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

Cardboard Testimonies

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

Making the Transition

Gleaning from a conversation with Jim Ford

Why are you here? Why are you hanging around the people, the church, the groups that you hang around. Because you have a heart for them, and more than that, because you have a heart to see that group grow into so much more than they are now.

So many people in the body of Christ are in a season of holy dissatisfaction right now. More is being required of us as individuals; we can’t get away with as much as we used to: God is pointing things out and calling us to address them.

We’re in the laundry. Jesus is coming back for a bride without spot or wrinkle. He’s removing our spots, our stains. (If you think the laundry is difficult, wait until we get to the ironing board where He takes out the wrinkles!)

Right now, we’re making decisions about where we need to go, whom we need to be among, what we need to do, and we’re doing them – for the most part – independently, arbitrarily. We’re feeling this sense of “There has to be more” and we’re making decisions to pursue that “more” but we’ve overlooked something. We’ve overlooked the fact that we are part of a community.

God is in the process of upshifting. It’s a season of transition, and people all over the world have been feeling it for the past eleven or twelve months. Our being in the laundry is part of the transition. Our holy dissatisfaction is part of the transition. The longing for “more” is part of the transition. And the growing sense of community is part of the transition.

Look around you right now. Who are you in relation with? Who is your “tribe,” your people? Who do you hang out with? If you want to go to the next level with God, do you want to do it with these folks? Are these people that are going where you want to go?

If God wants you as an individual to move to the next level, then the people that we are among must move to the next level. The group, the fellowship, the “tribe” that you’re part of will need to evolve into something new, something more.

If you’re willing to move to that level, if you’re willing to move there with the people around you, it will cost your life. You must be committed, become family, with the people that are moving. Your church, your tribe, must become more than “This is where I attend.” It must become your identity, your family. Their leader must be your leader. Or you cannot make the transition.

There’s an old saying: “Bloom where you’re planted.” You can’t bloom someplace that you have not been planted. You can’t be planted here and bloom over there.

God has most of us at a place where He’s saying, “So what are you going to do?” Are you going to get out of the boat? Are you going to stop playing at what you’re supposed to be. There are things that God has called you to, things that you’re feeling this growing sense of “I need to do this!” about.

But if you don’t respond, you get frustrated, angry with God. And we miss the opportunity to see God do what we’ve always wanted, but what we’ve been afraid He might actually do! It’s like a roller coaster: you know where it’s going to go, you can see the tracks, and you’ve watched it go there time after time, but you’re still not completely prepared for the wild ride that follows the slow pull up the first hill.

Now is not the time to bury things. It’s time to get it up and spread it out, to tell it to the people around you, to listen to one another, to talk to one another, to pray for one another. We will not make this transition with a pretend “happy face” on for everyone to see. This is a transition for people who are genuine with each other.

Why are you here? You’re here because you have a heart for these people. You’re here because you’re ready to face the challenge that you know has been coming.

Jim Ford, in Olympia, WA on the evening of the transition from Summer to Fall

Todd Bentley, Bob Jones: The Third Wave is Here!

12 Places for Healing and Revival to Start are Mentioned--but THIS TIME IT'S GLOBAL"
Ministry Report from Lakeland, Florida:

Below is a ministry report written by Linda Dodson, a church member of Albany Vineyard Christian Fellowship in Albany, Oregon. Linda is attending the revival meetings in Lakeland, Florida and sent us the following report of what happened on Monday, April 21, 2008:

Greetings from sunny Florida! The glory of God is growing. There is a tangible presence all over town. Are you feeling "the wind" of the Spirit blowing where you are? The "winds of change" angel appeared to Todd Bentley in Florida, and simultaneously to Bob Jones. I have some encouraging news for all of you, which come from the prophets who released it on Monday night at Ignited Church in Lakeland, Florida. Bob Jones gave Todd Bentley the "green light" to release every bit of this prophetic word. I took notes quickly, so I may have missed a few details, but in general, you are surely to be blessed by this word.

Todd Bentley called Bob Jones an elder prophet and talked with him for about an hour about the "Florida outpouring" here in Lakeland. Here are notes about their phone conversation:

On New Year's Eve, for 2008, God told Bob Jones that "the third wave was coming." Todd asked Bob what the third wave was. He said that Toronto was wave #1, Pensacola was wave #2, and the third wave is the "Winds of Change"--this move of God. This move will be a global move, traveling with signs and wonders all over the world! The third wave is here!

As a sign that this wave would be released from the Northwest, Bob shared that God said in the natural world, there would be extreme "winds and storms" out of Canada and the Northwest this year. (We had these storms in the Northwest this past winter and winds even now!) These natural winds would be followed by the winds of change. There would then be a move of the Holy Ghost, where entire towns would be shut down by the power of the Spirit. Revival will come as a Northwest wind.

It was also mentioned to "set up your sail"--the "Winds of Change" are blowing! There are 12 places specifically mentioned where revival will hit first (listed in the order mentioned):

• Des Moines, Iowa;
  
• Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska;
  
• Kansas City, Missouri;
  
• Denver, Colorado;
  
• Nashville, Tennessee;
  
• Lakeland, Florida;
  
• Ohio; Charlotte,
  
• North Carolina;
  
• Albany, Oregon;
  
• Washington; and
  
• Redding, California.
  

Of course, I did quite a bit of shouting when Todd named "Albany, Oregon." We have known for some time that Revival was on the way to Albany, and yet when I heard it declared by the prophets, it was a glorious moment. So for Albany and Oregonians, rejoice and get your hearts ready! Also mentioned were countries where it is moving first--England, Australia and New Zealand.

June 22 to July 22 will be a significant time in the spirit. (Todd didn't elaborate on this period.) This Revival will NOT be stopped.

There are several "clarion trumpets" (people God uses to deliver His word) and John Kilpatrick, former pastor of the Brownsville Assembly of God Church, where the Pensacola Revival took place, "probably has one of the clearest trumpets." Todd wanted to honor John Kilpatrick by naming him as Bob had spoken.

The third wave has begun! This wave promotes, prepares, purifies, pierces and inspires. We can expect to be changed by this move of God. The year 2008 will be the best of years for Christians and the worst of years for unbelievers, mainly due to their fear about the economy. There are doors now open in the spirit that will not shut!

The "Voice of Healing" move of the Spirit of years ago is here for a second time and it won't be stopped. This was a major healing move. This current move can be carried to other cities and countries. Wherever people move and who are carriers of this glory, it will move, like the ark was moved from place to place.

There will be one main thing required to see this outpouring continue: COMMITMENT--it will cost a lot to see it happen. (Todd has said twice now, that if this move requires him to lay down his own ministry, he will do it!) An invasion of glory for the hungry is on the way for you and your whole family!

I felt happy to be able to respond to the altar call as someone from Oregon to come and receive the "anointing and impartation" from Todd Bentley for Revival for Albany, Oregon. I was with others from the places mentioned above. I have been very hungry and contending for many years for Revival. I have gone wherever God has called me to experience His glory and to grow deeper in Him. So I am very encouraged by Monday night's word! The glory of God is coming to your town, too!

Reported by Linda Dodson
(attending from Albany Vineyard Christian Fellowship Church)
via ElijahList