In Canada

I'm in Canada right now as I'm sure you've guessed from my creative title. It was a great trip. The only problem was at the very beginning at 7:30 in the morning when I discovered (after having all 3 kids buckled into car seats) that the battery in the van was dead. After waking up the Chas', they sent Mark over to save us and we were finally on the highway by 9:00.

What can I say? God is good, very good. We stopped very little and the kids did great. I had new worship music and 4 new Rob Rufus sermons on my Mp3 player and had great conversation with God much of the way. Two of the sermons were about giving authoritative commands for healing. I was deeply affected by them and had tears running down my face many times. Then I had a little conversation with God while listening to Matt Redman's newest cd for the first time. I just finished telling him I would do whatever he wanted me to do IF, then the Spirit checked me and I finished the IF with IF you tell me to. I actually wanted to say IF it's not too crazy,If you promise to come through. In my mind, I was standing in front of a person in a wheelchair and the Spirit was telling me to say "in the name of Jesus get up!". I wanted to have God's promise that if that situation ever arose and I did that then the person would of course be miraculously healed. I didn't get that promise, but He got mine. Oh what have I done!!!!! Come to think of it, one of my mother's best friends is in a wheelchair and not a believer. I won't meet her until my sister's wedding this summer. Hmmmm, this could make for an interesting situation. Oops, I forgot the rest of my story. No sooner did I finish saying yes to God then the song came on "Yes and Amen" (click to read lyrics). It was a bit surreal and very wonderful.

This all got me thinking about the importance of prophetic songwriting in the church. I'm not going to get into it right now, but I was very encouraged to write songs again. I've always felt many of my songs have a prophetic nature in that they are specific messages to the church (and to me) and encouraging us to prepare our hearts for what God wants to do in us. I have a suspicion many other worship songwriters would share a similar belief, and I hope more and more pastors and leaders in churches will begin to recognize this and learn to judge songs on more than just technicalities. Trust me, I'm not trying to advocate using bad songs, just that maybe we should broaden our view of what God might want to use a song for.

Today I spent some time browsing in the local Christian bookstore not finding too much I'm afraid. I was looking for something on healing, but apparently this is not a very 'charismatic' town! So I came out with "The Normal Christian Life" by Watchman Nee, Dutch Blitz (a card game I've been searching for thanks to Steve and Katie), and a cd from a local worship band now called Somers I think. So needless to say, I was quite surprised (more like shocked) when tonight out of the blue my dad hands me a book about the life of John G. Lake! If you knew my dad, it would shock you too. He said someone left it at work, and he read it and thought it quite good, though he didn't agree with everything. My dad is a car salesman and I'm not sure I expected him to come up with a book like this from there. I certainly didn't expect that my father would know more about John G. Lake than I do even though I know very little. Anyway, I'm very excited to start reading it tonight along with "Rees Howells: Intercessor" by Norman Grubb, and Luke/Acts.

I'm also very excited that I'm planning on spending a night at the local Prayer Mountain, which is really just an old motel owned and operated by a Christian couple who have devoted it to a place of prayer for believers. I plan on taking my guitar and Bible and not much else. I'm dying for some quiet alone with God time.