THAT'S RIGHT; WHAT WILL WE DO?

By James Wilson

             I will never forget the day in Mindanao when the mini-van transporting us to Davao City broke down in a cane field.  Al Qaida agents were identified at the gathering when Diana and I spoke and we knew for the two insurgent groups in the interior killing Americans was a hobby.  But we also knew we were in God’s will and were not afraid – until the breakdown.

            As our drivers attempted repairs I kept visualizing insurgents carrying AK 47s crossing the field and trying to figure some way to protect Diana.  Suddenly I heard the voice of God as clear as day.  He said, “That’s right, Jim, what are you going to do about this?”  Now I got it long ago that when God asks a question He is not seeking information.  That afternoon I got it that His burden is light (Matt. 8:28) only when He carries it.  I responded, “Okay Lord; it’s all about You.” Our drivers got the vehicle started.

            God does expect us to participate in the unfolding of His purposes, but as very junior partners.  He gave us gifts of skill and imagination so we might offer them to Him; He loves it when we solve problems and give Him the glory.  But it should always begin with submitting the problem to Him in the first place and – sometimes – that is how it ends too…if you are an unarmed civilian stranded in a cane field.

            California is mired in the worst drought in eighty years.  Meteorologists say the cause is a high pressure air ridge anchored high off the California coast the past thirteen months; such ridges normally locate no more than a few days or weeks.  The ridge deflects storms seeking a California landfall and thus our desperate water situation.  Experts say the phenomenon is unnatural, but it clearly resides within the parameters of nature and beyond any human ability to alter those parameters.  Many churches and ministries are calling on their members for prayer; I have been asking my own network to pray for more than a year.  Some would say, “Really?  Then why hasn’t it worked?”  The answer is simple enough – prayer is not something that “works” but rather something that is submitted.  Praying people depend not on the power of prayer but on the power of God.  That power is under His control, not ours, but we can depend on the reality that He loves us more than life itself.  He always exercises His power for our benefit and no other.

            Possibly He wants to teach us something fundamental that we have forgotten – like that day with me in the cane field.  Perhaps He waits on enough of us being consistent enough in prayer that we are less likely to forget we are His anytime soon.  I do know prayer is one thing – like love – of which more is always better.  I know that nothing can possibly be lost – except a bit of human arrogance – by engaging in concerted prayer to the God Who sends His Son to now rescue some forty million of the people for whom that Son gave His life.  And I know focusing on God in prayer is a specific act of that repentance for which He has been calling the past five years.  He says a season of repentance – in His Church – is the necessary precursor on our part to a Great Awakening that will rock the world in the best sense.  Some say it is to begin in California.  I know there is but one way to find out.

            Following Him is lots easier than figuring Him out.

            Northern California was threatened with devastating floods in 1997 because of abundant rain and unseasonable warmth.  Local Christians begged His intervention and the snows came the very day meteorologists predicted the next rainstorm.  Southern California was ravaged by wildfires in 2003 and hundreds went on our faces before the Lord; a storm front changed course off-shore and provided enough precipitation to enable fire fighters to douse the flames.  The whole state lay under drought more than two years with prophetic voices predicting a three years’ duration – if people prayed – and the Lord lifted it just when He said He would. 

            It doesn’t matter how long or articulate our prayers; it’s not about ritual or technique.  It does matter that we pray daily, and that we remember prayer is not something that works or fails; it is something submitted.  But it’s a drought, not a car running rough.  We can pray or we can think and strategize until we hear, “That’s right, what are you going to do?”

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

PROPHECY AND PROPHETIC AUTHENTICITY

By James Wilson

             I sometimes receive e-mails objecting to addressing public issues in spiritual and even prophetic terms.  Critiques range from spiritualizing complex issues to being judgmental to playing the God card.  Such people have no idea what prophetic authenticity is about.  Neither do Christians who think God always in such a good mood He would speak only sunshine, or folks who think prophecy is some sort of Christian clairvoyance – all about predicting the future.

            There are prophecies that predict – whether a man telling Saul of Tarsus he will be visited by another man through whom his sight will be restored or the amazing predictions found in the Book of Daniel.  Daniel alone has proven so accurate scholars used to think it written after the fact; that fantasy has been thoroughly debunked by recent scholarship.  I predicted the end of California’s last drought in early 2010 – people thought me crazy because the meteorologists disagreed; I simply spoke what I heard the Lord saying.  (I predict no time table for the current drought until the Lord speaks to me.)  But the majority of prophecy – whether in the Bible or in our contemporary lives – is interpretive of past and present events through the lens of God’s own perspective.  Prophecy is simply repeating or accurately paraphrasing things God says.  A pre-supposition, if we are to comprehend any of it, is that God actually knows more about us – and about our well being – than we do.

            When the Prophet Nathan confronts King David it is not because of future events but because David puts the Kingdom in jeopardy by undermining the military when he orders death for Uriah the Hittite to cover up his adultery with Bathsheba.  When Elijah accuses King Ahab it is because his idolatries jeopardize the future of Israel; Jeremiah continues that tradition under multiple kings.  Truthfully, the whole prophetic tradition throughout the Old Testament is one prophet after another confronting one government after another with the gap between what God expects of rulers and their actual behavior.  

If secular commentators had written the Bible Kings Ahab and Herod would have come down as the greatest kings Israel ever had.  They brought prosperity and security during times of internal unrest and external threat and that was enough to earn them approval from a secular standpoint.  But their uncaring attitude toward God and men earned them harsh criticism from authentic prophetic voices.  John the Baptist continued the tradition into New Testament territory and Jesus Himself urged His followers to confront abusive authority in Matt.10, Mark 13, and Luke 21.  He told the Roman governor he had no authority over Him that was not given by God.

Does the Word of God tell us to bless, pray for, and respect secular authorities?  It does indeed, and authentic prophets – then and now – do just that.  But it also tells all God’s people to remind those same authorities they are servants rather than masters.  And the Word is not shy about warning rulers they can be replaced if they mess up.  In Ezekiel alone God calls on all Israel in Chapter 3 – beginning with her leaders – to repent before the inevitable consequences of disobedience overwhelm them.  In Chapter 37 – the famous one promising resurrection to the valley of dry bones – He reminds the prophet to tell the whole story of what God does, has done, and will do – in that order.  And – lest we forget how much God loves us even when we bitterly disappoint Him – in Chapter 39 He declares He will pour out His own Spirit on the whole land and people in the end.  Prophecy may not be all blue skies but it always contains a blessing because it comes from One who cannot help blessing those He loves.

Likewise, when a prophetic voice like Jim Garlow speaks out about judicial interference in God-given marriage (Proposition 8) or Michael Farris speaks of government restrictions on parents’ rights to raise and educate their children – absent abuse of children – without fear that a Boston hospital will kidnap a child or an immigrant couple seeking asylum will be deported – they need to be sure they are accurately reflecting what God says in Scripture.  That done, they speak with the same authority as God Himself when they repeat or accurately paraphrase what He says.

I understand that some reading these words are grinding their teeth at what they think my arrogance.  They are perfectly free to reject this message. But for the rest of us, it is high time we took our rights and our responsibilities under God a whole lot more seriously than we have in the past.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

ST. ANSKAR AND THE POWER OF PERSERVERANCE

By James Wilson

             Anskar was a 9^th Century priest and bishop with a tremendous burden to bring Viking peoples into the Kingdom of God.  He was a man who saw visions over his lifetime and a formative one featured an angel telling him God wanted him to evangelize the Scandinavians and return home in glorious martyrdom.  Readers wondering how one returns home after being martyred should know the term’s meaning is “witness” and does not require death to activate it.  Anskar’s witness was to the power of perseverance in the Name of his King.

            Bishops in that day knew little of the pomp associated with the office in our day.  They were simply seen as overseers (literally) facilitating the work of planting and growing churches and Christians in a region by putting their personal backs to the wheel.  They got a lot more of the actual work of the Kingdom done and had to attend far fewer meetings, a still common state in remote and third world regions today and all too rare in modernized areas.  Anskar entered Scandinavia with a few friends and began introducing this violent and superstitious people to his best Friend – the God of  peace which passes understanding.  Many thought him crazy to devote his life to going where he and what he represented were clearly not wanted.

            Peacekeepers are obsessed with maintaining status quo, avoiding loss at all costs, but there was no peace to lose in 9^th Century Denmark and Sweden.  Peacemakers are strong yet loving men and women who bring a gift so precious and lifegiving they are willing to risk everything to deliver it.  Abraham Lincoln was such a dedicated peacemaker he fought a four-years’ war to set the slaves and the nation free.  Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon were so obsessed with peacekeeping they lost the Vietnam War and 60,000 American lives – not forgetting the million-plus Vietnamese who were sacrificed on the altar of “not losing.”  Anskar succeeded in planting two churches and a school in two decades of missionary work.  He spent much of his time training and sending those who came to Christ in his churches, and as much more negotiating peace between rival warlords and petty kings in the neighborhood.  The peace was an end in itself, but also a necessary pre-condition for facilitating the mission work.  Anskar was armed with his indomitable spirit and the Spirit of the Living God Who kept him supplied with visions to follow and words to obey.  Over the years he ended a civil war and averted a violent pagan reaction to his own work without bloodshed, but still had only two or so churches and a school to show for it.  At the end of his service he returned to Germany, deeply discouraged but still persevering in a God who claims His words never fall to the ground empty.

            It took a century for the fruit to come into the bin.  Missionaries raised and inspired under the ministries of Anskar and his disciples branched out and brought the Gospel to all of Denmark and Sweden, adding Norway and Finland into the mix.  Because of this man’s dedication – by choice, and whether circumstances were encouraging or not – Northern Europe came to Christ and the 10^th Century Euro visitors to America came as servants of Christ rather than of Odin.  Granted, some of these converts imagined God’s role in their lives was to endorse rather than convert their aggressive ventures, but that is God’s problem, not the messenger’s.  Anskar never knew how effective he was – until he stood before the Throne of Heaven – but he is still today regarded as the patron saint of Scandinavia.

            Like Anskar, we live in deepening darkness.  War is all around. Men routinely call evil good and good evil, whether it is a dictatorial president forcing us into a healthcare swamp or families calling for retribution against good Samaritans who saved lives by taking out their relatives who were attacking others.  Christians are hated over the world simply for being Christians.  Unlike Anskar, we live in a time of abundant signs of God’s grace – from healing cancers and growing stunted limbs to producing food where none would grow to softening the heart of a hard-nosed judge.  Anskar’s indomitable spirit is a gift from God and the Holy Spirit is a gift of that same God.  We have only to take that God at His word (Is. 62:6-7) that when we call on Him we should give ourselves no rest and Himself no rest until He establishes His Kingdom in our midst.  Anskar’s legacy of perseverance is ours if we want it.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net

EPIPHANY: THE SEASON OF THE REALLY REAL

By James Wilson

            I was visiting two patients at the hospital.  The young man took a bad fall while working at a construction site, landed on his head, and was paralyzed from the shoulders down.  He and his father were waiting for my arrival and his transport to x-ray; the dad asked me what I intended to do.  At that moment – in my heart and in my mind – I knew that I knew that I could pray all day and God was not going to heal this young man; paralysis was the hand he’d been dealt.  Even so I told the father we would pray with authority – as though we possessed the power to heal that God delegates but over which He remains sovereign.  We commanded reversal of the injury process in the Name of Jesus and – after about a ten-minute delay – the young man got up and walked out of the hospital.  At the same time I could literally hear God laughing as He told me He did not care what I knew or thought or felt; He cared only about what I did in His Name.  It was what we call an Epiphany moment.

            The other patient I visited had diabetes.  I had prayed for her many times with no visible result; I had asked her several times if she was willing to accept Jesus as her Lord and she had always politely declined.  She was in the hospital because she had gone blind – a common side effect of her disease.  When I prayed for restoration of her sight – with more confidence this time – her healing was instantaneous.  As we rejoiced together she accepted my invitation to accept Jesus as her Lord.  When I returned to the area six months later the first inquiry I made was about her – had the Lord continued her healing and released her from the diabetes?  I was shocked and a bit peeved at the Lord when her pastor informed me she had died of complications from diabetes.  When I went to the Lord about it He said, “I gave her back her sight; she gave me her heart; now she is at home with me.  Any questions?”  It was an Epiphany moment stretched over six months.

            Epiphany is a traditional Christian season that begins January 6 and ends with a movable occasion, Ash Wednesday.  The word means to manifest or show forth.  It is closely associated with three events in Jesus’ earthly life: His own baptism; the Wedding at Cana; and the coming of the Wise Men.  In the baptism, the Holy Spirit speaks for all to hear the pleasure God takes in announcing His Son; the Son’s credentials are authenticated, per Luke 3:21-22.  In the wedding – when Jesus turns water into wine – He manifests both His concern and His unlimited ability to provide for His people, per John 2:1-11.  And in the visit from the Wise Men – pagan astrologers from Arabia who travel vast distances to honor the Christ of God – He shows forth His capacity to draw all men to Himself.

            The Epiphany moments I describe manifest the reality that my contribution to the life He provides is in obedience, not understanding, as illustrated through the healing of the paralyzed man.  In the matter of the blind diabetic who went home He simply demonstrates once again His sovereignty in all things – and the reality that whenever we obey and accept His authority it always ends well for all concerned – one way or another.  And the fact that He actually speaks to His people in words we can comprehend shows forth the simple reality that the God who created human bodies knows best how to heal them, and the Lord who invented speech knows how best to employ it for good.

            Let’s be clear that the Epiphany season is the season of what my wife, Diana, calls the “really real” stuff.  If God did not really manifest Himself the ways the stories say they have no value whatever.  If He does not literally turn water to wine or re-constitute a failed ocular system – eyesight – then these stories in no way illustrate His provision – or any human potentiality.  If He does it the illustrative qualities abound – but only if He does.  Alternative theories that the Word of God consists of pious yet uplifting legends offer nothing but a false and narcotic sense of peace and wellbeing that is shattered by reality.  But the really real truth of God shatters the shadows that portray themselves as reality.  And all we need bring to the table is a choice – not a feeling – to believe and obey God.

James A. Wilson is the author of Living As Ambassadors of Relationships and The Holy Spirit and the End Times – available at local bookstores or by e-mailing him at

praynorthstate@charter.net