Rejuvenation

By David Hobbs

One night I arrived at the church for my 2-5 a.m. Sunday morn. prayer time exhausted. I had been beaten down by the enemy working in my mind so that my whole body was physically and spiritually drained of strength: my energy level was at zero.
After turning on the lights in the sanctuary I made my usual circuit around the rest of the building, making sure things were in order. I was voicing some tentative praises but could tell my heart wasn’t in it. There was a weight on me that sapped my strength and even my desire.
Listlessly I wandered through the fellowship hall in the dark. The two hallways that run into it were lit so there was enough light to avoid obstacles, but just barely. As I approached the old GT Café, a sectioned off area at the far end of the room, I was thinking, “Lord, I came here to minister to you but I need someone to minister to me.”
I stepped into the Café by one of the small metal tables. Suddenly, I felt like the Holy Spirit stretched out His arm and offered, “Here, take a seat.” Gratefully I collapsed in the hard metal chair and put my elbows on the table with my head in my hands.
Instead of yielding my spirit up to the oblivion of sleep (which I've done before), I felt the Holy Spirit's presence with me, which quickened me a little. For some reason I started thinking about the rest of the building. It was as if my spirit was traveling around inventorying it while I was sitting in the chair.
(The whole building is octagonal in shape with the sanctuary in the middle. Around the sanctuary are offices. Then there is a hallway that circles around the entire building, with more offices and classrooms on the outside of its circle. At the back of the building, accessed by the hallway at either end, is the fellowship hall, a 60X40 foot room with raised, cathedral ceiling.) Now as I was thinking about the rest of the building, it was as if my spirit was taking note of each place: the hallways, the drinking fountains, the darkened lobby, the fellowship hall with the kitchen to one side…. It was all empty, mostly dark, all quiet.
My prayer to God on a regular basis (from the "Lord’s Prayer") is “Lord, have Your way here on earth as You do in heaven: Thy will be done!” Now as I was considering the empty building a thought occurred to me and I prayed, “Lord right now (at 2 o’clock in the morning) I am the lawful steward of this whole building. It has been given into my hands and as its steward I now give it into your hands to do with whatever you want; Thy will be done!”
After that I sat in silence, but I soon realized the Lord had accepted my offer and taken over the building. I couldn’t tell what He was doing but I sensed spiritual activity. My eyes were closed and my ears were open, but there was nothing to sense in the natural. The church was absolutely quiet. There were no sounds, no lights, no smells. I was not in control of anything that was happening and I had no idea what was happening. All I could sense was that things were happening in the spiritual realm as I sat in the darkness.
The minutes stretched on. I tried to remain totally focused on the Spirit because I knew that was an essential ingredient in God’s continued working. If I lost interest, zoned out, or dozed off, the work would stop. In the glorious plan and workings of God, He has made us—His people—partners with Him in the work He wants to do on earth. (We can talk about God’s sovereignty until we’re blue in the face, but that doesn’t change the fact that God has willed that much of His work on earth be partnered with His human creation. He didn’t have to do it that way, but He chose to. It’s not that He can’t do it without us, but that He won’t.)
Then a strange thing happened. As I focused on the Holy Spirit, I began traveling the halls in my spirit, sensing the spiritual activity while I fought off distraction and fatigue—all the while enjoying His sweet Presence.
I sat completely still for over an hour, physically frozen in place while my spirit traveled the halls with the unseen spiritual activity going on all around me. Then the spell was broken by the strong, sweet/rotten smell from the prune processing plant a mile away. If the wind was right, especially at night, sometimes its foul odors wafted all the way to our church. I got up and hurriedly closed the windows in the kitchen, the only open windows in the building.
I knew the special time was over and realized that I felt much better now—I had been rejuvenated by just sitting there in the presence of the Lord.
I went back into the sanctuary and began praising and worshipping the Lord. As I was walking around the room, the spirit of intercession and warfare fell on me in power and I started casting down principalities and powers at the top of my lungs. I’m sorry I don’t remember all the things I was rebuking the devil for, but I was stripping him of his power and authority, commanding him to give back all he had stolen from God’s people, and who knows what else! All the time there was no fear, no opposition, and no retaliation. It was like I had caught him flat-footed, snuck up on him and was pulverizing him. I realized later it was because the Lord had used the time and liberty I had given Him earlier to establish a spiritual perimeter in the hallway which completely encircled the sanctuary. Now inside the sanctuary I had total protection and complete freedom to tear down demonic strongholds and attack the enemy at will. It was a glorious and triumphant time and I left totally pumped, so different from the beaten down, exhausted man of 3 hours ago.