Taken by Surprise...

They began to pray very calmly for me. Everything was quiet and nice and according to the church bulletin. As the young people began to pray for me, I closed my eyes; my mind was not on revival or anything else. I was in a rush to go to the next church to preach, when my clasped hands began to shake, without my permission, and I could not control them. In, our denomination, and especially the training that my father gave me, when we are on the platform, we are in control. We let the Lord use us, but don't get out of hand. If we get out of control, what will happen to the rest of the congregation?

That is wise. But in this case, something was happening to me for the first time that I could not control. I thought, "This is out of place." I opened my eyes and looked at the congregation before me, no one else was shaking. So I tried to stop the shaking. I gripped my hands more tightly trying to stop the shaking, and my entire body began to shake. I remember locking my knees and making them really stiff, and then I fell on the floor.

Something strange was happening and I said, "This is not right, I must get up." From the floor I was shaking completely out of control, and I was looking at the people, and they were looking at me. No one was praying any more! The pastor began to lead a few songs. I was weeping and the next moment I was laughing. I felt very, very embarrassed, quite shocked, and extremely happy, all at the same time.

I said, "I must get out of here." Three times I tried to get up. The third time two ushers helped me up. The associate Pastor was next to me. The pastor came down from the platform; I was right there in front of the platform. I said crying, "Pastor, do not let me interrupt this meeting, please take me out of here." And this brother put his arm over my shoulder and said, "You are not interrupting, brother, this is the presence of God." That was like a healing balm over my soul.

You know how important it is when this new glory of the Lord comes that there would be godly people to understand what is going on. As we pray for the fire of God, we will find others who have a ministry of fire fighters.

They finally carried me out. I thought they were carrying me to a separate room. I wanted to be alone with God. But they had the bad idea of sitting me on the front row. I continued shaking and every few minutes I would fall onto the floor and someone would come and pick me up and sit me back in the chair. I would refrain myself as much as I could, but the more I tried to get uptight about it, the stronger the waves of the Holy Spirit would come upon me. There were surges of power over my bones and my life. His glory was there. I did not know what to call this.

Someone, without consulting me, went back to the church office and called the pastor of the other church that was expecting me to preach. They said, "It does not look like this fellow is going to make it today." It took me two weeks to get to that church to preach!

At that point of my experience, though, my mind was not changed, my thoughts were not renewed at that time. My body was shaking, I had a sign, and I could feel the waves of the glory of the Lord. The Bible speaks to us about miracles, signs and wonders. I believe that was a sign from the Lord to catch my attention. And He certainly did! I was available for twenty-four hours a day to Him for the next six days.

How is a Christian permanently transformed? By the renewing of his mind. "Do not conform any longer to the patterns of his world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds." (Romans 12:2). When our thoughts are purified, and our wrong conclusions are set aside, and the truth of the gospel comes to us, then we are no longer the same.