The Lord is shaking our foundations. America’s man-made gods are NO god’s at all. God is saying in the days to come we will see all our self-made god’s fail – with self-being the biggest of all!

The issue in our nation is not the war with Iraq. The Lord says the issue is the war going on in our heart. The Lord gave me a Scripture for us.

The invasion of war will happen and possibly North Korea, China or several of the Russian republics will resist us. (Like Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Soviet Georgia area)

Return to Jesus Christ! Renew the covenant of our forefathers who sought the Lord with all their heart, turned from their sin, shed their blood for freedom and walked in humility and love with one another and God. 2003 is the year of decision for our nation.

The heathen cannot intimidate the man or woman who is intimate with God. Draw close to Jesus and He will be your strength and comfort.

Stop trying to be politically correct. All of us need to stop it! ‘And, Mr. President, tell who you are! Please stop trying to be politically correct!’

We are in a battle of worship. Satan wants us to worship at his altar of self, money, reputation, glory and careers – and the Lord wants us to worship him in purity, truth, holiness, love and forbearance! THE BATTLE IS WHOM WILL WE WORSHIP!

In 2003 there will be a shifting of leadership in the Catholic Church. The old is dying and the new is coming."

Whether you like it or not, God will send you to the wilderness at some point in your life. Don't resist--let Him lead you through the dry places and into a deeper relationship with Him.

During football season, once again we find Lucy holding the football for Charlie Brown to kick. But just as his foot is about to make contact, she moves the ball, sending him sprawling to the ground. Aggravated yet still trusting, he tries again and again. Each time he goes flying. Finally in frustration he turns and asks, "Where do you go to give up?"

No doubt each of us has looked for the "giving-up place" at some juncture of our Christian walk. For me it has most often happened when I've found myself in a spiritual "wilderness." When the Heavens Are Brass Spiritually speaking, what is the wilderness--and how do we know we are there? The silence of God and the absence of His felt presence is one of the ways we recognize the wilderness. Other evidences include:

* The heavens are brass. Our prayers seem to reach only the ceiling.

* Intimacy is gone. There is a sense of barrenness in prayer.

* We suffer feelings of spiritual rejection, loneliness and abandonment by God. We have no meaningful encounters with Him in prayer.

The spiritual wilderness can come in many ways. It can come through external circumstances that cause significant changes in our lives--a job loss, a move to a new location, family difficulties or relational struggles. It can also come through traumatic events like the death of a friend or loved one; divorce (the death of a marriage); the missing of a life goal or the fading of a dream; or sin--whether our own or one committed against us.

One of the more difficult wilderness times my husband, Eddie, and I experienced occurred in 1993. We had been nestled in a comfortable place in the ministry for more than 11 years, and we had no interest in moving. But the Lord had something else in mind.

Our intercessors began sharing with us their impressions that we were in a stage of transition. Our ministry as we knew it was about to be restructured, they said. Although we valued the insights of the intercessors, it was my hope that they were totally wrong on this one. However, by late summer it was obvious that the time had come to change directions. The Father moved us into a corner where we were forced to either go forward or disobey.

Without any further instruction, direction or plans for long-term income, we resigned from the church we had started almost 12 years earlier. Leaving a church we planted, trying to explain to loved ones why we had done so and still trusting the Lord for our future was painfully difficult. It was similar to a death.

The grief in the days that followed was overwhelming. We had no understanding. My solace was found only in the prayer closet, but even then I would sit numbly before the Lord. The heavens were closed to me. Questions flooded through my mind while I cried to the Lord for help. The enemy accused me of missing God.

Two months later, still stuck in the wilderness, I felt led to start a 40-day fast. The first 30 days in prayer were heavenly as I experienced a glorious recovery of my usual intimacy with Jesus. Then it ended. Physical fatigue set in. The last 10 days were a battle I will never forget. The assault from the enemy was unrelenting. Deadness settled over me like a blanket. I began to understand in a minute way the spiritual warfare Jesus must have known the last three days before His crucifixion.

On day 30 of my fast, C. Peter Wagner from Fuller Theological Seminary called Eddie. "I believe the Lord is saying you are the man to start the United States 'prayer track' for the A.D. 2000 & Beyond Movement," he said. "Will you do it?" What I didn't know was that Peter had called Eddie one month earlier with the same offer, and Eddie had declined. This time he agreed to at least talk and pray with me about it. Immediately, I knew this was the direction for us. Within weeks the Lord provided the new U.S. Prayer Track with an office, computers, a fax machine and volunteers. Hope, direction and revelation were renewed--and our wilderness faded away.

Our Response in the Valley

Perhaps you, too, have had times when you found yourself in a place of loneliness or darkness, overwhelmed by a sense of the silence of God. You are not alone! Some people refer to this wilderness time as "the valley" or "the dark night of the soul."

The fact is, the Christian life is not lived in a constant "springtime" of new life and fast growth. There are seasons in our walk with the Lord. From time to time we will each experience the cold blast of spiritual "winter." Such times can prompt a variety of responses, some productive, some counterproductive. For example: **Questioning. We may ask such things as, "What are You doing, Lord?" Or "God, where are You?" Or negative suggestions such as the following may enter our minds: "The Lord must not love me, because He is letting the devil do this." In the wilderness, the devil attacks us with lies about the Father. He presents us with options other than trusting the Lord with our lives. He tries to force us to sin or to get ahead of God's plan. Early on we need to make a choice to trust God and not the devil so that we don't falter in the midst of testing.

**Apathy.

Someone once said, "When God puts you on hold, don't hang up." If we are not careful, the wilderness can produce discouragement, and discouragement can result in apathy. Like Charlie Brown, we may begin to look for a place to give up.

**Introspection and faultfinding.

Although it is good to allow the Lord to examine our hearts and reveal any hidden sins, too often we adopt a "woe is me" mind-set. We begin to analyze ourselves, our situations and others. In so doing, we become critical and can eventually suffer "analysis paralysis." Responses like these are just what the enemy wants. He wants us to question God's commitment to us and our commitment to God. Satan wants us to be critical and negative. When he engages us in spiritual battle, he wants to see us wave the "white flag." Don't entertain the enemy! If you give him a toehold, he will take a foothold. And if you give him a foothold, he will build a stronghold.

The Purpose of the Wilderness

The wilderness is necessary. Yet we tend to misunderstand our need for the wilderness experience because we have not learned the ways of God. King David said, "He made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel" (Ps. 103:7, NKJV). Most of us are seeking God's acts when we should be learning His ways. It is through His ways that we will know Him. In our struggle for the anointing, a manifestation or power in ministry, the Father often allows us to grope in disillusionment until we are willing to be Spirit-led, not need-driven. The wilderness is necessary because it brings us to a place of brokenness. We may try to avoid it, but the reality is that brokenness is our friend, not our enemy. A quick look at Scripture shows this is true.

Jesus said, "Blessed are the poor in spirit" (Matt. 5:3). Isaiah tells us that God dwells "with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the humble, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones" (Is. 57:15-16). We often treat brokenness as if it is to be a onetime experience. It's not. As the late evangelist Mickey Bonner wrote, "Brokenness is the forgotten factor of prayer." Regardless of the circumstances that bring on our wildernesses, the crucial issue is that we learn what the Lord is trying to teach us.

Certainly, one of those lessons is to trust in Him. Too often, we assume the silence of God is a sign of His rejection of us. Not true! He has promised never to leave us or forsake us. But He has also promised to grow us up in Christ. It is easy to overlook the reality that it is in the valley where things grow. On the mountaintop there is hard rock and exposure to the elements. But down below, in the valley, there is nutrient-rich soil that produces a bountiful harvest. The psalmist declared that God enlarged him when he was "in distress"--that is, in the valley (see Ps.4:1, KJV). We need to trust that He will do the same for us. I believe there are many other reasons the heavenly Father allows the silence to come into our lives. Perhaps the most important is to keep us constantly in pursuit of Him. Too often we take for granted the privilege of experiencing His presence and hearing His voice. Our God is a jealous God--jealous for our time and devotion. Furthermore, He wants us to learn to depend on Him, not on ourselves. His desire is for us to stay calm and unperplexed in the midst of turmoil. We glorify the Father when we accept the process of internal brokenness rather than striving for an end.

We should not forget that it is our God who prepares a table before us in the presence of our enemies (see Ps. 23:5). The person who has no trials has no triumphs! Yet we tend to want the victories without the battles that, by definition, must precede them.

Learning in the Wilderness Jesus explains in John 12:24-25: "I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life will lose it, while the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life" (NIV). I call this one of the Bible's "upside-down principles"--a way of thinking that is opposite to the way the world thinks. Jesus teaches if you want to live, then you must die (see Phil. 1:21). If you want to receive, then you must give (see Luke 6:38). For Christ to increase, you must decrease (John 3:30). To be exalted, you must humble yourself (Matt. 23:12).

Wilderness experiences may seem like frozen, dead times. But God teaches us a great deal in them if we are willing to learn. For example, the wilderness:

1. Crucifies false spirituality. In the wilderness, we begin to take off our phony "spiritual masks" that have been hiding our true love of self. Our carnal, soulish nature believes that self-effort, plans, projects, and spiritual disciplines will prove our worth before God and others. However, in the valley the Lord strips away false piety and foolish expectations about our own abilities and success.

2. Reinforces God-dependence. We could never endure the wilderness without a profound sense of the Father's unconditional love and acceptance. The wilderness times do not come so He can torment us or because He is angry with us.

They are opportunities to build a deeper faith and stronger determination to follow Christ. The danger of falling along the way is real. The Israelites were challenged with several wilderness trials--and many fell. Numbers 14:32 states, "But as for you, your carcasses shall fall in this wilderness" (NKJV). We must not resist the breaking that comes through suffering. We must take the bitter with the sweet and let the bitter make us better. We must understand the Father is more concerned about our holiness than He is about our happiness.

3. Prepares us for new levels of revelation. In life, the wilderness always precedes revelation. Christ could not be glorified until He had first been crucified, nor can we. Don't forget Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness temptation (see Luke 4:1-2). But He emerged from the wilderness in the power of the Spirit (see Luke 4:14). Jesus set the example for us all by walking through the wilderness, accepting the experience with faith in God and coming out of His testing with a greater anointing.

Jesus' experience shows us a cycle Christians go through: wilderness, then revelation, then victory, then blessing. If we do not struggle against the process, the result can be amazing breakthrough and unprecedented communion with the Lord.

The wilderness experience is ultimately a paradox and a mystery of our faith. We will never be able to understand the mind of God; His ways are higher than our ways. But know this: The wilderness is a necessary encounter. In it, all confidence and pretense of the flesh is washed away, and a deeper intimacy and dependency upon God is forged.