The Call Recap - Part 1
I'm sitting in my office trying to figure out what to tell you about The Call.
It was awesome.
But, not like "awesome" like how pizza or a concert is "awesome."
More in a full-of-awe kind of way.
Twelve hours.
Tens of Thousands of People.
Fasting.
Praying.
Worshiping.
I was super excited about going, but I think I really expected something like an incredible music fest.
This was so much more.
SO much more.
7/7/07: We got up at 4:30am on Saturday morning. Partly because we wanted a really good seat. Partly because we couldn't sleep anyways.
Almost all of us had dreams that night from the Lord.
Mine was simply this:
Several of us were going to a wedding on top of a mountain.
I'm not totally clear whose wedding it was; though somehow I think it was N's and Nelle's. We were in military fatigues and we were doing cadet-style physical fitness training. Sometimes stopping to do sit-ups and push-ups, sometimes crawling on our hands and knees, then on our bellies, the entire way up the mountain. And the whole time, we kept talking about how well this was preparing us for the wedding.
So... anyways... we were up at 4:30am and at the stadium at 5am.
The gates opened at 8am, and the music had already started.
From 8am-10am (when the fast was officially supposed to start) we worshiped. It was great. Tons of people filtering in from all over the nation. Worshiping in one voice. It was powerful.
But then, at 10am, it officially started.
I don't even know how to tell you what happened.
For almost three hours, the stadium was filled with a spirit of repentance and brokenness.
It was physically painful at some parts.
We were completely heartbroken.
It was a divorce.
On behalf of the nation, we divorced the spirit of Baal to whom we had been married for forty years.
In the Old Testament, Baal was worshiped in two primary ways: human sacrifice (especially babies) and prostitution.
In 1967, during the summer of love, the United States entered into a covenant marriage with that spirit.
We prostituted ourself as a nation.
Six years later, in 1973, Roe v. Wade was decided and abortion was legalized in our nation.
For the last forty years, murder and sexual perversion has become the norm, especially effecting the youth in our nation.
And so on 7-7-07, on behalf of the nation, we divorced that spirit.
The thing about divorce is that it is the breaking of a covenant. And anytime a covenant is broken, even if it is a bad covenant, there is a "breaking" or "brokenness" that occurs.
Even nature responded to this brokenness.
At the start of the day, there was a wonderful cloud cover. It was cool and breezy and absolutely wonderful.
Then the leaders got up and began to talk about the different things that we needed to repent of as a nation.
To start with, they pulled up different people groups and asked for repentance for the injustices done to those groups.
Once they finished talking about what was done to each of the groups, a spirit of repentance fell on the stadium. There was massive crying and even wailing and calling out to the Lord for repentance.
As the spirit of repentance fell, the sun would come out from behind the clouds and heat up the stadium. It was hot, and dry, and nasty. We were on our faces, crying and drooling and snotting into the ground. It was disgusting. It was painful. It was miserable. It was the very definition of "brokenness."
And then, as quickly as it came, the spirit would lift and the sun would go back behind the cloud.
This happened EVERY time they called for repentance.
At the end, a representative from each of the people groups who asked everyone in that people group to stand. Then they began to declare blessings and a breaking of the generational curses that have come down from these past injustices.
I thought the entire thing was awesome, but there was one people group with which the Holy Spirit completely overwhelmed me personally: The Native Americans.
There was massive repentance for their mistreatment.
Sam Brownback, a U.S. Senator and presidential hopeful, asked for forgiveness on behalf of the government for atrocities that were carried out against the Native American people.
Then when the representative came to the mic and asked us to stand, I did. (My grandfather's grandmother was Cree, and there is Cherokee further up my dad's line.)
As he began to decree blessings over that group, he let out a war cry in his native language. My knees buckled under me as I felt the Spirit of the Lord. I weeped and wailed (as the sun was coming out). I could not stand, and my face was on the ground.
I'm not sure why this effected me so much, except that maybe some of those generational curses had been on me, without my knowledge.
For whatever reason, I was completely broken over this people group.
We also confessed and repented of sexual immorality. That was our next big area of repentance.
It was intense and very difficult to do. But, in the end, I felt a heaviness lifted.
Finally, we prayed over the area of abortion.
Wow.
This impacted me the most of anything else throughout the day.
First, a girl who had an abortion got up and repented on behalf of all women in the nation who had an abortion.
Second, a woman who had been an abortion doctor, repented on behalf of the doctors performing the murders.
Third, a man who had financed his girlfriend's abortion got up and repented on behalf of the men in the nation who supported, condoned, or financed abortions.
Finally, a young lady (who had been born since 1973) and, on behalf of the murdered babies, extended forgiveness to our nation.
There are no words to describe what happened next.
The sun came out, the entire stadium started wailing.
I personally started having labor pains.
Literally, my entire stomach cramped up and began to contract.
At first, I thought I was just severely dehydrated, but then realized that it was something the Lord was doing in me.
I could not stand up straight. I was doubled over sobbing from the pain and from the spirit of repentance for the death of all those babies!
This one perhaps took the longest. But then, as quickly as it had come, it left. And we all began to worship!!!
However, after this time of repentance, the sun never went back behind the cloud.
By this point it was almost 1pm, and IT WAS HOT!!!!
For the next 3 hours or so, there was very little reprieve from the sun.
I don't think I have ever been so miserable in my life.
It was ridiculously hot. I had salt caked all over my body from where my sweat had evaporated. We went to refresh our water bottles every hour or so. But within 30 minutes of putting cold water in them, they became as hot as a cup of coffee or hot tea. There was no refreshing ourselves with water. Sure, we drank water because we didn't want to pass out, but there was no pleasure in drinking it. No reprieve.
I think I finally know what the word "parched" means.
I could feel my skin baking.
And it was during this time, that we were remarrying the Lord.
There was awesome worship and an amazing presence of the Lord there.
Three brides actually got married - fully dressed in their wedding gowns, their pastors married them to their grooms. How amazing is that?
God sang spontaneous love songs to us through the musicians.
And all I could do was lie down. Most of the stadium was lying or sitting down. Very few were still standing and worshiping. It was just too hot.
I kept asking the Lord for a cloud cover. And there were times when it looked like it might happen. But then the clouds would move in a different direction, and we had no shade.
(Yesterday, I asked the Lord why He allowed it to be so miserable during the part where we were supposed to be getting married, and He reminded me of the passage in Hosea 2: "[v3]I will strip her naked and make her as bare as on the day she was born; I will make her like a dessert, turn her into a parched land, and slay her with thirst....[v14] Therefor I am now going to allure her; I will lead her into the desert and speak tenderly to her....[v16] "In that day," declares the Lord, "you will call me 'my husband;' you will no longer call me 'my master.'" I will remove the names of the Baals from her lips; no longer will their names be invoked. In that day I will make a covenant for them.... [v19]I will betroth you to me forever; I will betroth you in righteousness and justice, in love and compassion. I will betroth you in faithfulness, and you will acknowledge the Lord. "In that day I will respond," declares the Lord - "I will respond to the skies, and they will respond to the earth.")
And that is exactly what happened!!!!
.................
Ok... I'm wiped out just from typing about it. So I'm going to stop here. I will come back and tell you more in a later entry.
Bye!