The Elijah Revolution

I'm nearing the closure of reading The Elijah's Revolution by Jim W Goll and Lou Engle. Today I read about the balance between the Church and the State as well as how prayer was taken out of the schools. I revisited some information I had looked up after the VA tech shootings and found Madalyn Murray O'Hair. She was a woman who founded American Atheists, and campaigned for the separation of church and state. She also was responsible for this:

In 1960, Murray filed a lawsuit (Murray v. Curlett) against the Baltimore, Maryland School District in which she claimed it was unconstitutional for her son William to be required to participate in Bible readings at Baltimore public schools. She further claimed that her son's refusal to partake in the Bible readings had made him the victim of violence from other classmates that she claimed was overlooked by administrators. (William later publicly stated that her claims of his being a victim of violence were fraudulent; see below.) In 1963, this suit (amalgamated with the similar Abington School District v. Schempp) reached the United States Supreme Court which voted 8-1 in her favor, effectively banning "coercive" public prayer and Bible-reading at public schools in the United States. (For more information see this site or google search her: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madalyn_Murray_O'Hair

So as I continued to read and God put me in rememberance of the fury this stirred in my spirit I was overwhelmed with a burden to start doing what our forefathers did not do. Press in, be a voice, NO TOLERANCE to these things that we have allowed to take place. Silence will get us nowhere. We pretty much let an Atheist take prayer and bible readings out of our schools and didn't do a darn thing about it. Something about that sits horribly within my spirit.

I have included what Lou and Jim say regarding the seperation of the Church and the State because I think it is worth reading and worth sharing. I pray it speaks to you and stirs a zealous passion to begin intercessing and crying out to take back what is God's!!

" During recent decades the Church sat largely silent while the nation's godly heritage was gradually stripped away through legislation and court decisions. Almost without a fight the people of God yielded the field to the enemies of truth, surrendering biblical principles and values to the God denying forces of humanism and rationalism.

Jesus defined the proper balance between Church and state when He said, "Render to Ceasar the things that are Ceasar's and to God, the things that are God's (Mk 12:17) Much of the country's problems stem from the fact that the Church has rendered to Ceasar things that never were Ceasar's to start with, yielding to the state prerogatives that God never gave to the state. God never gave the state jurisdiction over public prayer or the authority to regulate personal expressions of faith. He never assigned to the state the right to define the parameters or relative value of human life, whether unborn or otherwise. God never relegated to the state the prerogative to redefine the family or to rewrite moral standards according to personal whim so that virtually anything is "acceptable." God never rendered these things to Ceasar, but the Church did! We, the blood bought Church of Jesus Christ, surrendered them through inattention and neglect.

This is why we fast and pray. This is why we cry out.

the war.

Oh it cannot be in vain.

And yet I must stir up my soul to lay hold of that which I cannot comprehend.

The glass in their hands tries to stab me in the front as well as the back.
But a higher power shields me from their spirit of two facedness that has been trying to smother me.

Send the truth Lord.
Send the Real, loving, and genuine ones.

9-14 have been busy, pressing days...

but God in His faithfulness has reminded me and redirected me continually through this time frame. Nudges, gentle shoves forward to the course I am to walk in, the route I am to not veer off of, and how to remain under His covering and in His will.

Days 6.7.8

Day 6's theme was Rain. I continued reading about Elijah in 1 Kings 18:41. While I was reading I was also listening to a Leonard Jones instrumental worship cd and this particular song really took me to an ancient village. The people were from a descent of dark skin. Their houses were made of mud and grasses and the dust was swirling and floating into the atmosphere from the red roads. I saw children with dark hair and deep brown almond eyes stop from whatever they were doing and made their way outside. They pushed their hair out of their eyes and gazed up into the sky. Soon after the parents and elders of the village joined them outside. The wind began to pick up speed and rustled their hair as well as the bushes/shrubs around them. Their faces held unspoken hope and desperation. Was it a sign of rain? Were the clouds formed with the promise of water to spill over? Had the drought finally ceased? What was it Lord that they were looking at? What had moved them in this standstill position in a trance that requires their gaze to move up, up into the open skies?

Then God took me back to this scripture in 1 Kings 18:41: THERE IS A SOUND OF ABUNDANCE OF RAIN.

It was as if God was giving me the sound of the abundance of rain through this simple worship song. Elijah then went up to the top of Mount Carmel to humble and reverance himself before the Lord and pray/CRY OUT for rain. The servant was sent out to check the skies for rain. His return came back with a report of nothing. But Elijah did not give up. He sent the servant out 7 times. The seventh time there was a sign of rain (a little cloud shaped like a man's hand). This one small cloud produced a black sky with great winds and the production of a GREAT RAIN.

Points to Ponder/Jru sidenotes:
1. another reoccuring theme I noticed with Elijah was his humbleness as well as his VOICE to cry out continually before the Lord. My tongue has been so silenced lately it seems. I pray that God fashions this cry within us all and let it be exercised in it's full capacity.
2. Persistent Perseverance continued to rise up within me as I meditated upon this passage. Elijah did not give up despite what it did or did not look like. The promise had already been laid, and the expectancy stirred wildly within the one who persistently perservered.

Later that night (Saturday) at the Well we prayed for ...RAIN! and one of my second/third mother's prayed out the same passage "Let there be a sound of abundance of rain". God was really preparing my spirit and heart ahead of time as to the direction He wanted us to move.

Later that night (Saturday) and all day Sunday guess what it did? IT RAINED!

At the Well we also prayed for The Call. After everyone finished prayer the following rolled through me and I had to write it down lest it pass me by:::" It's time to strip off and shut up the spirit of seduction, seperation, and the sinful serenades we've had with the things of this world"

Day 7 was embraced from all angles and I truely believe God was trying to holler at me and draw me deeper unto Him. I broke through my "no sunday church attendance" slump and visited another church. The Word was really good and then later I got the chance to have a prophetic word spoken over me and I was prayed over. It was amazing and nudged me into the direction I had already been pursuing. Confirmation and words of love spoken over me left me reminded of the princess I am, and how much my beloved loves me. (I guess somewhere I had detatched myself from that..or simply forgot).

Last night on the way home I became burdened to pray for people and situations I never in a million years would have thought I would want to or be able to pray for the things that were pressing at me. But it came, and it flowed and I truely felt a sweet release in the spirit. Prayer flooded over into the apartment and I prayed out all kinds of stuff. It's good to know that while I'm on my fast the prayer is there as well. It's amazing how much healing, deliverance, and being aligned with God's heart can do in your life.

Today is still a work in progress but this morning God gave me a surprise in the clouds. I was driving to work listening to some worship music just thinking about the Lord when I looked up and to the left the clouds were shaped and had formed the word YES very distinctively and clearly. What was even more crazy is somehow the cloud formation moved directly in front of my viewing again saying YES. (all lower case letters). Almost as if God heard me be like "am I really seeing this or am I trippen?"

This week promises to be a busy one. Pray for endurance and ability to get all done that is required.

Sweetest thing I've ever known...

The Lord truely is the perfector of beautiful surprises and unending reminders that His love for me is beyond anything I could ever think, feel, or comprehend. I love how He shoves me into the direction I am to pursue and confirms His love/plans for me through others/circumstances/sweet encounters. Tonight I find solace and rest in the sweet love of Jesus.

Days 6, 7, and 8 will have to flow in one post tomorrow (God willing).

Day 5 of 40

and nothing worth blogging over.
today was not a good one at all.
Wretched woman that I am.
The flesh is a ugly ugly thing to be so confined to.
Oh how I need my Father's hands to pick me apart then put me back together again.