Blog Archives
Listen, obey – don’t second guess!
A man shared this story with me and I thought it would help to illustrate the importance of following the Holy Spirit.
He was on a business trip and contacted some old friends he hadn’t seen in years. They picked him up for church and then invited him over for lunch. He spent several hours with them, enjoying their company and getting to know their three small children. (He loves kids!)
The following weekend, he was making plans to see them again. As he was getting ready, the Holy Spirit impressed on him to prepare to give them some money – $120 in cash. He wrestled with the idea. When he had visited them, they had seemed to be doing okay. Their house was nice, their children had toys and were dressed well. They didn’t appear to have any financial needs.
Especially as a man, he didn’t want to embarrass his friend by offering him the money and implying that he wasn’t a good provider for his family. He kept wondering, “Why do I feel this nudge to give them money? This doesn’t make any sense!”
But this man has walked with God for many years – so he knew better than to second guess. He put the cash in an envelope and prepared to give it to them at the right time. Even though he had no idea why.
He visited with them and just before he was ready to leave, he spoke to both the husband and wife together. He said, “I felt from the Lord that I was to give you this money. I’m not sure what you need it for – maybe for Christmas or something.” The couple politely thanked him and then his friend drove him back to his hotel.
As they drove, his friend told him what a HUGE blessing that money would be to them. He told him that just a few days before, he’d given his wife his last $40 to buy groceries for the week. He had put $10 of gas in her car and $3 in his, hoping to make it to the end of the week when his next paycheck would come. They had been able to meet their basic expenses like rent, electricity, gas, etc, but right now, they had no cash flow and things were very tight.
His unexpected cash gift was a BIG answer to prayer and came at just the right time!
Isn’t that cool? From the outside, they looked like any other family. The man had no idea they were in need. They never mentioned it to him. But thank God, he listened to the Holy Spirit, he obeyed and didn’t second guess himself. Not only did it increase his faith, it also increased theirs – God demonstrated Himself as their Provider without them saying a word to anyone! I love that! ❤
Have you ever had an experience like that? Please feel free to share it below. 🙂
Help Me, Holy Spirit!
“Help Me, Holy Spirit!”
I have found this to be the BEST prayer for everyday life. The Holy Spirit is referred to as our Helper in John 14:26:
But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, will teach you all things,
and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you. – Jesus Christ, The Bible
Oftentimes we don’t know what to pray. Life situations can overwhelm us. We can get so tired or so busy that it seems like an effort to connect with God.
Jesus said that the Holy Spirit would be sent to us by the Father. The Spirit has many functions – one of which is to help us! Isn’t that cool?
I don’t know about you, but I need help every day.
When I’m trying to figure out what to cook for dinner and my mind is drawing a blank, I say, “Help me, Holy Spirit!”. Pretty soon a dinner menu drops into my mind with the ingredients I need (or already have on hand). I know what to make and I know how to make it. Instantly! Sometimes when my family asks, “What is this?” I tell them, “This is a new dish – never before seen on the earth! It’s a new creation. I hope you like it.” They dig in and usually love it! But don’t ask me to make it again because I won’t remember how I made it. It’s like art – you can’t mass produce it and make “prints” from it. 🙂
When I haven’t slept well and the day seems challenging with all that I need to accomplish, I have often found myself walking toward the store saying, “Help me, Holy Spirit.” I discover the energy I need to accomplish all that is on my list to do that day. When I fall into bed that night, I am often amazed at how much got done. I whisper, “Thank you, Holy Spirit, I know that was YOU.” The Spirit can quicken our mortal bodies to have the energy we need to finish our daily race (Romans 8:11).
When a friend calls with a serious relationship problem or a deep question about the meaning of life, I silently pray, “Help me, Holy Spirit!”, as I listen with my heart. Miraculously I open my mouth and say things that seem to help. Often times I’ve never even thought of the things I say – I learn even as I’m speaking! It’s really cool – instant download of new revelation from the Holy Spirit. I call that “hands-on training”. One minute I had no idea what to say and the next minute I sound like I have all this wisdom to help my friend. That’s the Holy Spirit!
Jesus said the Holy Spirit would help us by teaching us all things. He also said the Spirit would bring things to our remembrance. That is very comforting – especially as our minds age and we start forgetting things. Whenever my husband or I misplace something (i.e. keys, wallet or glasses), we cry out, “Help me, Holy Spirit!” and guess what? The missing item shows up. Every time.
I remind people who are in school that if they are struggling with a specific subject (i.e. Calculus, for instance) that they can pray, “Help me, Holy Spirit!”. They will receive supernatural “teaching” to help their mind comprehend what is necessary. And it can’t hurt to pray that same thing just before a test, asking the Spirit to bring to your remembrance the material that was studied. I often experienced supernatural memory recall when I was studying and taking tests for my Masters degree. It reduces your anxiety about big tests when you rely on the Holy Spirit to teach you and help you. 🙂
There are so many situations where this simple prayer can help
- making decisions
- parenting children
- choosing a career
- planning a vacation
- making new friends
- developing a business idea
- making sales calls
- writing a proposal
I encourage you to practice saying this prayer this week and then watch to see what happens. Please come back and tell us what you experienced!
I love this simple prayer! It cultivates in me an attitude of reliance on the Holy Spirit to lead me, guide me, teach me and help me. 🙂
Looking for more? This article appears in a free ebook called Intimate Relationship with God – you can download it here. 🙂
I designed a coffee mug to help me remember to call on the Holy Spirit for help – want one? 🙂 Click here
Miracle on AZ Interstate – Teleported to Safety
This story was submitted by one of my readers – it happened in 1989. Here it is in his own words:
It was a Sunday night sometime prior to 7:00 p.m. It was late fall or winter and it was dark outside. I was on my way to a small Assembly of God church located outside of Phoenix, off Interstate 10. At this location the Interstate had four westbound lanes – three for normal traffic flow and one for carpooling.
This particular section of the Interstate (the area between 75th & 79th Avenues) was very unusual for two reasons: first, there was an on-ramp located only a very short distance from an off-ramp – a very small distance between locations where you could enter or exit the Interstate. Second, the off-ramp was located in the median, which required exiting vehicles to use the carpooling lane as the access point for the off-ramp. The net result of this design was that the actual entry point for the on-ramp was extremely close to the exit point for the off-ramp (the distance between 75th and 79th Avenues is only 1/2 mile).
[KW: Based on the photo I found on the internet (below), it looks like the distance on the interstate is even shorter – 1/4 mile, about 1300 feet]
On this particular occasion I was proceeding westerly in the extreme left lane. The carpooling lane was to my left. I had just passed a vehicle in the extreme right westbound lane. Immediately after driving under the 75th Avenue overpass which produced the on-ramp to the Interstate, I noticed that a large semi truck was barreling down the on-ramp. I wasn’t concerned, however, because I was in the far left lane.
The semi came to the Interstate entry point ahead of me. Then for whatever unknown reason, the semi immediately began moving across all of the westbound lanes. When I saw him begin to drift toward me, I didn’t realize that he wasn’t just moving into my lane, he was actually attempting to exit off the 79th Avenue exit ramp in the median area. In a matter of a couple of seconds the semi had blocked the center lane, far left lane and the carpooling lane in something of a diagonal line. I was no more than fifty yards away from the semi, traveling at an Interstate speed – it was directly in front of me, blocking all paths of escape.
When I realized I had nowhere to go, I jammed on the brakes. Too late. I saw the front of my car impacting just behind the front wheel of the semi’s trailer. I was going to slam into that trailer.
Then my field of vision was obscured by what seemed to be a lightweight, almost transparent curtain of grey. All I could see was a sheet of grey; the semi was no longer visible. The next sensation I had was like taking my hands off the steering wheel. In a matter of less than two seconds, it seemed as if my hands returned to the steering wheel. I could once again see what was in front of me – I was still in the left lane. I was just coming out from under the 79th Avenue overpass associated with the median off-ramp and I was calmly driving down the Interstate. I could still see the semi stretched across the Interstate in my rear-view mirror. In a matter of moments, the car which had been in the right lane came alongside me and maintained that position for several seconds, perhaps wondering if I really was the same car that should have smashed into the semi’s trailer. I kept driving and arrived at the church.
I knew God was real a very long time before this event occurred. I do not believe in God because of this experience. But I will say this: If you and your vehicle are ever physically “translated” (a Biblical term used to describe what happened), teleported or “beamed up” (to use a Star Trek expression), you are not going to doubt the existence of God. Believe me. Only God can do what I experienced that night. And I have absolutely no idea why this event occurred in my life. – C.T.
Wow – What a story! I have read of this happening to other people so I believe this is a true story. Imagine if he had hit that semi, it would have looked like this:
C.T. says he doesn’t know why it happened to him. Well I think I have an idea – he was meant to live. Sometimes God intervenes and saves us from physical harm for His own purposes. We don’t understand why it happens exactly but we know there is a reason.
Do you have a story of the supernatural to share? If so, post it below as a comment or send it to me via email as a future guest post. I love to get submissions from my readers! 🙂
Holy Ghost Movie – FREE until Monday night (9/8/2014)
Hey, Movie Watchers, have you seen the new film “Holy Ghost”? It’s pretty “out there” for most people. It’s definitely challenging – most people don’t know how to describe the Holy Spirit (or Holy Ghost) much less make a movie about Him. If this topic intrigues you, you might enjoy this film. It’s not a dry documentary. It’s one man’s passion to find God actually engaging with everyday people. It’s worth watching, in my opinion.
And the best part? It’s free to watch today and tomorrow if you go to this link: http://holyghost.wpfilm.com/
Offer expires Monday night, 9/8/2014 at 5pm PST or 8pm CST.
Enjoy!
Angel experience? Fear, bright lights and ??
Rating: Strange, inspirational
This has got to be one of the strangest experiences I have had with the unseen realm. It happened in Garden Valley, Texas. When I was in college, my boyfriend attended a school that was held at Last Days Ministries, started by Keith and Melody Green. This experience happened about 1989.
I had driven over from Louisiana to Texas to visit my boyfriend. There were girls’ dorms and boys’ dorms. It was during Spring break so most people were gone. There were only a few girls left in the dorms. My boyfriend had one of the girls show me to an empty room where I could stay for the night. There were 4 bunk beds in the room and a few dressers. The room looked crowded with the four bunk beds – each one had 3 beds (vertically). It was quite a sight. I could not imagine what it must have been like for those girls to share a room with 12 women. I was thankful I would be the only one there that night.
I got ready for bed and turned out the light. Boy, was it dark! Even when my eyes adjusted to the darkness, I couldn’t see the room or the other beds around mine. I had elected to stay in the middle bunk of the 3 vertical beds. It was easier to get in and out of – the top one was too high and the bottom one was almost on the floor.
I fell asleep and suddenly woke up very afraid. I lay perfectly still, straining my ears and eyes to figure out what was making me so afraid. I didn’t hear anything and I couldn’t see anything in the darkened room. For some reason, I was terrified. I did not have a nightmare. I woke up to a presence in the room that made me very scared.
I desperately wanted to leave the bedroom, but it was so dark and I was so frightened that I was afraid to leave the bed. I didn’t know what to do. I closed my eyes and tried to block out the fear. I thought maybe if I just laid there quietly, I would fall asleep or the fear would go away. It didn’t work. I opened my eyes again. The fear was with me as palpable as if someone was in the room ready to kill me. My anxiety was mounting. I really wanted to leave the room now, but it was so dark I was petrified to do so. I could not see the door to the room and I felt disoriented – I remembered that there was a lot of furniture in the room, but I couldn’t make out where it was and I didn’t want to try and run across the room and fall on something.
I closed my eyes and prayed, “Jesus, please help me!” I opened my eyes again and suddenly the room was filled with light! I stared at the room, looking around quickly. Then it went dark again. Still feeling deeply afraid, I thought, “I’ve got to go NOW!” I jumped out of the bed and dashed to the door. Once I got out in the hallway, I saw light coming from under a door nearby. I pushed gently on the door and discovered it was a large bathroom with several sinks and stalls. There was a woman there. She introduced herself as Ana. She took one look at me and asked if I was okay.
I told her I was afraid. That something made me uncomfortable in the room. She walked with me to the main gathering room where there were couches. We sat and talked. I told her what happened. I normally didn’t talk about these things back then because people didn’t understand when I did. But somehow I knew she would listen and not judge me or think I was crazy. When I asked what time it was, she said it was a little after midnight. So I’d only been asleep maybe an hour or so.
As we sat there talking, another woman came in the front door. She spoke to us briefly and then went to her room. I asked Ana if there was a reason my room was suddenly filled with light. When I saw the girl come in, I thought to myself, “Oh, maybe a car pulled up and dropped her off. That would explain the bright lights shining in my room.” Ana walked with me back to the room. I pointed out which way I had been laying in the bed and where the light was coming from. There was a window on that wall. I started to assume the natural explanation to my weird experience and said so to Ana.
She shook her head and said, “Come here.” She opened the blinds and had me look out the window. She said, “Look, your room is on the back of this building. The parking lot is in the front. No cars drive back here. Look for yourself.” I stepped closer to the window and looked around. Sure enough, there was a large empty field back there. No street lights, no place for a car to drive, nothing. It was like undeveloped land – just open empty space. There wasn’t even a dirt path for walking. [The next day I went outside during the daytime and confirmed this.]
I walked away and shook my head. Both Ana and I puzzled about it and could not come up with any natural way that bright lights could have shone into my room. The only explanation I have come up with is that when I asked Jesus for help, He sent a couple of angels to bring light to my darkness so I could escape my fear.
She and I prayed together. I went back to bed and slept until morning with no other weird experiences.
So, was it angels? I have always thought so. Part of what convinced me was the timing. Total blackness and fear in the room. I asked Jesus for help, opened my eyes and the room was filled with light. Then after I got a chance to look around and get my bearings, it went dark again. Completely dark. What are the odds of it happening that way by chance?
Many people experience light in the presence of angels. Usually a comforting light. Even the show, Touched by an Angel, used a light halo to cause angel Monica to glow whenever she revealed her true identity.
Have you ever experienced supernatural light when you really needed it? Feel free to share below! Tell me I’m not alone please. 🙂
Caught by Angels
Rating: Pleasant
There was a short season in my life when I was fascinated with angels. I knew they were available to assist us – but I had never experienced that personally. I came across a couple of books by Roland Buck in the library at a YWAM base where I was in school. I also read a few other books on angels which I don’t recall the names of. All in all, I learned a few things about angels and their interaction with people.
One of the primary things that people reported were that angels did not make their presence known. Either the angel appeared as a regular human being and the person figured it out later, or they saw no one, but had supernatural help. In fact, I read many stories of people who were rescued by angels and saw no human being nearby. For instance, I remember a story of two children who were crossing a street and a bystander saw the children lifted up in the air and then placed on the opposite curb just as a car sped around the corner. Had the children still been in the street, they would have been killed. The bystander rushed to the children to make sure they were okay – the children had no idea what had just happened. They “blanked out” and had no memory other than starting to cross the street. They didn’t recall the speeding car or how they ended up on the other side of the street. (They didn’t “black out” or they would have fainted and fallen over. “Blanked out” means there’s simply a complete blank in your memory – you have no recall whatsoever.)
A few months after all this reading I did on angels, I had my own experience with them – or at least, I think I did. I had moved to another YWAM base and was living in a trailer. The back of the trailer had rickety wood steps that led up to a short porch which gave you access to the door near the kitchen. One morning as I was getting ready to leave for church, I decided to make two glasses of instant breakfast – the chocolate kind that you mix into a glass of milk. I walked out on that little porch with my purse over my shoulder and a full glass of milk in each hand.
My husband had gone ahead of me to warm up the car. I stood on the porch and looked out to see if he had pulled up yet. He was not there so I intended to carefully descend the steps and walk out to meet him. Except that I never made it. My last memory is of standing on the porch looking for him. The next thing I know I am lying in the grass, face down, with my head tilted to one side. Each hand was still wrapped around the glasses of milk on either side of me.
I opened my eyes and sat up. My pretty green dress was now covered with chocolate milk. My hair was also wet from the milk. I stood up, trying to get my bearings. I felt no pain. Just then, my husband pulled up in the car. I waved at him and turned and went up the stairs. I knew I needed to get cleaned up so we could leave for church.
I have replayed this scene in my mind many times trying to figure out what happened. If I had fallen, I expect I would have felt some pain in my body from the impact. The porch was at least 2-3 feet off the ground. If I had lost my balance trying to descend, then I would have put my hands out to catch myself from falling. It seems I would have dropped at least one of the glasses of milk. But I was completely unharmed and the milk glasses were still in my hands. They were made of glass and neither one was broken.
The only explanation I could find was that two angels must have caught me and laid me gently in the grass so that I wouldn’t get hurt. I have no memory of putting my foot on the first step – maybe that’s when they caught me, maybe I missed the step or the step tilted suddenly as it sometimes did and I would have fallen.
The fact that I had no pain at all is what convinced me I was helped by angels – and that I had no memory of how I got in the grass. That same “blanked out” experience that so many people reported.
Have you had a similar “unexplainable” experience that could only be explained by some kind of divine intervention? If so, feel free to share it below.
Discernment of the Supernatural Realm 