I wanted to share a prophetic vision the Lord gave me concerning Selma. For those of you who aren’t from Selma and who weren’t aware, Thursday, January 12th, Selma was hit by a devastating tornado. I think it is by far the worst natural disaster in Selma’s history. This tornado had an 800-yard path that just did massive destruction.
As I was coming into town on Saturday to attend a meeting of those who are organizing others to be involved in helping in practical, incarnational ways in Selma, I was driving down Highway 80. This is a main thoroughfare that extends through Selma from east to west. I was looking to the right, and beyond the tree covering, I could see the path that the tornado would have gone down, and I was following the path although I was about ½ mile from it.
I had an open vision. In this open vision, I saw these giant trees, like an army of giant trees. I don’t know how many there were, but there were a lot, and they were traveling along the same path, slowly moving along the same path that the tornado had traveled where all the destruction was. I saw that they were ancient-looking trees and I realized they looked a lot like the trees in one of the Lord of the Rings stories that came to help the good guys. They were massive and ancient, and they were talking trees.
And these trees I saw were marching along that path, and I realized they were angels. To help you understand why I think God spoke to me through trees is because Selma has one of the more popular, best known, highest-rated historical sections in the south, and there are a lot of old 200 to 300-year-old oaks in parts of Selma in the path of the tornado, a large number of which were lost. But as I saw these trees moving along, and I realized they were angels, the Lord began to speak to me that these trees were like this army and they were healing. They were healing things like fear, anxiety and despair, and hopelessness because a lot of people lost everything. Some did not have insurance amidst massive destruction. But they were healing a lot of things – hurts and wounds and pain. They were also destroying structures – structures like suspicion, division, racism, pride, anger, bitterness, resentment, and unforgiveness – in every realm they were moving in.
Then the Lord began to speak to me about the trees that were destroyed. Many people who have talked to me about the tornado and about the personal loss have also been saying things like, “Selma will never be the same again. I’m going to miss those trees.” And it won’t be the same. The landscape got changed forever.
I put a word out on Aslan Roars’ website, aslanroars.org, and on Facebook about how God is going to use this attack of the enemy to propel Selma forward in their destiny and to fulfill her destiny at a faster level. That’s just the way God works anytime the enemy tries to destroy, or he throws the kitchen sink, so to speak, at a person, a people, or a city. It’s because that person, people, or city is on a precipice of a breakthrough that people have been praying into. And the enemy’s trying to stop it, and he’s frightened. When he’s frightened, he becomes very vicious, and he rages because he’s afraid that they will break through. But instead of him stopping the breakthrough, what happens is that the Lord uses that to pull the people into the breakthrough at an even faster pace, so they end up taking more territory than they were even praying for or dreaming about. And the enemy ends up losing territory that he will never recover; he’ll end up suffering losses he’ll never get over.
I believe the Lord is saying in terms of the trees, and my vision of the trees is that Selma isn’t going to be the same again. And God doesn’t want it to be the same again. Selma is going to be totally different. And God is going to raise up a whole new Selma. It’s going to look different. It’s going to sound different. It’s going to be different. Because this is part of what God has been doing.
There’s been a word about a Selma revival, and it’s been an emerging one for years and years. We are still in the early stages, but I believe God is going to use this. The enemy has tried to use this situation to stop the revival, but God is going to use it to propel us forward and do some amazing things in a short period of time that may have taken decades to be accomplished because the Lord is going to speak into this tragedy and triumph is going to come forth out of it.
I wanted to just encourage Selmians and those outside Selma how to pray into Selma as these giant ancient angels have come to heal ancient things and to destroy ancient structures, spiritual structures, emotional structures, and any other structures so that God’s purposes can be propelled. The enemy always overplays his hand. The Lord doesn’t cause these things, but he causes all things to work together for good. God has released these giant angels that are ministering and accomplishing and going to keep accomplishing until we see a whole new Selma.
The other day, I was rereading the last battle from the Chronicles of Narnia when Lucy was seeing into the future and the restoration of all things. She was seeing England, and she was seeing Narnia. And England seemed different. Then the word was spoken, “That’s the real England.” It was a renewed, restored, new heavens, new earth, new future kind of thing. We know that’s going to be so everywhere on earth one day, but it spoke to me about England in the here and now.
I believe that, in a sense, we are going to see the real Selma. Not the one that will be fully redeemed as it will be when Christ comes again, but a redeemed Selma, something very unique and special.
So, I just wanted to give this word to encourage those who are living here and who live outside the city so you can pray into what God is doing in raising up this new Selma. Bless you. I love you so much. And for all you Selmians, we are walking this out together. Amen.