Post # 53 – BLOGGING THE BOOK – REVISITED

On Saturday, August 13, 2011, over a month before A Guide for Listening and Inner-HealingPrayer was officially published, Post # 2 on this forum was titled “Blogging the Book.” Many of us are reluctant to offer our comments on the Internet. But, if you’ve read and worked through the book, I’m asking you to step out of your comfort zone and share your experience. Or perhaps you haven’t read the book, but were helped by something you saw on the blog. I’d love to hear from you as well. You can do this anonymously, share your initials, or use your name.  Please let us know your city and country.

Why am I asking this? Good question! Your comment will be used to encourage and minister to people all around the globe in their relationship and experience with God. So far, there’ve been nearly a quarter of a million pageviews on the “Listening to God Forum.” People from every continent except Antarctic and sixty different nations have spent time reading the blog. Your comment will be used of Jesus to encourage and minster to people in countries you’ll probably never be able to visit. Wouldn’t you like to help someone in India, Ethiopia, Belarus, or Slovenia to know God the Father more deeply? Or if you live in Russia, China, Seychelles or Pakistan, wouldn’t you like to be a blessing to your brothers and sisters in the Philippines, Moldova, Côte d’Ivoire or the United States?

To prime the pump, Harriet from Texas in the USA gave me permission to share a little of her story. Harriet worked through the book and was impacted deeply. She is now helping others to listen to God. Here’s her story.

Dear Rusty,

First of all I want to thank you so much for all the resources and your prayers for me as I gave a talk on Listening Prayer to a group of Spanish-speaking women recently.  It turned out to be a VERY RAINY day after not having rain for a LONG time, so that made traffic terrible.  I came into the dinner soaking wet and some people no doubt didn’t come at all because of it.  However, we did have about 30 ladies.  It began with technical difficulties.  Of course, when we tested things in advance everything was fine, but when it was the “real McCoy” it was a different story.  I realized this was an attack from the enemy so while two ladies jumped in to help I prayed with the other ladies for the enemy to be bound and for Jesus to be exalted.  That’s exactly what happened!

There was also a little bit of a battle between the main organizer/emcee and myself.  She kept turning up the volume of the background music and I kept turning it down.  I sat right next to the amplifier so I’m sure it was louder where I sat.

As to the message itself, it went well, and I was so grateful to access a lot of the material already translated.  I was a little apprehensive when I gave the ladies time to practice listening to God.  In fact, as I sat down my hand was shaking and I could hardly write as all of a sudden I panicked, thinking people would NOT be able to hear from God, exactly what you experienced, Rusty, when you first did this.  However, my fears were soon dissipated when the first person to share what God had said to her was just four days old in the Lord.  Another lady was with us for the first time ever and both ladies ended with the same phrase from God, “I love you!”  In talking one on one with various ladies that night and since, I could tell that God spoke deeply to most of the ladies.  Each one also took home a bookmark to remember the main principles.

God is so much more real to me personally not only from this experience, but because yesterday our church began a series called “Soul Revolution.”  Our church family and another church in the city are taking a 60/60 challenge (every 60 minutes during daylight hours for 60 days).  So we pause once an hour to acknowledge Jesus and engage with Him. There are no rules or formula prayers, just stop and talk to God, asking Him to lead and guide you the next hour, or be silent before Him and let Him speak to you. The key is to stop what you're doing every 60 minutes. Come before God, and respond to His Spirit.  Yesterday was the first day and I wrote eight pages of all God did.  What will the next 59 be like?  Good question.  I’m excited to say the least.

Most gratefully yours,

Harriet

A number of people have shared that they tried to leave a comment at the end of a post and couldn’t get Google Blog to accept their commentary. If you have difficulty sharing your story below, just send it to me via L2G.Forum@gmail.com and I’ll post it for you.