Dreaming Beneath the Spires

Anita Mathias's Blog on Faith and Art

In Which All Our Faith is Patchy, But Even That is Potent

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My eighteen-year old daughter, Zoe, is at the School of Ministry at Catch the Fire, Toronto.

She and the other School of Ministry students ministered at the same Catch the Fire conference as John Arnott and Heidi Baker. They were told to pray boldly, that everyone gets to play, that everyone was equal before God.

However, she said, when John Arnott, a stocky matter-of-fact Canadian, stands before someone, hold out his hand, and declares, “Fire,” they fall down, “slain in the spirit.” However, when the 18-year olds hold out their hands and say “Fire,”—well, it’s not the same!

I laughed.

It is a problem in the spiritual life, isn’t it?

* * *

Why are some people’s prayers answered, and not others? Why are we healed when some pray, but not when others pray? Why do you know the prayer will be answered when you hear by a certain timbre in a woman’s voice that she has entered the throne room –but when another prays, you think, “Aw, sound nice”?

The pray-ers life has something to do with it. “For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.” 1 Peter 3:12. Wilfully persisting in sin creates a massive barrier between us and God.

But it also comes down to faith. Arnott has no doubt the Holy Spirit will come on request. He is sure the Fire wants to dwell within us, and he prays fervently, and it comes.   Bill Johnson has no doubt God will heal, and so he does when Bill prays.

Last year, I heard Isabel Allum riff on all the lost objects which miraculously turned up as she prayed for them—contact lenses, medicine, satnavs, diamond earrings. She has no doubt they will be found, and God arranges this.

I am reading Mark Batterson’s The Circle Maker. Mark believes that God will give him horrendously expensive properties in Washington D.C. (where land goes for $14 million an acre) and God does–through a combination of donations, sheer chutzpah, persistence, and the wild success of Mark’s books, a significant portion of which he donates to the Church.

Heidi Baker tells stories of the dead being raised, of an orphanage gift of used stuffed dogs (feared in Africa) being changed to beads at her prayer, of the dead being raised to life, the blind seeing, the deaf hearing. She knows God, she has no doubt that God will step down to help us on request, and so he does.

* * *

The way to form a new habit is to take a goal (lose a pound a week, wake a hour earlier, read a book a week, write a thousand words a day) and divide it to its smallest measurable increment (250 words a day, wake 5 minutes early, read 5 pages a day, lose half a pound a week) and go from there.

In prayer, however, the opposite is true. Pray as big as you dare believe. Write down your dreams. If you desire to see what you’ve written doubled (and you may not!!), then pray that. Daily or weekly, pray through your lists of prayer-dreams. And take steps of faith in accordance with them.

Praying to lose weight? Eat more veggies. Praying to finish your book? Write first thing in the morning. Praying to become organized? Get rid of one thing a day. Praying to wake early? Well…do so.

* * *

We tend to see God’s hand in the areas in which we have the greatest faith that surely he will act. I have seen his miracles and deliverances in my finances most often, because, most of the time, I have an expectant faith that he will help me.

I have begun to pray with faith in creative areas, for God to give me books and for the first time in my life, am experiencing an anointing in writing. You know, when “the right words in the right order” come quickly and easily, as if from a power beyond myself.

After reading The Circle Maker, I have created prayer lists–a page for each of the 30+ areas or people I am praying for–and am praying through every dream, worry or ambition in my life. I am seeing things shift, expand, change at an accelerated rate. Small changes, but so many changes, coincidences and God-incidences, in so many areas, that I can hardly believe it! My faith is growing.

According to your faith be it done to you. Perhaps that’s why we see answers and miracles in one area in which we can see the kind face of Jesus as we pray, and know he will answer our prayers, and, yet remain stuck in another, in which we have less faith that he will help us.

Prayer is truly the greatest force in the world. I have long believed it intellectually. I am now gradually believing it with all my heart.

Listening to Isabel Allum in London. Chasing the Wild Goose of the Holy Spirit. Part II

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 For most of my adult life, I’ve been guided by this thought of Ralph Waldo Emerson, “Why go to drink from other men’s wells, when you can stay home, and be in touch with the internal ocean.”So I avoid listening to speakers on the importance of reading the Bible, of loving your spouse or kids, or praying, or worshipping, or writing daily, or reading poetry daily—preferring to go off and get on with it.

* * *

But yet, there is a time for learn, and a time to be inspired.

When we lived in Williamsburg, Virginia, I worked before a large picture window facing our backyard. Giant iridescent dragonflies flitted around our pond. Monarch butterflies fluttered in their mating dance. Ruby-throated hummingbirds came to our feeders. There were brilliant cardinals and cheeky blue jays.

And I, nose in book, was often oblivious to this world humming with life and colour. Until I looked up.

* * *

So too, spiritually, I can plod. Not in distress, but not on the heights. Not unhappy, but not filled to overflowing with the joy of the Lord either.

But there is so much more. And when you listen to speakers who have scaled higher altitudes of joy or peace or hearing God’s voice, or experiencing miracles, you feel, “Okay, girl, there’s immensity around you. Keep climbing.” And this great cloud of witnesses spurs you on.

* * *

I am chasing the wild goose of the Holy Spirit, and the best thing about this chase is: I am guaranteed to succeed. On the most sacred promise. If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Luke 11:13.

“Everyone can play,” as John Wimber famously said. And everyone who asks for the Spirit receives. It’s a democracy. Like the great democratic marriage feast of the Lamb.

How much of the Holy Spirit will I receive? As much as I am willing to make room by daily repentance. By making time and clearing room. By inviting him to come.

Will everyone who asks receive the same amount? Nope. But that’s more or less okay with me, because I know the King, and I trust him, and know he’s fond of me.

And he will give me as much of the Spirit as I can stand at any given time and as I make room for by repentance, surrender and decluttering my heart and life to make room for him.

* * *

Healthwise, I’d had an awful week or so. A cough. Feeling feverish. Sleeping badly. Exhausted during the day.

So when I saw Isabel Allum was speaking in London, I thought, “Why not go?” I am low-spirited because I am feeling so grotty, and it will be refreshing.

And so I went.

And it was interesting enough.

* * *

A critique of the Toronto Blessing, and the Charismatic Movement is its similarity to magic. I recently chatted to a lovely new committed Christian about how she renounced the occult, including an addiction to fortune-tellers and clairvoyants, which was escalating financial problems, since she was contacting them several times a day, sometimes. Why? I asked. “The hope that something good might happen. The need to know,” she said.

And so, Isabel Allum packed out a hall, because she has a reputation as a prophetess. And what did people hope to hear? Predictions of destiny, greatness, “favour,” “plunder,” becoming famous, receiving the nations as an inheritance?

And I? As I said, I wanted to relax in the presence of God, soak in the things of God. And yes, I wasn’t averse to a prophecy. A confirmation of destiny, though I do have a good idea of what God is planning to do, and is doing in my life. He spoke to me when I was 21, on the day he unleashed my writing gift, out of the blue, and confirmed it last summer. So, I am a bit embarrassed that I wanted a prophetic word, such as was given to me for my daughter Zoe by Patricia Bootsma, but, hey, I did.

By the grace of God, however, I have had very clear direction for the rest of my life, of the path I should take, and now–all I need to do is take it, which is not the easiest thing. Steady step by step, and Paradise Lost gets written, and you reach your Promised Land. A thousand prophecies or none, it would still take obedience. It would still take work. It would still take sacrifice.

* * *

A lot of things Isabel was talking about were I guess “magical.” Stories of lost satnavs, medicines, diamond earrings, tools, appearing. She was like a jazz artist, one riff generating another.

It struck me that we each have faith for different things. For instance, I have faith in God’s financial provision. I pray with faith, and over the years, have experienced many miracles in this realm.

Bill Johnson has faith in God’s “creative miracles”—growing new limbs and new organs. And so he sees that happen. And Isabel magically retrieves lost objects.

I love the rich concept of the Kingdom, a mansion with many rooms. And it means different things to different people. Heidi and Rolland Baker’s concept of the Kingdom is probably closest to Jesus’s—the blind see, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and the good news is preached everywhere.

But there are other aspects of the Kingdom. It is joy. It is peace. It is serenity. It is, as Ann Voskamp paraphrases Paul, being, “worried-full for nothing, thank-full for everything, prayer-full in all things.”

* * *

Isabel talked about a young girl working with her, who went to work in an organic greenhouse, and prayed in tongues all day. And the business boomed, and the plants throve, and the profits rose. The simple act of prayer brought the Kingdom into the greenhouse. I have heard the same stories come out out of Ffald-y-Brenin, once they started praying blessing on neighbouring farms and businesses.

 

And that too is the Kingdom. Praying through your day. Seeing God’s hand in little things (Isabel gives examples of parking spaces, and things being marked down in the grocery store just before you get to that aisle. Seeing it as God’s provision fills our life with joy.) Being thankful. Praying big prayers.

* * *

The medium is often the message. Isabel, a Costa Rican, whose Hispanic accent I often had trouble following, spoke childlikely with a continuous smile. The joy seemed real.

Ah, what prevents me living like that, praying through my day, thanking God for his goodness to me, both evident goodness and goodness I accept by faith? Rejoicing always, praying constantly, in everything giving things. Nothing stops me from trying to live like that! And so I will.

And for that inspiration, I am happy I looked up from my books, and saw a bright ruby-throated hummingbird flutter through an English May; iridescent dragonflies sweep, and monarch butterflies on their prophetic migration.