Word on “hell-storms”
On April the 9th, I was coming to the end of a long journey of ministry and travel that had been going on for about 3 months. That particular week, on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday, I had been to Flat Rock, NC doing a clergy retreat and then left Flat rock on the afternoon of Friday and drove to Asheville to do a service with our parish there and then got up Saturday morning and drove to Charlotte to have a 1pm service, that didn’t start until 2pm and didn’t end till after 4pm. I then got into my car to drive back home, knowing I would get there very late towards midnight and would then get up on sunday to do the service at Christ the King. For months, I had been looking forward to that drive home, even though I enjoyed the travel and ministry, because I knew I had been tiring and would be getting home late, but it also represented the end of an intensive 3 months of being gone, doing ministry, and once I got home, I would be there for 3 or 4 weeks, would not have to travel and would be able to get some rest and be with my family. So there had been that growing sense of desperation to get in my car at the end of that service on April 9th to get home and it was going to be a long drive after a long week of ministry.
When I got into my car, I had been on the road for maybe 10 mn on interstate 85 when it began to rain, then rain heavily and finally it turned to hail. Within a few minutes, I was in the heaviest hailstorm I had ever experienced, hail the size of tennis balls. I kept expecting and waiting, in light of the amount of noise they made as they hit my car, for my windshield to break. I knew that if my windshield broke, I would not make it home. I would have to pull over somewhere, try to get it fixed, probably have to wait till the next day Monday or Tuesday and it would be a while longer before I got home. So there grew in me an even stronger sense of desperation, and a crying out to God, kind of a holy balance, almost a gift of faith. I was just declaring things, there was a violent intercession, it was almost fun; it was a strange experience. I knew the thing I needed to do was to keep moving. I had learned a long time ago that when you are in a bad storm, no matter how bad it is, that if you will just keep moving, even if it’s very slowly, that you will get out of it quicker. I was in the middle lane and after a few minutes, what happened is everyone panicked and traffic came to a total stop. I was like screaming, not out of anger or frustration like sometimes when you are caught in traffic, but it was like a prophetic thing, an intercessory thing aimed at the people to keep moving, to keep going. I wanted to reach my destination, I wanted to get home.
Eventually, we started moving and my windshield didn’t break; I did get home late that night. The next day, when I got up, I saw the thousands of dents in my hood, trunk and on top of the car. So my thought was: “I hope the insurance will cover all this”. Well that was on Saturday morning the 10th and the Lord really started to speak some strong prophetic thing to me.
During this time when the Lord has planted his promises in the hearts of so many of his people, when he has created a holy desperation in so many of his people for his presence, his glory, his power and his anointing, to be involved at the highest level in his purposes, to have our lives under an open heaven, to be desperate to arrive at these spiritual destinations, we were going to encounter some “hell”-storms and that as we move towards these destinations, the enemy was going to try to stop us and scare us into thinking that we were not going to make it.
But the truth is that even though you can expect some “hell” storms and some of them may be the worst you have ever experienced, if you will just keep moving, just keep believing, no matter how slow and how difficult it is, just keep moving, just keep walking with the Lord, don’t give up on your desperation to arrive at those spiritual destinies you are hoping for and believing God for, the things that God has impregnated your spirit with, just keep moving. If you will do that, you will get to that place. You will arrive at those spiritual destinies, those prophetic destinies of the promises of God, that represent the desperation of your heart. You will arrive there. You will reach those places; when you get there, you may find that you are all dented up. But the good news is that God has an insurance plan too. It’s an assurance plan, and his insurance plan is that when you get to those places, you may be all dented up but when He gets through with you, you will look like new. There won’t be any dents and you will actually look better, be better than when you started and encountered the hell storms.
This is, I think, a really important and powerful word for us, so we are not surprised at the hell storms that come, that we understand that they are meant to slow us down, or stop us, or distract us, or make us believe that we won’t reach those places that we are believing God for, and the Lord wants you to know that you will get there, just keep moving and even though when you get there, you may be dented up, the Lord will heal all that and when He is through, you will look better than when you started.
