Tag: worship

Caught Up In Mercy

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life1 Comment

I’ve been caught up in mercy
I’ve been caught up in grace
All my cares have fallen off now
And this joy I can’t explain…
-Zac Dinsmore, IHOPKC, “Caught Up In Mercy”
Listen on Soundcloud

This song was one of the big tools God used to encounter and change me during my time in OTI. A conversation with a friend brought it all to the surface again the other day, so I decided that now’s a good time to share this part of my story.

I’ve often had difficulty understanding the abundance of God’s grace toward me because since I got saved when I was three, I’ve often felt like I don’t have much of a testimony. There wasn’t much of a dramatic before-and-after; I was three, for heaven’s sake! I had a hard time with verses such as Luke 7:47, which says, “Therefore I tell you, her sins, which are many, are forgiven—for she loved much. But he who is forgiven little, loves little.” Of course, I know that because of Jesus, I’m not going to hell, and that in itself is huge, but… I still felt like I was missing something, like all of the ex-drug-addicts could somehow love Jesus better than I could.

One night, as Zac was singing this in the prayer room, I was thinking back again through my life and who I used to be. God really has brought me so far. I normally start telling my testimony at age three, then jump to high school when my spiritual renaissance began, but that night God started reminding me of all the childhood sins I’d like to forget… things that are seemingly small in retrospect, but I remember exactly how I felt during those times and I know that it came from genuine darkness within me. I remember trying to bury the guilt, but I couldn’t undo the damage. I was a hard-hearted selfish little 12-year-old who was bitter at nothing in particular, and I hated that about myself.

The great mercy is that even then, God wouldn’t let go of my heart. I still somehow loved him and kind of wanted him. I knew I was missing something about the whole God thing, and I wanted to be a mature Christian someday, but really didn’t want to be “weird.” And so I kept God at a safe distance. Even though I was a church kid, my heart mostly lived in darkness.

And God broke in and rescued me from that. I would sit in my room and pray for “breakthrough” even though I didn’t know what I meant. I wanted to just wake up with all my darkness gone, because I hated it but didn’t know how to grow without the growing pains. He was faithful, though, and gradually he brought me out of that and into genuine light and love.

Through all this time, I was “saved.” I was a “good church girl.” I wasn’t acting out or doing crazy things, but I was still living in a shadow of what my life was meant to be.

He could have left me there. I was on my way to heaven, the big job was done, God would have been completely within his rights to leave me floundering and move on to the next lost soul, knowing that he would get all of me in eternity eventually anyway.

But he didn’t.

He wasn’t content to just leave me technically saved but still in the dark in so many ways.

He wanted all of my love NOW, immature and broken though it is. He actually WANTED me, the in-the-process me of today. He knew it would be a messy, bumpy road, but he so desperately wanted to be with me that he refused to wait. He fought to bring me to this place I am today. He died to bring me to this place of love and intimacy NOW, not just in the age to come. It wasn’t just about eternity. It was about me being free and knowing him TODAY.

He wasn’t content to leave me. He fought for me because he wanted me.

I cried for twenty minutes when all of that hit me.

What if he didn’t? What would my life have been like if he had left me there at age 12, or if I hadn’t gotten saved at all? Although it’s impossible to predict that alternate timeline with any kind of accuracy, I know the tendencies and impulses I struggle to quash on a daily basis. If left unchecked, they would no doubt destroy me.

I know me too well. And he loves me too well to leave me to that.

In his mercy, he not only rescued me from what was but from what might have been.

He saved me in every way a person could be saved.

That’s the grace I’ve been caught up in.

Zac Dinsmore "Caught Up In Mercy" album artwork
Listen to “Caught Up in Mercy” on Soundcloud
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Weekend Ambush

On By CaitlynIn Personal Updates1 Comment

Last weekend was absolutely splendidly NOT what I had planned. I was planning to go camping in Joshua Tree on Saturday with a few of my co-workers. From the start I wasn’t sure if I wanted to, because although I love these people and I could use a change of scenery, “roughing it” is rarely my cup of tea. I determined to go and enjoy it, though, so even when the plan fell through, I was proud of myself for at least refusing to be scared off.

Instead I spent my Saturday working the rock wall for the Christian camp. I’ve never properly worked ropes with the rec staff before, and I ended up loving it! By dinner time I was already thanking God that he had a better day planned for me than I had planned for myself, but he hadn’t even begun to surprise me. I let myself be talked into going to chapel in the evening when I heard that Tommy Green, the lead singer of Sleeping Giant who has a powerful ministry, would be speaking. I went with my roommate and sat through an hour of a student talent show. There was a definite amount of talent, and also a definite amount of… well. It was well worth it, though, because when Tommy came to the front, the first thing he did was pray for people in pain to be healed and the second thing he did was prophesy over some of the performers.

WHAT?!!! This might be pretty standard ministry in my usual circles, but at this camp? In the three years I’ve worked here, I have NEVER seen a single healing take place in that chapel, or a single prophecy be released (though granted I can’t claim to be there every time the doors are open). Not that God doesn’t move here or that the camp and its guests don’t believe in the gifts, we just don’t… tend to practice them very often.

I’ve spent so many hours over the past few years pacing the camp prayer chapel -and plenty of hours elsewhere too- praying for Holy Spirit to do crazy things in that chapel. I’ve tasted revival, and I am desperate for this camp, my home, to taste it too. Seeing what Tommy brought on Saturday was a beautiful down payment of the revival that I believe is coming.

But the night got better. Tommy’s message was about worship as warfare, and this generation releasing a new sound that literally shifts atmospheres, and the seven Hebrew words of praise, especially “tehila” spontaneous singing and “shabach” shouting, and how powerful dance is as an expression of worship… I could have closed my eyes and heard Jake Hamilton’s voice. (I actually just found out that Tommy has actually worked with Jake on the Voices conference Jake put on last year. So yeah.) I have never felt so completely in unity with what’s going on in that chapel as I did that night. Especially because after talking about free and powerful worship, the band came on stage and we DID IT for an hour and a half! My roommate and I ended up pushing back the chairs in the back of the room and dancing and worshiping and crying until we were completely overwhelmed. I haven’t worshipped that freely since… well, since the week I left IHOP. The two of us helped clean up the chapel and watched as the campers settled into small groups, then went back home and prayed together until we fell asleep. My heart was full to bursting with the sheer excitement of loving God and watching him move.

Sunday was quite amazing as well. I went with a friend to her church for my second visit. The church is called Tithemi and is actually led by Eric Gregson, a close friend of Tommy who is (was?) also in Sleeping Giant! Bam. Small world. This little church is a beautiful, grungy, passionate band of young tattooed believers who worship with full hearts and pray with abandon. That Sunday night I kicked off my sandals and started dancing during the song Divine Romance, and by the time we’d sung the chorus about ten times the worship leader asked anyone who wanted to dance to come do it on stage. So I went. And we all danced for several more minutes before Eric invited us all to return to our seats.

As I was sitting down, he started talking about how powerful worship is, and how powerful dance is, and how that first person to dance serves the community by providing a “covering” for everyone else’s awkwardness… in other words, that person sets the tone for how free the group is allowed to be. It was a huge blessing and confirmation for me, because I knew that I was the first person to start dancing that night, and because I have so often been told about how my dancing creates an atmosphere of freedom and worship for others.

Even when I know something, I love it so much when God remembers and tells me again. He sees me, he knows me, he enjoys me. And he’s using me through my simply enjoying him. I’m just being who I was created to be, and he’s encountering me and using it to bless people.

Also, I’m so grateful for the community I’m surrounded by. From the people I worked rec with, to the people I was in chapel with, to the people at Tithemi, I am so deeply blessed to get to be around like-minded people who love me and are going after the same things. I love them all, and I love my Father for giving them to me.

Oh… one more thing. On Wednesday at camp, I went into the prayer chapel to spend my break. The first thing I did was unwrap a Dove dark chocolate square.

And what did my wrapper say?

Be the first to hit the dance floor.

DSC00824
Prophetic Dove wrapper (torn and taped)
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Bringing Jesus Home

On By CaitlynIn Bible Stuff, IHOPKC Life2 Comments

The past few days have been wonderful, overwhelming, emotional… but it’s okay because I like crying. 🙂 God’s doing good things inside me, although I’m not entirely sure what yet.

On Friday night I attended a night of the Call2All congress hosted at FCF. It’s a gathering of church leaders from around the world to put together world evangelism strategies. (Check out Call2All on Facebook with pictures of the event.) At the service I was at, they talked about what was going on with world evangelism and told us about a meeting that happened at Amsterdam 2000 with a few hundred leaders of the world’s most influential ministries such as YWAM and Campus Crusade. They were presented with a list of a couple hundred of the world’s remaining unreached people groups and by the end of the day, they had divided up the list among them and committed together to reach them all. Ideas were flying, partnerships were formed and strategies were devised. The Body of Christ has been mobilised and no corner of the planet is safe.

Also, China is mobilising thousands of missionaries in a divinely inspired “back to Jerusalem” movement aimed at spreading the gospel throughout all the Buddhist, Hindu, and Muslim nations geographically located between China and Israel. I saw many prominent evangelism leaders on stage at FCF on Friday night (along with the governor of Kansas) joining hands with underground church leaders in China (although most of them couldn’t be on stage because being recorded on camera would endanger their lives) and committing together to do this thing. I watched spiritual history being made.

Let me slow down and explain what this means. This is not another “That’s cool, one more step forward.” This means that the finish line is in sight and the Great Commission is more than likely going to be FINISHED in our lifetime. These leaders are expecting it to be complete in their lifetimes, and they’re all 60-70 years old!

“Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:19)

“And this gospel of the kingdom will be proclaimed throughout the whole world as a testimony to all nations, and then the end will come.”
(Matthew 24:14)

“After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne… crying out with a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!'”
(Revelation 7:9)

One of the main things Jesus is waiting for before he returns is this completing of the Great Commission. And let me repeat—THE FINISH LINE IS IN SIGHT. We are no longer in the “drop in the bucket” stage. We are witnessing the beginnings of the final sweep of the gospel in the nations before Jesus returns. Very, very soon, we’ll be living in Revelation.

Jesus could very possibly, dare I say easily, be back on Earth before I have grandkids. That is not a joke or wishful thinking. That is the evidence of the signs of the times.

This is not the era of “someday he’ll return, won’t that be nice” like it’s a sweet fluffy little “happily ever after” in the vague future. No, one day SOON he’s going to SPLIT THE SKY and come with a roar and the sound of a trumpet. (Is 64:1, 1 Thes 4:16) All of creation groans for that day. This planet is on the edge of its seat, waiting for the revealing of the sons of God on the day when the Firstborn comes home. (Rom 8:19, 23)

This is what I’ve been freaking out about. I cannot possibly live a “normal life” in light of this. The only thing that matters anymore is preparing his bride, bringing him home, and seeing him face to face. What will he say to me on that day? Will he honour me by standing like he did for Stephen? (Acts 7:56) Will he give me the crown of righteousness for those who have loved his appearing? (2 Tim 4:8) Will he say “Well done, good and faithful servant”? (Matt 5:21) A thousand years for now, most of what I’m now filling my life with will not matter. What will stand when my life is tested by fire? (1 Cor 3:12-15)

Peter said we can “hasten the day.” (2 Peter 3:12) There are two specific ways I know of to do this: through prayer/ worship and fulfilling the great commission. He is raising up a 24/7 prayer movement of a lovesick bride crying “Come!” (Rev 22:17) and he is raising up a missions movement to carry his glory to the ends of the earth. (Hab 2:14) And now, he is joining them together.

“They lift up their voices, they sing for joy; over the majesty of the LORD they shout from the west. Therefore in the east give glory to the LORD; in the coastlands of the sea, give glory to the name of the LORD, the God of Israel. From the ends of the earth we hear songs of praise, of glory to the Righteous One.”
(Isaiah 24:14-16a)

What will that look like for me? Do I join IHOPKC? Do I join YWAM? Do I live as an ordinary radical SAHHM (Stay At Home Homeschool Mom)? I don’t know. And for the time being, I am okay with that. There are a few things I know about my destiny. God’s been revealing these to me one by one, uniquely tailored to me. I was made to:

  • Pour out my worship like Mary of Bethany. (First Commandment)
  • Cast vision for who God is and what he’s doing. (Second Commandment and Great Commission)
  • Live with the clear endgame of Jesus’ return to marry his Bride and establish his Kingdom.

That is what my life is about. I want to bring Jesus home. And that day is suddenly looking very, very close.

People, get ready.

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Open the Floodgates

On By CaitlynIn IHOPKC Life

When I shut up the heavens so that there is no rain, or command the locust to devour the land, or send pestilence among my people, if my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land.
(2 Chronicles 7:13-14)

For those of you who haven’t heard, the American midwest is in the middle of what is being described as the worst drought in a hundred years. Crops are being devastated, power is being lost, and the heat is becoming especially dangerous to children and the elderly. IHOP has been interceding for God to end the drought since last weekend (we jumped on this a little late, unfortunately) and on Wednesday night we got a breakthrough.

That night during the 8:00 intercession set we spent some time corporately praying out of 2 Chronicles for the ending of the drought. A few hours later, in the second hour of the 10:00 worship set, a spontaneous chorus was released that grew and grew until it launched the room into a 30 minute crazy dance party. “You have loved me so well, I’ve never another love so sweet. You have loved me so well, I’ve never known another love so great.” We danced ourselves into a glorious sweaty mess of JESUS JOY ‘SPLOSION till a good ten minutes past the time the next worship team was supposed to come on. Many of us hung out till about 12:30 still worshiping, even though we’re supposed to head back to the apartments at midnight. (The leaders gave us permission. There’s lots of flexibility for whenever the Spirit decides to knock plans out of the way.)

As I was exiting the prayer room with one of my roommates, I saw lightening crack through the sky. I was just enjoying God’s display of glory and didn’t even realise what it meant until a minute later when I felt the first drops. Within ten minutes the FLOODGATES HAD OPENED and it was pouring rain!!!! Interns came pouring out of their apartments to dance in the parking lot and laugh and yell worship into the sky.

As awesome as that was, though, the midwest is still in a heavy drought and still very much in need of intercession. Please join with us in praying that God would have mercy on everyone depending on the rain and send us what we need!

But now hear, O Jacob my servant,
Israel whom I have chosen!
Thus says the LORD who made you,
who formed you from the womb and will help you:
Fear not, O Jacob my servant,
Jeshurun whom I have chosen.
For I will pour water on the thirsty land,
and streams on the dry ground;
I will pour my Spirit upon your offspring,
and my blessing on your descendants.
(Isaiah 44:1-3)

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