He's The Light House: My Two Shooting Stars

May 13th, 2008, 2:00AM Journal entry...

When God's children are in a quandary and need an honest answer, God will step in and speak to you whether through nature, scripture, or another total stranger. He knows your heart's desire and when it is aligned with His will for you, He will take away all your doubts.

On May 10th, 2008, the Saturday evening worship and the May 11th, Sunday worship at the church that I attend were really tremendous and spiritually uplifting. The Sunday worship especially was just tremendous for me personally as I experienced the power of the living God so greatly that I was worshiping at the top of my voice. While I experience this power, I become oblivious of my surrounding and it becomes a one on one experience (I quite literally during these times wish that the worship would just keep continuing.)

When the worship service ended and I was back to myself, my mind kicked into action...I started to wonder about what I had just experienced. I became very self conscious and wondered what others might have thought. Did I look like a fool? Were people annoyed? etc. Couple of days went by and I decided to ask someone more knowledgeable in these matters what he thought of such exuberant worship experiences. The answers I got created more questions in my mind and jestingly I said to him that he had used reverse psychology to answer my questions. He smiled and said that he enjoyed such worship.

My thoughts continued to make me uneasy and restless. I asked God why do others when they experience the power of the Holy Spirit, spoke in tongues while I experienced a surge of power that made me worship at the top of my voice forgetting my surroundings. At times during such worships, God's promises from the Bible come to mind with a strong conviction that it was for someone who needed to hear of those promises. From my experience I have learned that the Word ministers to our needs. Many a times I have noticed that these promises were confirmed (heard again) during the Psalm reading or during the ensuing sermon or testimonies. For whomsoever the message was intended, it's multiple confirmation. For me it was a confirmation that the one and same Spirit reveals the same thing to different people or uses different people to share the same thoughts. When you hear the same thoughts from different people, total strangers, who had no chance of having prior communication between them, it gives validity to what the Holy Spirit is revealing. (Romans 12:6 (NLT) says, "God has given each of us the ability to do certain things well. So if God has given you the ability to prophesy, speak out when you have faith that God is speaking through you.)

Having not found any convincing answers on how I would know the Holy Spirit's manifestation, I continued to mull over the questions in my mind. It was past mid-night and I decided to sit down to read the Bible, meditate on the Word and look for answers to my questions in the Bible. I was reading no particular book or chapter, but skimming through the pages and verses that I had highlighted during previous readings, looking for any information that would answer to the question on the manifestation of the Holy Spirit. I came across portions in the Bible that spoke of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Then somewhere in John and other books, I read that the Holy Spirit reveals, teaches, transports – as in the case of Philip and the eunuch, etc., but couldn't get a direct answer to my question. Finally, I closed the Bible and started praying and praising God. I have come to this conclusion that giving God praise is the most important thing in life – for everything.

As I prayed and praised God, I began to cry bitterly as my question – do I have the Holy Spirit in me? - weighed heavily on my mind. I asked God why I couldn't speak in tongues. I asked that he would give me this ability, give me the gifts of the Spirit as I read in the Bible and fill me with the power of the Holy Spirit. I must have spent quite some time crying out and praying to God to show me a sign as a confirmation to what I had come to believe was the manifestation of the Holy Spirit that takes away our shame and makes us worship the Almighty God with all our heart, our mind, our strength, and our spirit.

I had once heard Rev. Charles Stanley preach on the radio how his grandfather had asked God for a sign that He was calling him out to preach. His grandfather was not educated, could not read or write and was uncertain how he would be of use in the ministry speaking the Word and ministering to folks who were more educated than himself. He asked God on a clear, dark night to make a shooting star go across the sky as a confirmation of God's calling upon his life – and it did! His grandfather thought this to be too much of a coincidence and asked for one more shooting star to go across the night sky. And sure enough, there went another - a second shooting star! Charles Stanley in that message said that his grandfather never again doubted God's calling and he said that God would move the heavens and the earth for his children.

As I continued to pray through tears, I asked if God would give me a sign as he did for Rev. Stanley's grandfather. I said, “Please God, I will open up the blind to the window and gaze up at the night sky, would you send a shooting star across the sky as you did for Charles Stanley's grand father. Then the thought that testing God was a sin crossed my mind. I abandoned that idea and didn't look out the window. I asked God if I wasn't good enough, worthy enough, for an answer. (Even though, in the past – recent past, he had been answering my questions through his scripture.)

As I cried and prayed into the early morning hours, I started laughing, laughing so hard that you would have thought I had gone mad, because out of the blue there came this song that just blurted out of my mouth,

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will shout like Joshua shouted...

Even though this is the third stanza of the song, this is where it started out of my mouth. The song goes something like this:

When the Spirit of he Lord moves upon my heart, I will sing like David sang... x (2)
I will sing...I will sing...I will sing like David sang... x(2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will dance like David danced... x (2)
I will dance...I will dance...I will dance like David danced... x (2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will shout like Joshua shouted... x(2)
I will shout...I will shout...I will shout like Joshua shouted... x (2)

When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will pray like Daniel prayed...
When the Spirit of the Lord moves upon my heart, I will love like Jesus loved... etc.

Here was the answer from my Father in heaven...I sang like David sang...I danced like David danced...I shouted like Joshua shouted! Here was my shooting star...

One thing is clear in my mind today, it is the Holy Spirit that decides how it manifests in whom...some speak and worship in tongues, others shout aloud and sing praises to the Almighty God without any shame. I will continue to worship my God, without shame and I pray for his continued grace...Hallelujah, Praise God!

Following morning, May 14th, 2008, my wife had her final exams for her nursing program from which she was graduating. I woke up at around 7am listening to the alarm go off with the radio coming on – 570 AM in New York City and Charles Stanley was preaching. The topic of his message was Praise Worship. As I lay in bed, half asleep, but still listening to his message, tears started flowing down my eyes...these were tears of joy. Here was God with my second shooting star answering my question on praise worship.

You can hear Rev. Stanley's complete three part message on Praise Worship starting with May 11-14, 2008 at www.Intouch.org.

PS: There are no coincidences with God. In his plan for you everything will fit just perfect. Regarding the Gifts of the Spirit, you may read what Apostle Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 12:1-11; 28-31.

Hillsongs - This is our God