30 Days Ablaze
…and when the song was raised, with trumpets and cymbals and other musical instruments, in praise to the Lord, “For he is good, for his steadfast love endures forever,” the house, the house of the Lord, was filled with a cloud…2 Chronicles 5:13
We have come to the 30th day of the fast and I am expecting that the next 10 days will at least, in a measure, be days of awe. I am asking God for an AWEwakening in my own life and for the many others that I am praying for.
In the 1980s our church, pastored by Che Ahn had a 30 day awakening. Many times in my life I have experienced somewhat of a “come away My beloved” tug. An inward desire maybe spawned by a dream, scripture or still small voice, draws me into a seeking time which leads to a finding time. Believe it or not, I was the worship leader in those days. Our worship team began to yearn to experience a prophetic anointing in worship that would lead to people getting saved without an altar call. For 30 days we fasted holding prayer meetings almost nightly. We were crying, “Open the heavens!”
On the 29th night, I was reading about King Saul. When he came into the presence of the sons of the prophets who were playing their instruments, he was basically slain in the spirit and prophesied all day long. I was pondering this in my heart, “What kind of worship brings kings under such an influence?” Suddenly I began to experience a deep groan in my spirit that continued for maybe an hour. I knew the Holy Spirit was praying through me and that the next morning’s worship service would be a day of an encounter. It would be the 30th day.
Our church was not a wild congregation, though we loved the prophetic and the freedom of expression. The worship was somewhat ordinary that morning until the lead guitar player began to release a prophetic chord progression. At the same moment, a woman felt led to come down from the balcony and take one of the singers microphones (that should never have happened.) I began to sing spontaneously and she echoed the same lines:
We gaze upon Your purity
We gaze upon Your beauty
We gaze upon Your loveliness
Holy incense do we bring
We gaze into an open heaven…
As we sang that line it was like heaven exploded in the congregation. Pandemonium broke out, people were running and dancing in the aisles. Some began crying out, “We see angels! We see angels!” People were saved when no one could preach, for God had done the preaching. God had visited our 30 day fast with a glory bomb and for weeks people were healed and saved in our times of worship.
So now once again, let’s open our hearts with the expectation of God showing up; or feeding us with bread from heaven; delivering us from addiction; healing a family member. Let’s enter into this day and the following 10 days with faith for an AWEwakening.
