience and some growth too. It was awesome to see the Lord be gracious and it is encouraging to look back and see how some the connections could be better made next time. And! One more of God’s children got to hear how he feels about them in a personal way. Praise the Lord.

ShareThis

From one of our businessmen:

This morning I had the responsibility of having to discipline an employee. As I prayed about it over the weekend I saw the heart of God and his will for this young man’s life. Had I not sought the Lord first, I would not have been prepared for what is going on in this man’s life. He is in a very dark place right now. I now know that Jesus wants to use me to minister to him. I would have missed yet another opportunity in my garden of responsibility. It is such a joy to be a part of the body that is preparing the saints to minister to the lost and beaten down in everyday life.

ShareThis

One of our men and his wife received some supernatural encouragement at this weekend’s conference:

Thursday night, I paired up with a lady who began telling me that she felt an annointing on me that I didn’t even fully understand. She said that she knew that God wanted me to press in more and truly open up what God wants to do in my life. I was amazed because while Jeremy was singing “I surrender”, I had actually sat down and began praying those exact things. There have been so many distractions lately, but God has been opening a lot of doors, and I have been really trying to focus on him. I was amazed..then my second partner told me that he heard the word “trying”. He said at first, he thought I was going through a trying time..but then he said it changed and he felt that it meant I was trying to please God.

Last night, a young lady said, “I don’t know what it means, but I see an open gate and a horse running full speed across a pasture.” She said it is if it is running toward something and there is no stopping it. I wasn’t sure what it meant except that I have been praying that God would open doors and take my ministry outside the church more to reach those who truly need to hear about Jesus.

Little did I know (until [my wife] and I shared after the conference) that one row up at the other end, a lady was telling [my wife] that she saw her riding a horse in a flowing robe, holding up a word that she had been given, and riding into a circle of flags to take that word to the nations.

That was incredible, and I just had to share how things like that can come together. I don’t know how anyone could explain it in any other way than “God at work”.

ShareThis

From Brett Stewart, one of our high-school students:

Today was so freaking incredible.

First of all there was an awesome sermon about hearing God’s voice. Then we had time to receive words of prophecy or encouragement for another person whom we had never met. Mine was accurate with him, and his was accurate with me. Then….THEN THE AMAZING GLORY of GOD happened.

We got into groups around 7-10 people. We then were to take time in hearing God’s voice for a physical need someone had that needed to be healed. I received the word “ankle” and had a 45-50 yr old man tell me his problem. He had had a vein running from his hip all the way to his angle crumpled up. Basically they didn’t want it to work, but didn’t take it out. It had left him with several markings and an itching pain in his ankle. I got down and put my hands on his ankle and our group began to pray. I prayed and prayed and prayed and was filled with this burning fire. It heated my whole body, i would’ve loved to know what my body temperature was at the time, because it felt way over 100 degrees. After praying he just kind of stood there and looked at me, then he began to cry. He began pouring out tears and was just saying that it was gone. That it was amazing and everything was gone. He had to sit down and catch his breath then he just began to hug me for a very long time.

After that first miracle God had worked, a lady in our group told us of a ringing she had in her ears and how she felt she couldn’t hear as well as she used to be able to. Well once again we were around her and I put my hands on her ears and began to pray. Hands and arms shaking this time while praying intensely, after finishing she said that the ringing had stopped, that it was decreasing as we were praying and that she could hear our whispers of prayer, when we could barely hear ourself say them. So, yet another miracle from God came.

Then we had another guy in our group say that he had stomach pains. Once again we circled around him and I put my hands on him and began to pray. Everything in my body this time shaking furiously I prayed. When finishing, I looked up and he said, “It is gone!” I said, “Really? Like Seriously?” I couldn’t believe that God would work like that and heal like that instantly three times. He said as we began to pray, it started to go away and Boom! when done, it was gone!

Praise and glory be to God. You might think that these things sound supernatural, but this is becoming the natural for me. I think as Christians what others view as unbelievable and supernatural, it should be considered the normal for us, because God would use us in such amazing ways to shine His glory! Praise and glory be to God!

ShareThis

Got a testimony to share? Send it to testimonies [at] beltway [dot] org.

ShareThis