We’ve been blessed to spend some time ministering in some different locales on the coast and around the larger Monterey area of Central California over the years. From ministering in churches and prayer meetings to evangelistic outreaches, one at a local college, along the way we've been blessed to experience some powerful divine appointments as well.
We ended up having a series of powerful divine appointments one evening in particular:
We had ministered at a Presbyterian youth meeting a few days before and then were doing some home meetings. One night we ended up at the last minute ministering at a Foursquare church. The Lord brought forth a considerable outpouring on the youth group that we spoke to.
We were driving back from the Foursquare youth meeting to our friend Dave’s house in Salinas, rejoicing in what the Lord had done, when Dave and then myself suddenly felt we should pull over. Dave, in fact, spoke out rather loudly to do so; I told him I had just been feeling the same thing.
We happened to have stopped right in front of a local college. We all got out, and sensing the leading of the Spirit, we began to walk onto the campus parking lot.
We walked around praying as we went, praying in the Spirit—praying in tongues—a good prayer for when you have no idea what you're doing. We just kept seeking what the Lord wanted us to do, and after walking and praying a bit, I noticed a lady just getting to her car and felt I should talk to her.
We began to share about Christ with her and then Dave had a word for her. As he shared the word, she opened up that she was a backslidden believer. As we continued to share with her she began to weep. We ended up praying with her as she surrendered and rededicated her life back to the Lord, right there in the college parking lot in Salinas!
We thought, Wow, it has been an eventful night! Let's grab some food. Lo and behold we ended up having another divine appointment at the pizza place. We prayed for a woman who was going through some things in her life that worked at the pizza place who was hungry for a touch from the Lord and God touched and blessed her life too!
It had been one wild thing after another, but God wasn't done!
We had been wanting to do some filming and we were leaving the next day, so we thought, Let’s go back and do some filming tonight before we leave town tomorrow morning.
We were filming about Dave getting filled with the Holy Spirit in Hawaii: While we were in Hawaii teaching at Surfing the Nations some time back, during a ministry time I felt led to pray over the group there and I was led to lay hands on Dave. He ended up getting powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit for the first time in his life! It was a powerful life-changing experience. He shared later that he’d been going to church his whole life, in fact going to a Calvary Chapel since being a little child, yet he had not experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit.
As he was in the middle of telling this testimony on video, out the corner of my eye I noticed Patrick was over on the couch with his hands in the air, shaking, breathing heavy, crying and laughing at the same time, as the Holy Spirit was sovereignly filling him in a most radical and powerful way.
No one was praying for him and he was just hanging on the couch by himself listening to the testimony being taped when the power of God just fell on him.
The power of God kept pouring over him for a good half hour, he was getting so filled it was amazing! We eventually joined in and laid hands on him rejoicing in what the Lord was doing!
I was thinking, What a powerful night: the youth group had been powerfully touched, a woman at the college had rededicated her life to Christ through a divine appointment as well as another woman being touched in the pizza place, and now Patrick was getting powerfully filled with the Holy Spirit!
We of course experienced some spiritual warfare following all that. The Bible is clear that our battle is not against flesh and blood. We don't put our focus on the warfare though, even if it takes a bit of processing and prayer sometimes to move past it, we rejoice in and focus on all the awesome stuff the Lord did and does!
That trip sure had a lot to focus on and plenty to rejoice in, the Lord did so much more than we expected that it blew our minds! Hallelujah!
Check out Bryan and Patrick getting a few waves in this area of the Central Coast of California in this new surf/music video we did:
Here’s a link to the video of Dave’s testimony that we were taping when the Holy Spirit sovereignly fell on Patrick:https://youtu.be/cN9jNLKCbVA
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