A simple act of faith, an ankle pain a person experienced for so many years, healed:

My wife and I were invited to a Power and Healing service at New Hope Chapel last year. Many Beltway folks were also attending. We decided to go and just sit in the back and pray for people coming that they would receive healing. The man speaking (Pastor Bill Johnson) talked about the manifestation of the spirit in healing and about the many miracles of healing around the world this ministry was involved in. He said something that really struck my spirit. He said that being a recipient of a gift in most cases is a result of some simple act of faith. (This reminded me of Jesus in his home town. “A Prophet without Honor”) Jesus was amazed at their lack of faith and could do very little except heal the sick.

About 30 minutes in to the service, he said that “there was a man here that has broken his right ankle and has been living with a deep aching pain for over 20 years”. About 30 men stood. Immediately my wife started giggling because she knew who it was. Not many people know that I broke my right ankle three times. Once on ice, then racket ball, then skiing. He then said there is one of you that broke his right ankle not twice but three times. If that is not you, sit down. I was the only one standing. Mark 6:5 ran through my head. At that point I placed my right foot into the isle and back in. A simple act of faith. I didn’t want to be counted with those who lacked faith. At that moment I felt a warm sensation in my ankle. The pain I experienced for so many years was gone. He called me forward and said you were healed, weren’t you. He told me to do something I couldn’t do before. I squatted down and jumped up and down with my ankles. Something I wouldn’t do before because my ankle would swell up and hurt. The next day I played six hours of tennis. To this day, there is no pain or swelling. For many days after I was in an extremely humbled mood, even remorseful to some extent. There were so many there with health problems greater than mine, but yet God chose me. This was a very humbling experience. A most awesome God thing!

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This last Sunday after we sang “Breathe,” one of our vocalists began singing what she was hearing the Spirit leading her to sing and had a feeling that God was up to something.

We found out this week, that a man who desires to go back into full time ministry has been waiting and waiting and no doors have been opened yet for him. He asked the Lord, “Are You finished with us?” and at that moment the vocalist sang “He’s not finished with you yet.” Needless to say, he was deeply encouraged by the Lord. Praise God for the ways He speaks and the new songs He gives!

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At congregation, pastor David encouraged all Israelis who felt tired or weary to stand up and for the foreigners to pray for them.  My husband and I live in Israel, but we are foreigners, not citizens.  Plus, I don’t feel tired.  So I opted to pray.  I was going to walk quickly across the room to a lady I knew and pray for her in Hebrew just for fun.  As I was about to leave my aisle, a friend of mine, also an Israeli was standing up.  I thought, “Well, I guess I don’t have to go very far.  Look, my friend is tired and needs to be ministered to.”  So, I hugged her.  As soon as we embraced, I began weeping immediately.  I prayed for her as the Lord lead for the “joy of the Lord to be her strength” in this time.  Unexpectedly, she in turn prayed for me and my family.  Later, I had the opportunity to tell her that when we hugged, when I started weeping immediately that it was not my tears but hers.  She told me “I have been beaten up.  I have been shedding a lot of tears lately.”  She started tearing up again.  I sensed the Lord urging me to tell her, “He cries with you”, and so I did.  She was very encouraged by those words and we talked about getting together later.  God is so fun!

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A Life Group leader witnesses the working power of the voice of God:

One of our Life Group leaders received a call from a concerned father whose 28 year old son had gotten arrested for drunk driving, and was now taking up residence at the Taylor County Jail.  The son had requested a Bible and the LG Leader made the delivery.  He was able to meet the young man, we’ll call Thomas, in a small cinder block cubicle inside the secured area.  Merely receiving a Bible brought Thomas to the point of tears and he began confessing how he had made a mess of his life.  He’d recently given his life to Jesus at Beltway and had even been baptized, but the chain of substance abuse had obviously not yet been broken.  After 3 past admissions to rehabilitation programs, a deep sense of rejection still loomed like a dark cloud.  Our LG Leader was praying as he listened and discerned that there was a particular event early in Thomas’ life which was critical to his restoration.  Thomas was able to identify that at age 8 his step father sent him away to an institution for 99 days.  Thomas felt that his step father didn’t want a child that was not “his own blood” and had thrust him out of the home.

The LG Leader decided to risk acting on an impulse inspired by the Holy Spirit.  “Let’s ask the Holy Spirit to reveal to you where God was when your step father sent you to the institution” he began.  Thomas got quiet, then began shaking.  “God was right there with me!”  Thomas was surprised.  “How do you know He was there?’’  Thomas responded, “He was sitting right by me.”  The Leader took it another step, “What does He look like?”  Astounded, Thomas reported, “He looks just like Jesus!”  Our LG Leader asks, “Well, what are His feelings for you?”  Thomas is now sobbing profusely and exclaims, “He just really loves me!”  The Holy Spirit was so tangibly present I was sure that no security guard would even be able to enter the cubicle.  It was as if we were safely secured behind a thunderous waterfall of God’s Presence.  Thomas lifted his face which itself was flooding with more than just tears, and said, “I feel SO LIGHT!”  “I’ve never felt this way before.  I can’t explain it.”  God had demonstrated that during Thomas’ darkest hour, He was right there loving him.  Thomas now has consequences to face, but he has a brand new hope that was irrefutably birthed by a shaking encounter with the Living God.  I believe he’s got now what he needed at the very core of his being. 

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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!

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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.

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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.

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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”.

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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!

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

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It is amazing what a few simple words can do coupled with God’s timing and revelation. One of our worship pastors saw it first hand:

Tonight after Wednesday Night service a couple came up to me asking the question, “Were you the guy who talked to us in Arby’s?” My memory was being tested, but I finally recognized them. I responded with a yes and then was able to hear a testimony of God’s gentleness and love.  

A few weeks prior I was eating at Arby’s with a co-worker and God highlighted a young family to me. I didn’t know what for right away, they just had my attention. Eventually I began to wrestle with the fact that God was prompting me to give them an encouraging word. I didn’t know what yet, but as I watched them I realized that they had a recognizable peace about them, as well as a gentleness and love. I then thought, “Man, that is a beautiful family.” That was about when God impressed a gentle, “Well yeah, thats what I want you to tell them.” So we finished up our meal and it was time to leave. My palms were sweaty and I was nervous. So I end up walking out of Arby’s with out saying anything. I got maybe two steps out and couldn’t take another step. I literally couldn’t move until I turned around and went back in. Thank God for his grace. I walked up to them, said hello and introduced myself, and then just said something like “I just wanted you to know I noticed that you were a Beautiful family. There is something really special about you and it blessed me.” They expressed their thanks and I left.    Fast forward a couple weeks and they are visiting our Wednesday Night service. They explained to me that that was their first day in Abilene and it ironically felt hectic and their kids were having a “lets be crazy day.” The words the Lord shared gave them some peace and confirmation that they were in the right place. Then they end up at the same church. Now we are in small group together with the guy I was having lunch with! God prompted another member of our small group to invite them with out knowing who they were. Thank you Sovereign Lord.

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