How many times have you looked up at the heavens, and to the God of every living thing said, “I need a word!” Mostly, we try to adjust to enemy flak, then push forward with all of our might. Thereby proving to ourselves, to God and to everyone else that we are faithful, that we can take it, and that we can “endure suffering like a good soldier”! (2 Tim 2:3).

It never ceases to amaze me how we can be so excited about what God is doing one day, then a couple days later somehow we find ourselves at the lowest point we can ever remember being! And it’s shocking how fast and easily things like, faith, hope and vision, slip through our grasping hands when this happens. Where did our vision go? What happened to the excitement of faith? How can everything overnight, seem hopelessly lost?

It’s usually during one of these deeply disillusioning, moments where, in one gut punch of unexpected dismay, I look up at the sky, staring sightlessly, and with zero emotion say, “I need a word.” These words, stated in dead seriousness to the most high, are not a hope. They are an expectation of the spirit. Stated such as they are, emotionless, generally because I am all cried out, or so shocked that I am in denial and I cannot yet feel anything. The Lord who knows me very well, knows that tone, and what those words mean. And that I am very close to a breaking point. The dead calm is his clue;)!

Everyone has a relationship with God that is his or hers, alone. If you have a relationship with God at all, it is because you talk to him, and he talks back. We call this prayer. The more you do it, if you pray according to his word and his will, the more you and God become a team. You work together. He told us we should pray daily for his will to be done on earth, as it is in the heavens. I read a statement the other day by Spiritual Inspiration that said, “God doesn’t come to us when we struggle. God comes to us when we pray”. I love that statement. When we pray for his will to be accomplished, then he binds himself to us and we bind ourselves to him to bring about his will. Like one Hydrogen atom bonding with 2 Oxygen atoms to give us life sustaining water! This bonding creates a covalent bond which gains strength because of the binding together. There is something so gentlemanly about our God; he wants to be invited into every aspect of our lives.

But when I say I need “a word” from God, that is something very much deeper, than what I expect from his and my regular relationship. I am basically at that point asking for a pure out miracle to occur! I’m needing something supernatural to happen, to let me know something, anything, that I do not already know, and cannot know, by any other way.

I have to admit to you, that even though I expect it, it still slays me when he does give me a word! It’s like I cannot fathom what has just occurred. I believed enough that he would do it, I speak it boldly to the heavens. Yet I’m always still shocked beyond words, because he did it! Ah… the humanity.

One time, I had been praying about a person that I deeply loved in the church. They had left the faith to become a member of a completely different religion. One that didn’t even use the Bible anymore. And I just couldn’t stop my grief over what they had done. I suffered for weeks on end. Everyday the pain was as great as the day before it. And finally I remember looking one day at the ceiling and telling God “You have to do something. I cannot be sad like this anymore!” That night I went to sleep, having totally forgotten my final words, to an all-powerful God. I fell asleep but this time as I slept, I had a dream. In my dream I saw something like a vacuum hose being connected to my heart. Yet as soon as the connections were made, I felt something such as I have never felt in all my life, nor have I ever experienced again after, that night. It was a joy so intense, that I lay there trembling from it. This continued throughout the night. When I awoke the next day. I was totally, completely healed from the horrific grief I had been in. Totally. Completely. Healed. It was like the stinger had been taken away from the wasp sting.

I will never forget that night, as long as I live, nor the feeling of ecstasy and pure joy. I know it was God’s healing presence. I have felt the beauty of his presence in prayer many times before. But not to the extent that it was given to me that night. That night, it was a miraculous and a continual flow. And I recognize it, even now, to be a feeling, beyond anything, we experience here on earth. I have asked God many times to let me experience that feeling again, for in it, there was miraculous healing. But that request has not been granted to me yet. Still even if he never lets me experience that feeling again on this earth, I will never forget it either. It let me know that the afterlife with Jesus Christ is going to be so incredible, joyful, nurturing, beyond words.

Recently I asked God for a word about a situation I have been praying extensively about, for several years, and I have gotten very tired, and downright exhausted praying this prayer, waiting for the situation to change! It is something in which, I know I’m praying according to God’s will and word. And I have NOT stopped praying this prayer for years, nor will I stop praying concerning this matter. Believe me, the Lord has been reminded over and over about the story in his own word, of the woman and the unjust judge, and how Jesus told us to continue knocking until our prayers are answered. After telling this story, Jesus questioned his believers, by asking them, “Will not God bring about justice for his chosen ones, who cry out to him day and night? Will he keep putting them off?” I know the answer to that question is, “No he will not”! And then I pray with faith for my situation, AGAIN.

It’s true of life that if we carry anything to long, it exhausts us. On another occasion, again, I had been praying concerning a matter for years with faith and energy, until, one day I wasn’t. It suddenly came to me that I was bone weary, spiritually, mentally, physically exhausted from the emotion of praying this prayer year after year. I even counted up the years of tears I had spent praying about this whole situation, and it was 14 years. I know when we are praying for something where another persons human will is involved, God will do as we ask, but that person’s will IS involved in this equation, so we have to pray for their will to change too, and as we know, that can take a long minute!!

Realizing to late, that weariness in well doing, had set in and left me totally depleted. My faith was not strong enough to remain confident any longer. I began a prayer vigil for myself, for my faith, and the situation. I prayed constantly as I worked doing housework and several days passed by. I also kept taking Bible breaks to strengthen my inner most being, in the word. It was after about three days of doing this that I opened the Bible again looking for my word, and to my shocked eyes, the Lord God, allowed my Bible to open to this scripture, “”Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength. (Is. 40:28-30)

Tears came to my eyes, blinding me so fast that I could barely read it a second time. But I read it over and over, crying, knowing, God had given me a word.

The next day I was still trying to regain enough strength to push forward in prayer and faith, so once again, in prayer, I opened a Bible searching for another word. The Bible I had opened the day before was one I keep by my couch, used for when I pray. But the next day I was looking in my closet where I saw a very old Bible, which my dad had given to my husband, that was his when I was a little girl. It is very limp from use and the binding is no longer strong. I took it over and sat down and I opened it to receive a word. To my utter shock, the verse I open this bible to, said this to me. “Hast thou not known? Hast thou not heard, that the everlasting God, the LORD, the Creator of the ends of the earth, fainteth not, neither is weary? There is no searching of his understanding. He gives power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increases strength.” (Isaiah 40:28-30).

No way?!! What are the odds? The Lord knows me well enough to know, that if I had used the same Bible I would have said to myself,  this is just where this Bible has a crease, but a different Bible, one so old, that it falls limply over the hand? I was speechless….

I began crying again but this time with strength, speaking in tongues with energy and anointing. I had gotten a word, and I had now regained my strength, vision and faith. I had been exhausted concerning this situation but God was not!!

On another occasion in which I needed a word, again, the trial was that I had been praying for a long time over a  matter, but I could not see one blessed result from all my prayers! Nothing. I found, as usual, my faith starting to fail me because of the amount of time I had been praying concerning this issue. So once again, I found myself needing a word, I began to try to build my faith back up through worship and the word. After about 2 days of this I felt something begin to stir inside my spirit. I was putting away laundry when an anointing came over me, and I began to speak in tongues with authority, then suddenly I stopped, and out of my mouth came the words, “The fruit is on the vine”. A statement. So simple. Yet after I said it my backbone straightened, and spiritual authority rose up in me with strength. I started speaking in tongues so fast I was literally stammering just to get them out. I feel strength even now, every time I say those words, “the fruit is on the vine”. Strength and a spiritual knowledge comes over me and I know that IT IS SO! Making it so that I don’t need to see the result yet, in order to believe it.  I still am praying over this situation but now instead of being totally in the dark concerning this matter, I have a word.  This time out of my own mouth, in prayer, came the word I asked for, strengthening me, anointing me, to press on.

Notice that as time passed in each case, it was the amount of time itself, that was discouraging to me. It was just to easy to give up. Yet these issues are things which are important to me, and I cannot leave the outcome to chance. Nor will I.  God knew we would need help with the waiting on him, so he spoke specifically about it, giving us this promise. “He giveth power to the faint; and to them that have no might he increaseth strength… They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint”. (Is 40:29-31)

The Bible tells us over and over, through many means and methods, to press on, to wait upon the Lord, to pray without ceasing, because if we faint not, joy comes in the morning! That’s what I’m counting on, that’s what I’m rejoicing in. The beauty of the joy coming…