Lean Into the Wind

I spent one summer, many years ago, up in the Canadian Arctic. I never crossed the Arctic Circle, but I spent several weeks in an aluminum canoe quite close to that line. I learned some things during that season.

One thing I learned is that the wind in that territory really knows how to blow! During the few weeks of summer that far north, it’s not too awfully bad, but the rest of the year is known for strong and steady winds; we measured some at over 60 MPH. Those winds are relentless, they’re penetrating, and they’re merciless.

Out in the wilderness like that, one is tempted to try to find shelter from such a wind, but there is none. The tallest trees are measured in inches, not feet, and the highest mountain is a gentle slope to a 20’ summit. There is nowhere to hide from the wind.

There are only three ways to respond to the wind in those kinds of circumstances:

1. You can lean into the wind. It won’t be easy going, but you can put your head down, squint your eyes, and face into the wind. If you hope to have any control over your progress, this is the only way to get around If you’re living in a tent (like I was), then the only option is aim the front of the tent, the tent door, into the wind, and open the door (zipper) just a bit. The wind will blow into the tent, expanding it to twice its normal cubic capacity, and – if you have staked it down properly – it will lock it into its place on the landscape.

2. If you face the tent away from the wind or (heaven forbid) crosswise to the wind, prepare to get up in the middle of the night to gather what belongings you can find from across the landscape.

3. You can turn your back on the wind. With your back to the wind, you find yourself pushed wherever the wind is blowing towards, out of control, of the camp, and usually towards the nearest body of icy water. You can’t see any better with your back to the wind, and its icy tendrils find your sensitive skin just as quickly. The effort to protect yourself is wasted, and eventually, you have to turn around, face into the wind, and work your way back to where you started from.

There have been a number of prophetic words about winds coming into our lives: winds of change, refining winds, winds of revival. These winds of the Spirit are relentless, they’re penetrating, and they’re merciless.

We will be tempted to try to find shelter from such winds, but there is none. There is nowhere to hide from these winds. One word says, “Because of a lack of understanding some of My people will try to find shelter from the Wind, but in so doing, they shall miss My work.” If we hide from the wind, we miss what God is doing.

There are only two ways to deal with the winds in these kinds of circumstances:

1. We can lean into the wind. We can set our face like flint towards the wind that God is blowing at us, embrace the change, the refining, the revival as uncomfortable as it is. If we face into the wind, and open ourselves up to this thing that God is doing, we’ll find ourselves expanding in our capacity for what God is doing, inflated by the Spirit of God, and if we have anchored ourselves properly in Christ, we’ll be locked into our destiny by the very wind that we expected to destroy us.

2. If we work at cross purposes to these winds, we’ll find ourselves waking up at some point to find our work strewn across the landscape, running to gather what shards remain.

3. Or we can turn our back on the wind. If we face away from the wind, we will find ourselves pushed all over the place, out of control, and away from fellowship. We’ll be unable to see what is coming toward us or to see where we are being blown to, but it won’t be where we want to. Our efforts to dodge the work that God is doing will only serve to keep us in His processes longer in order to learn our lessons, and eventually, we’ll need to turn around, embrace the work He’s doing, and work our way back to where we started from.

What does this look like, leaning into the wind. It looks like embracing whatever God is doing in your life, in your community, and doing it without regard for personal cost. If He’s bringing winds of change, then we let go of the old ways – remembering the lessons we’ve learned there – and we embrace the new thing that God is doing (which is not the same as the latest trend in church growth techniques). If he’s bringing a season of refining, then it means that we embrace refining: we open ourselves for correction and conviction, knowing that some of what we hear will good and some will be false accusations. If He’s bringing revival, then we embrace revival, we look for any shred of the Spirit of God in the new and strange movement, and we ignore the odd noises, odd behaviors, odd theologies (excepting actual heresy, which we are very slow to judge) that the new movement exhibits.

Leaning into the wind means embracing what God is doing, whether it’s comfortable or not. It means ordering our lives so that we rely on the new and perhaps unusual thing that God is doing. It means not defending ourselves, our ministry, our beliefs, in the face of all that God is doing. It means that when we’re under the Spirit’s surgeon’s scalpel, that we look our surgeon in the face and ask Him to cut deep.

The alternative, turning our back to the wind, involves avoiding difficulty, avoiding inconvenience, avoiding discomfort. This lifestyle will end up blowing us all over the map, probably towards the nearest body of icewater.

The winds of God are on us now, winds of change, winds of refining, winds of revival. May we have the courage to lean into the wind.

David McLain, June 2009

Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words, or to submit a word. Submissions welcomed; please share.

Cool blogs:
• The Pilgrimgram • Firefall Zine • Tall Skinny Kiwi • Darpa's Domain • Bill Johnson • The Internet Monk

Resources
• Be a Hero! • Bethel Redding • Graham Cooke • Church Soundguy • End Time Prophetic Vision

Ministries
• Northwest Equipping • Healing the Northwest • Mosaic Northwest • PacificMinistries • Revival Town • Rivers of Grace • Storehouse Ministries

Missions
• Youth With A Mission • Int'l House of Prayer KC • Int'l House of Prayer NW • Int'l House of Prayer WA • Disciple the Nations

Two Winds Coming to the Church

by David Minos

This word is neither from the Northwest (David Minos is from Australia) nor about it, but I believe that this 22-year-old word is speaking to us in this season. God is again speaking to His prophets about the winds. I believe these winds are beginning to come upon us; we would be wise to turn our face into the wind.

The Spirit of God would say to you that the wind of the Holy Spirit is blowing through the land. The church however, is incapable of fully recognizing this wind. Just as your nation has given names to it’s hurricanes, so I have put My name on this wind. This wind shall be named “Holiness unto the Lord”.

Because of a lack of understanding, some of My people will try to find shelter from the wind, but in so doing, they shall miss My work. For this wind has been sent to blow through every institution that has been raised in My Name. In those institutions that have substituted their name for Mine, they shall fall by the impact of My wind. Those institutions shall fall like cardboard shacks in a gale. Ministries that have not walked in up-righteousness before Me shall be broken and fall.

This is My Wind.

For this reason, man will be tempted to brand this as a work of Satan, but do not be misled. This is My Wind. I cannot tolerate My church in its present form, nor will I tolerate it. Ministries and organizations will shake and fall in the face of this wind and even some will seek to hide from that wind. They shall not escape. It shall blow against your lives and all around you will appear crumbling and so it shall.

But never forget, this is MY WIND, says the Lord. With tornado force it will come and appear to leave devastation, but the word of the Lord comes and says, “Turn your face into the wind and let it blow, for only that which is not of Me shall be devastated.” You must see this as necessary.

A second wind.

Be not dismayed for after this, My wind shall blow again. Have you not read how My breath blew on the valley of dry bones? So it shall breathe on you. This wind will come in equal force as the first wind. This wind too will have a name. It shall be called “The Kingdom of God”.

It shall bring government and order. Along with that, it shall bring My power. The supernatural shall come in that wind. The world will laugh at you because of the devastation of the first wind, but they will laugh no more. For this wind will come with force and power that will produce the miraculous among My people and the fear of God shall fall on the nation. My people will be willing in the day of My power says the Lord. In the first wind that is upon you now, I shall blow out pride, lust, greed, competition and jealousy and you will feel devastated, but haven’t you read “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven?” So out of your poverty of spirit, I will establish My kingdom. Have you not read the kingdom of God is in the Holy Ghost? So by My spirit, My kingdom will be established and made manifest.

Know this also, there will be those who will seek to hide from this present wind and they will try to flow in the second wind. But again they will be blown away by it. Only those who have turned their faces into the present wind shall be allowed to be propelled by the second wind.

You have longed for revival and a return of the miraculous and the supernatural. You and your generation shall see it, but it shall only come by My process says the Lord. The church of this nation cannot contain My power in its present form. But as it turns to the wind of Holiness unto the Lord, it shall be purged and changed to contain my Glory. This is the judgment that has begun to the house of God, but it is not the end. When the second wind has come and brought in My harvest, then the end shall come.

by David Minos midnight 6th April, 1987
available various websites online.

The Remainder of 2009

Revolve to Resolve

By Pastor Vince Morales

During Spring, 2009, I began to hear the word “resolve.” As I prayed into this, I began to notice patterns in various people of unresolved issues resurfacing as an old cycle. I approached the Lord about 2008 having been a year for leaping forward. February and March 2008 were months for God’s people to leap forward into their seasons. Many were walking out of the season of the Lord and straggling behind. In 2008, the Lord presented a divine chairos moment for stragglers in the Body of Christ to leap forward and into the current season of God. Prophetic acts were made and scriptures declared in prayer gatherings in many church gatherings. By faith, God’s people took a leap forward. Seemingly, many brothers and sisters continued in frustration during the remainder of 2008 and well into 2009.

As the word “resolve” stirred in me, I connected the matter of “old cycles.” Many anointed prophets and teachers have taught and prophesied regarding “old cycles” and the need for those “old cycles” to be broken over the last couple of years. This is no new revelation in many apostolic and prophetic streams. The Lord began to tell me:

The advancement of My Kingdom hinges on the ambassadors I have placed in this world. I have equipped you, empowered you, commissioned you and anointed you with My authority and power. The idea of advancing My Kingdom is understood. The revelation of it is undiscovered and not understood by many in the realm of their own lives. Before My Kingdom can be advanced in the world, My Kingdom must be advanced in your own life. My Kingdom must advance in your minds. I will not shift their paradigms, I will not change your mind, My people must change their minds.

“Being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace...” (Ephesians 4:3). While this passage speaks to unity in the Body, its truth applies to the central core of each believer. Where there is no bond of peace, there is no unity of the Spirit. Where there is no unity of the Spirit, there is often a fractured condition of the believer. Thus, the believer has not resolved an issue or old cycle in their life. Their struggle around the same mountain or sins continues. This struggle continues to prevail simply because we have not done the first thing in Ephesians 4:3, “Being diligent to preserve…” the things stated, unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

Jesus said the peacemakers are blessed in Matthew 5:9. It is easy for many “warrior” minded believers to conceive being a “peacemaker” in the world. That Jesus did not come into the world to bring peace, but a sword (Matthew 10:34). Understanding Jesus definition of “sword” is the Word of God is common knowledge in the Body of Christ. The Lord told me:

My Church is ready to take the sword to the world but fail to take the sword to their own flesh. My peace always follows my sword. My people would rather that peace precede My sword. I say, as surely as you take My sword to your flesh, to your old cycles, to your old habits, surely the peace I give will follow. The process of being a peacemaker will always involve the violence and confrontation of judging yourself. Resolve to bring your old cycles under the judgment of My sword through your repentance. Apply My sword and bring your flesh to a place of death. Sever your flesh from the throne of your life, that I may be the sole ruler in the throne of your life. I will not share the throne with any idol, nor with your old cycles that rule powerfully in your soul.

In Romans 12:18, Paul exhorts us, “if possible, so far as it depends on you, be at peace with all men.” Many in the church understand the importance of being at peace with those around us. With family, friends, co-workers, acquaintances, etc. What is not always easily grasped is the need for God’s ambassadors, His representatives on this earth, His prophetic vessels, to be at peace with themselves. We include ourselves in “…being at peace with all men.” Many are not.

This is the place where many in the Body of Christ are continuously in a holding pattern. Understanding a holding pattern is easily understood when we think of an airline on a runway waiting for clearance to take off. Holding patterns are places where many believers find their greatest experiences of frustration. These “holding patterns” are not always the will of God, but are self-inflicted “holding patterns.” Rather than painfully judging one’s self, they push it off on “the Lord’s doing something in my life” or the “dealings of the Lord.” Since 2008, the timing for the next season may be now. We “revolve” or continuously circle around our mountains or “sins” and call it a “desert season.” However, like the Israelites, the Lord will allow our revolving around our mountain until we resolve our mountain.

One Saturday afternoon, my wife and daughter were in the backyard when they noticed a beautiful bald eagle being harassed by several crows. They reported that the crows were essentially chasing the bald eagle away. I heard the commotion but did not see the event. Out of wanting to see this event personally, I asked the Lord to show that to me because I believed the Lord was saying something through this.

A week later, my daughter and I were at my son’s track meet when we heard a loud commotion in the sky. We looked up and noticed a half dozen or so crows chasing off a bald eagle. The Lord was answering my prayer. Frankly, the crows looked like tiny birds compared to the bald eagle. At that moment, the Lord confirmed to me what I believed I was understanding about that scene:

My prophetic voices in the earth are like the great bald eagle. I have empowered them with strength in their wings to ascend to the highest places in Me. Their wings are designed to reside in My highest realms. The power they carry within them is so sufficient, so extraordinary, the patterns of this world and the kingdom of darkness is merely like harassing crows. At any moment the bald eagle could turn around and drive off or destroy the assignments of the crows. What My people have yet to resolve is themselves in Me.

My people will flee like the bald eagle, rather than stand strong in Me. It is easier for them to revolve their old cycle than to resolve who I am and what I promised I would do. My people are faced with their finest hour. My glory stands at the door for those who choose to resolve Me in their lives, who choose to resolve my Word in their hearts and who resolve that which I have spoken through My prophets. Arise My people, your finest hour is here. You must resolve Me in your heart, and you must dissolve your flesh and your carnality in Me.

Let all of God’s people, Arise! for He is a rising God. Don’t focus on the enemy who may come in like a flood. Your God promises He will raise up a standard against him (Is. 59:19). When your God arises, He arises big! He arises powerfully! Gloriously! and always on time. He spoke the universe into existence and it continues to expand because He never ordered it to stop. When your Lord commands you to arise, you are never to stop arising because He never commanded you to stop. NOW ARISE!!

Pastor Vince Morales

Revival Life Northwest

Bellevue, WA

www.rlnw.org

The Dead Raising Team

In the Spirit of Revelation 19:10, "...the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.”

I've written about the Dead Raising Team (the DRT) in the past. This is another description of them and their work.

This is our heritage here in the Pacific Northwest. If "healing is the children's bread," then resurrection from the dead is the children's meat and potatoes.

Please pray for the Dead Raising Team: more opportunities, more resurrections, more boldness. We need more of this in the church, and in our region!



If you have difficulty playing this clip, click on the title ("The Dead Raising Team").



Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words, or to submit a word. Submissions welcomed; please share.

Cool blogs:
• The Pilgrimgram • Firefall Zine • Tall Skinny Kiwi • Darpa's Domain • Bill Johnson • The Internet Monk

Resources
• Be a Hero! • Bethel Redding • Graham Cooke • Church Soundguy • End Time Prophetic Vision

Ministries
• Northwest Equipping • Healing the Northwest • Mosaic Northwest • PacificMinistries • Revival Town • Rivers of Grace • Storehouse Ministries

Missions
• Youth With A Mission • Int'l House of Prayer KC • Int'l House of Prayer NW • Int'l House of Prayer WA • Disciple the Nations

Keeping Up With the Horses

Jeremiah 12:5
"If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
Then how can you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted, they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?

This is an interesting challenge that I believe God is speaking to His church right now. “You think you’re tired now? What are you going to do when the pace picks up? He’s been saying this for the past couple of years.

And now the pace is picking up. If we were content to jog along in the back of the pack, maybe also in the back pew, not pressing very hard into “God things”, then we’re discovering that isn’t working as well as it used to. I expect we’ll find the back rows of the church becoming more sparsely populated as their usual inhabitants can no longer keep up and fall away.

But the Denizens Of The Back Pew aren’t typically readers of blogs, particularly blogs like this one whose purpose is to challenge the status quo. Readers of this type of blog are more likely to be followers of Christ who are intentional and pressing forward in their relationship with God.

Believers who take the position of, “I want more in God,” tend to be among leaders of this race that we’re running with the footmen. And if the pace of the race is picking up, if the pacesetters are no longer soldiers but horses, then what will happen to those runners who were not falling behind? What will happen to the leaders of the pack?

What do we do? An examination of this passage reveals some answers.

First, the terms are military: “footmen” refers to solders on foot, and they only ran to the battle they looked forward to winning (a different verb was used of fleeing from a defeat). The run to the fight is indeed capable of wearying us, though it does not need to; by running regularly, with discipline and passion, we can keep up with the footmen. That’s valuable when we’re running with the footmen – as we have been, but not as valuable when the horses come onto the battlefield – as is beginning to happen now.

But the assumption is that after running with footmen for a while, we will run next with horses, or more precisely, we will “contend with horses.” Horses, while valuable other uses, were primarily tools of war, in this era, nearly always pulling chariots, so the image is still one of warfare.

But the verb Jeremiah chose is not about “keeping up with” the war horses and their implied chariots; it’s about contending with them. The Hebrew word charah is a primitive root, speaking of passion, jealousy, anger; it’s related to an Aramaic root word meaning “to cause fire to burn

Let’s just be bold and come right out and say it: our pace is picking up. It used to be that we could keep our place in the race by running with a certain level of exertion, and it isn’t working any more. We’re running just as hard, but we’re falling behind.

The solution is not about running harder. There is benefit in running harder when the pace is slower, when the pace-setters are foot soldiers. When the battle horses come onto the field, it’s not about running harder, it’s about charah: it’s about passion, anger, burning.

In this phase of the race, running harder won’t help. Passion is the only thing that will get us through this season, passion for the Man Jesus, for our relationship with Him, passion for the battle we’re facing, for the people who will be the spoils of war for one side or the other. Passion, fire in our soul, is the solution in this season we’re entering.

In traditional Hebrew fashion, the question is asked twice, using two different metaphors:

· If you’re getting weary just running with the footmen, what will happen when you need to contend with horses?

· If you’ve gotten weary in a land of peace (in which you’ve trusted), then how will you do in the floodplain of Jordan?

The phrase “floodplain of the Jordan” is interesting, particularly as we’re heading toward that place, away from the land of peace that we’ve become comfortable with. In the Hebrew, “floodplain” is a the metaphorical translation of the KJV and NKJV, while NIV and RSV translate “thickets”. The original word references “majesty” and “splendor.”

Both speak of abundance, of increase. The region around the Jordan was thick with growth, nearly a jungle compared with the rest of the land, and the reason was the water of the Jordan. So the figure of speech “floodplain of the Jordan” is talking about a season of fruitfulness, of increase, of abundance: an increase of the River, an increase in growth, an increase of harvest.

It might be worth noting that the increased growth around the river also provided cover for predators: lions particularly were known to hide in the cover there. Where there is an increase of harvest, there is often an increase of predators.

The point is this: “If you have been caught up in the crises of the land of peace, what will you do when I begin pouring out more of my river, when you enter the season of fruitfulness?”

It’s easy enough to be caught up with the stuff of life. We have challenges from information overload, from on-line distractions, from provocations coming from landlords, co-workers, other drivers. It’s easy to become overloaded in the drama of this season of running with the foot soldiers.

The fact that it’s foot soldiers we’re running with should help give us perspective: this isn’t about my comfort: we’re running to a battle. I need to be prepared for that battle, my attention needs to be on eternity in order to not be caught up in order to not be wearied in this race. I must “fix my eyes on Jesus” (Hebrews 12:1-2) and run with the discipline of a single focus to keep up with the soldiers. That season was marked by “Just keep on running. Just keep running.”

But with the increased pace of the war horses, there comes an entirely different focus. This season is being marked by an increase of the River among us, and by an increase of growth and of harvest. In this season, we’re beginning to experience the outpouring of God and the ingathering of the lost that we’ve been praying for during the years and decades of “just keep running.”

This is what we’ve been praying for, what we’ve sacrificed for, what we’ve been waiting for! But now that God is answering those prayers, things are different than they once were. The water is higher. The undergrowth is thicker. There’s life sprouting up all over the place, whether in healings, in people coming to (or back to) faith, or in unbelievers being open to hearing the gospel of life.

But there are lions hiding in these bushes as well, still roaring, still seeking someone to devour. If not you, then some of the new believers, some of the people who have been recently healed, some of the folks asking questions now.

We’ll be sustained in this battle by the fire of passion. Discipline – which was so valuable before – is of less value now; its place is perhaps a safety net: if passion falters, then we’re not completely destroyed. But the successful warfare strategy will be to develop a burning heart, to fan the spark of our love for God and for His people into a flame and nurture it into a bonfire. In the wild, have you noticed how a campfire always draws the people around it, but the wild animals are driven away from it in fear?

by David McLain,
www.northwestprophetic.com,
www.pilgrimgram.com.


Visit Northwest Prophetic for a complete archive of regional prophetic words, or to submit a word. Submissions gladly received.

Cool blogs:
• The Pilgrimgram • Firefall Zine • Tall Skinny Kiwi • Darpa's Domain • Bill Johnson • The Internet Monk

Resources
• Be a Hero! • Bethel Redding • Graham Cooke • Church Soundguy • End Time Prophetic Vision

Ministries
• Northwest Equipping • Healing the Northwest • Mosaic Northwest • PacificMinistries • Revival Town • Rivers of Grace • Storehouse Ministries

Missions
• Youth With A Mission • Int'l House of Prayer KC • Int'l House of Prayer NW • Int'l House of Prayer WA • Disciple the Nations