Rebekah unquestioningly did what she felt God was telling her to do went she went with Eleazar… for me it’s not always so easy to do what God is saying, but the end results are always amazing when I finally act. 

Last Sunday I was sitting in Panera reading when God quietly said to me:

“What do you want?”

I had been listening to preaching earlier that week about Esther and how we can come to a place where God, like Esther’s husband the king, can ask us what we want and like Esther, if we sincerely show that all we want is His presence, we can ask for anything and it will be granted.  Please don’t get me wrong- this does NOT mean that seeking His presence is a formula for magically getting whatever you want! However, when you sincerely and truly seek Him with all your heart, His wants become your wants, His desires become your desires and what you ask you will receive because you will only ask what is kingdom-minded.  So in reply to His question I thought to Him “Really God? Here? In the middle of Panera Bread where I cannot get down on my knees and pray You ask me what I want?” and again I felt Him say:

“What do you want?” 

And so I replied in my mind “If I have pleased You, if I have found favor in your sight, I pray that You grant me Your presence. That You move strongly in service tonight. That the hesitation I feel in the spirit every service would be broken tonight.”

I felt that He was pleased with my answer and believed that He would grant me my request.  That night in service God not only moved, but the most surprising thing to me was that He used me to help bring about the exact thing I had asked for.  During the middle of service God was moving strongly and people were praying in their seats and I felt Him tell me to go pray with someone on the other side of the room in the front row.  “Really God? I’d stand out so much though! That’s so conspicuous! She’s in the front row!” and yet again, He told me to go pray with her. Finally, stumbling and with the Holy Ghost overflowing out of me I went to pray with her.  Soon she was weeping as God spoke to her through my mouth.  I don’t even fully remember what I said, but I know that it was what she needed to hear.  I then went back to my seat and He led me to pray for another… and then another… and then another.  Finally as the service was coming to a close, the pastor asked for us to all come to the front and pray for he and his wife.  He said they had been going through a lot lately and God was helping them and bringing people along to encourage them, but he felt the need to ask for prayer.  As we all gathered around I felt God telling me to say something to them, but again, I freaked out and tried to hold it in.  “But EVERYONE is here Lord, the whole church is RIGHT HERE! I don’t want to make a scene. This doesn’t feel right.”  The feeling kept coming though, to the point where I was physically putting my hands over my mouth until I could not handle it anymore and started just praying out loud to God.  The amazing thing was, in the end, even my hesitation God used! I ended up saying the same line over and over again at first and the pastor later told the whole group that it was perfectly in line with what he would have preached if we had had preaching that night.  There was more that God had me pray out loud towards the group, but needless to say, I was floored that God even used my human emotion of fear of standing out to create the perfect unity of spirit of what I said to what had been intended to preach.

I truly believe a big part of why God was willing to use me in such a public manner was because that very morning when I had woken up, I danced around my house before the Lord in worship.  I told Him that I was worshipping Him in the privacy of my house just to worship Him. Because He is good and His mercy endures forever.  Because I loved Him.  Because He is above all things and in all things. When we show Him that we can worship and dance before Him as our audience of one, He can trust using us in an audience of many.  

Lord, help me to stop hesitating about being in the spotlight.  I so desperately don’t want to be a spotlight seeker that I end up hesitating when You tell me to move.  Next time Lord, if You tell me to move, I pray that I do it without hesitation.  I pray that I learn to have that fearless spirit of Rebekah.  It amazes me that when it comes to things that I can see or touch I run at it full force, but with these spiritual things where the evidence is through a unity of messages I fear looking ridiculous, conspicuous, or a spotlight seeker.  Help me to be so humble that I don’t even care about that! I realize now that even the fear of being a spotlight seeker is a form of pride.  Dig this out and use me as You will Lord, even if it’s in front of everyone… or if it’s in front of only You.  Use me however You will, whenever You will.  

~Rebekah M

Dear reader- if you don’t know Him or His love, I invite you to seek Him out now.  He is faithful and will lead you to Himself.  A wonderful place to start is to read John chapter 3 and then Acts chapter 2.  The book of John tells of who Jesus is and the book of Acts shows us how His apostles put into motion the things He had taught them. May you find a new birth in Him and when you are ready, may God use you to bless others.  For those who do know Him but aren’t being used by Him yet, read I Corinthians chapters 12 and 13.  Seek after the gifts of the Spirit. There is nothing more amazing than feeling God tell you a word for someone and when you tell them, they begin to cry and worship God. May healings, miracles, prophecies, tongues and interpretation of tongues and more be unto those who seek to be used by Him with a true heart.