An Extra Meal

One day I entered a Kentucky fried chicken restaurant with my wife and son.  We like the colonel’s chicken (I especially like the coleslaw) and looked forward to our meal.  As we sat down, I spied a man sitting alone in a corner booth.  He seemed nervous and out of place, perhaps even homeless, although he was not poorly dressed.  For some reason, my heart went out to him.  We ordered our meals and sat down to wait for our name to be called.  I noted the man was still sitting at the booth and I wondered, “Should I buy him a meal?”

I ask what to do in such situations, so I prayed, “Father, should I buy this man a meal?”  God answered and said, “No, wait a minute.”  I obeyed and stayed seated until our meals were ready to be picked up. When called to the counter I was handed 4 meals instead of three.  I said, “Excuse me, but I only ordered three meals.”  The server said, “Oh sorry, our mistake, just take the extra one if you want.” I thanked her, then took the extra one to the man sitting alone at the corner booth.  I said, “Excuse me, but we have an extra meal, would you like it?”  He appeared shocked but said, “God bless you,” gratefully accepting the meal.

Hands on

One day the Holy Spirit drew me to a city cemetery.  I did not know why I was standing among the gravestones, but the Holy Spirit was very insistent that I be there.  As I prayed, it was as if two invisible hands grasped my shoulders, pressing me forward and guiding me as I walked. I was led to one side of the large cemetery and brought before a particular gravestone. The Holy Spirit said, “kneel down and kiss this gravestone”.  I thought it was an odd request but I obeyed, knelt, and kissed the top of the gravestone. As I read what it said I noticed a Christian lamb engraved on it. The words told of a lady who had lived in the 1800s, who was a believer. 

Again the invisible hands propelled me forward and stood me in front of another gravestone on the other side of the cemetery, bidding me to do the same thing.  After kissing that stone, I read again of another lady that lived in the same time period who was a Christian.  The Spirit spoke to me and said, “These two women were prayer warriors and because of their prayers you have been brought here to this city today.” In that city, God spoke through me mightily. Many local Christians called it “the visitation,” and the Holy Spirit shook the whole area in revival.  I was made to realize that my being there was the fruit of their prayers over a hundred years ago.  God made sure that I honored them for what they did so long ago, for without their faithfulness, what God was about to do would not have been possible.

On the rails

There was another day when I was driving around with my wife and the Holy Spirit directed me to park across the tracks of a railroad crossing. After I parked across the tracks, the Spirit said, “Sit down and pray.”  I sat down on the tracks with my back up against the car and prayed with my wife (who was really nervous) for about an hour, then God said I could leave.  The next day I was directed to the same set of tracks, but this time I was told to stop a normal distance from the crossing and wait.  In a couple of minutes, an Amtrak train roared by at about 70 miles per hour.

One day, a young man in church wanted prayer because he felt that he was too weak to walk with God. He feared that Satan would somehow take his soul and he would go to hell. Ministers gathered around him and prayed that God would help him and keep him strong.  By the Spirit, I held back until they finished and then went up and put my hand out, making a tight fist.  I said to the young man, “Open my hand.”  He tried half-heartedly and failed. Then I said, “Open my hand!” with a commanding voice.  This time he really tried but could not even raise one little finger and said to me, “I can’t do it.”  Then the Lord said, “Thus saith the Lord, Neither can Satan take you out of my hand.”

Jesus loves me

One day, feeling emotionally down, I asked the Lord to show Himself to me.  I was directed to park in the center of a certain lot in the midst of a city. As I was praying, a group of about five children with downs syndrome approached my car.  They said, “We want to sing you a song.” I said, “That would be nice,” and they all sang;

Jesus loves me this I know, for the bible tells me so, little ones to Him belong, they are weak but He is strong, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, yes Jesus loves me, the bible tells me so”

They laughed and giggled and continued on their way.

Again, on another day, I asked the Lord to show Himself to me.  I was directed to park in the same place on the same lot.  What looked to be an old lady and a street person came and stood over against me by the bus stop sign.  The Lord directed me to speak to her.  As I started talking to her, I learned that she and her husband had been overseers of the city mission for homeless people for the last twenty years, but now her husband had Alzheimer’s and was confined to a bed in the building across the street.  His one wish was to go back home before he died. The lady agreed to take me to see him, and as I stepped out of the elevator into a third-story room, I observed perhaps 50 old people in wheelchairs. They were twisted this way and that, many being barely cognizant of their surroundings.  We prayed together for her husband.  Of all the places in the entire city, God was most concerned about an old man and his faithful wife that no one hardly remembered.  

I have a message from God

I was driving by a radio station one day and God said that I should go in and speak to the director.  This was a scary thing to do, so I drove past the station and went around the block before I summoned up the courage to obey His voice. I went into the building and asked to see the director.  As I was shown the director’s office, I was really nervous but sat down when he offered a chair.  It was not obvious from the front of the building, but I had happened upon a Christian radio station.  He said, “What can I do for you?”  I replied, “I am Michael from just outside of Seattle, Washington and I have a message from God that I want to put on your radio station.”  He looked at me funny and then said, “Ok, what is it?” I was stunned that he responded positively and he asked me to write down the message and bring it to him tomorrow. 

The next day he recorded it and asked, “How would you like to put it on the radio?”  The Lord prompted me to say, “For four days, seven times per day,” to which He agreed.  I asked him about payment and he said there would be no charge for a message from God. I learned from the station director that two weeks before I arrived, a woman came into his office telling him that God was sending a man named Justin from just outside of Seattle to his city and he was to do whatever was asked of him.  So, when I showed up, the way was prepared.

The visitation

When the message played on the radio, people were stirred to the depths of their souls.  A woman that was holding a pot of freshly cooked food in her kitchen felt the anointing so strongly she dropped the pot.  A man listening to the radio in his car was sure it was God speaking directly to him out of his stereo.  The station’s switchboards lit up and the city fell to its knees in prayer. God knows what to do and when to do it.  His true power is not in big flashy programs or large sums of money but in our obedience to His still small voice even in the very smallest things.  A message given in obedience according to His will at the proper time can rock a region for Christ more than fifty large crusades costing millions of dollars.  Once we come to this realization, God will be free to move in truly spectacular ways.

God will do small miracles

In conclusion, God is concerned that we listen to and obey His Holy Spirit and will actively do small miracles every day in our lives and the lives of others if we will but ‘listen, hear, and obey on time.’

Michael Row The Boat Ashore by Pete Seeger

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