Spiritual Hunger Conference

My wife and I attended the Spiritual Hunger conference the last weekend of September. We expected to see some cool things. We hoped to receive instruction and impartation. What we received was an incredible experience. It far exceeded our expectations. And it was more about giving than receiving. Bill Johnson was the keynote speaker, giving a message on the kingdom of God each of the first 3 days. I noticed something unique about him. During the opening night’s message, he mentioned the kingdom of God at least 20 times, but never mentioned the church once. I’m coming to realize there is a difference. I won’t go into it now, except to say that Jesus was a passionate teacher on the kingdom of God but only rarely mentioned the church. It’s worth thinking about.

I brought my guitar along hoping to get some practice in…what was I thinking? We left the hotel room early and came back late every night; tired, but spiritually stronger. I also brought along a few books. It’s not really a vacation unless you return home with clothes you didn’t wear and books you didn’t read. We were busy from morning ‘til night making friends, worshipping our hearts out, praying for the sick and prophesying. I was surprised at something God did to me during worship. I saw many people laughing, jumping and being uninhibited during the conference. I was kinda jealous. So God came after me with a feather and tickled me during worship. The spirit of laughter came over me repeatedly and I went into fits of uncontrollable laughing. The joy I experienced was greater than anything I’ve ever known.

I had a dramatic increase in visions while I was at the conference. For a long time, I’ve seen things in the spirit realm every time I closed my eyes. In the last month of two, I haven’t had many visions or words of knowledge. But at the conference my spiritual eyesight went into overdrive. I saw waves of power sweeping over the crowd during worship as well as a mist or fog settling over the crowd during a message. I saw a lot of heavenly scenes and demonic images. I became much more aware of nature of spiritual battle we are in.

We were involved in the ‘Treasure Hunt’ workshop Friday afternoon taught by Marc Buchheit. Having done them before, we were asked to lead a group who hadn’t. We spent a few minutes asking God for clues then set out. I had a couple of visions – a bend in a river with geese on it and two people, one with red hair and one with black hair. The river was right behind the conference center. One of our guys had an impression of flowers. There were hanging flower baskets on the bridge over the river that led to a park. We took off across the bridge and found my two women sitting in the grass on the other side of the bridge. We prayed with them for healing.

One of the men in our group, Robert had some very specific clues. He saw the Washington monument, an alligator purse and the word ‘patient’. We walked a block and came to Washington Street. We could see an optometrist office 2 blocks away and felt that was where the ‘patient’ might be. There was actually a sign above the door we entered that said, ‘patient entrance’. There were two women in the waiting room – both had alligator purses! The first woman didn’t want prayer, but the second one suffered migraines. After we explained what we were doing she let us pray with her.

We continued the hunt at a café. We weren’t picking up any more leads so we decided to give our waitress some encouraging prophetic words that she gladly received. Friday evening was a special night for me. God healed my heart of the condition I’ve had for over 25 years. I’ll post my testimony about that when I collect all the evidence. We witnessed about 200 people healed each night at the conference. I wish I could say my wife and I were healed of our chronic neck pain, but we weren’t. She received prayer from many people that weekend. We met Cal Pierce, who prayed for her on Saturday night. She still has neck pain. But I believe we’ve heard from God about the timing of her healing, we believe its coming in November.

One of the main callings God has upon my life is healing. John Lake was one of the most prolific healers ever. He started the healing rooms; his grave in Spokane. Cal Pierce visited that site monthly before God called him to his present ministry. I heard the Lord tell me to go to Lake’s grave. He said He’d meet me there.

We clicked with a group of new friends; Robert whom we met on the treasure hunt and his son Jeramy and a woman named Gwendolyn. The five of us drove to the cemetery. We spent a few moments in silence seeking God’s presence at the grave site. Benni Johnson told an amazing story of waking up angels at strategic places. We decided to wake up a few angels at Lake’s grave, and yelled out WAKEY WAKEY!

The spirit of prophecy descended on the group. We spent the next 3 hours prophesying to everyone who came near us. People drove up one after another and parked, saying that God told them He’d meet them at the grave site. The company of prophets grew to about 10 or 12. As people left, a few more would arrive. We encouraged one another with dozens of words from God. As we put my wife in the center, people gave her the impressions they received from the Lord. I saw an image of a beautiful lighthouse and told her she was a bright light to those around her. As I was speaking a man drove up and parked. He told us he saw a bright column of white light coming from the center of our circle. He said, “I don’t know what you’re doing, but keep doing it.” The five of us remained together for the rest of the conference. We went to lunch and dinner together and prophesied to the waitresses. Between speakers we sat in the grass outside the conference center and prophesied to friends and strangers.

As I left the hotel each morning, I heard about the continued flooding in the southeast US. Atlanta had 21 inches of rain fall in just a couple of days. God told me on Friday to make a prophetic declaration to stop the rain. I heard Him tell me again Saturday morning. I didn’t really believe in this kind of thing. Robert, Jeramy and Gwendolyn told me of some cool experiences they had making prophetic declarations about the weather. Bill Johnson said something Friday that gave me more confidence. He said, “When you’re hearing God’s voice and you declare what you hear from heaven, you become the voice of God. All creation obeys you.”

We decided to go for it.

Saturday morning we stood on the conference center lawn and declared an end to the rains in the Southeast. God’s been teaching me to command things to happen. I commanded the winds of change to move the low pressure system out to sea over the Atlantic Ocean. The others made similar declarations. When we checked the weather Sunday morning, we watched the radar loop with amazement. You could plainly see the storm front that had been stalled for weeks moving out to sea. Sunday’s forecast was for plenty of sunshine.

We went to the conference expecting to receive from others. Although we're young in the prophetic life, God used us often to bless others. That surprised us. We see ourselves as newbies who require more training and mentoring before we’re really able to be used in ministry. Apparently God doesn’t see it that way. It was amazing to see the hand of God moving in power as we stepped out and followed His lead. We’ll always be growing and learning and always be unaware of something until God shows it to us. We’ll always have need of spiritual fathers and mothers. But God can use us (and you) every step of the way. It’s an awesome adventure. We can’t wait to go back next year!