Night was just setting in and we had plans to meet another couple for dinner at a nearby park that overlooks a large expanse for many miles to the south. As we arrived, city night lights could be seen far off, along with a wall of menacing black clouds that spanned the same horizon; far inland and across into the eastern sea. Granite shades of diagonal rain were visible from the imposing front of clouds and lighting was streaking across the fading dusk sky.
Pano of the Park and BBQ area
We began cooking and talking, watching helplessly as the storms continued to bear down on our location. The inevitable rain had begun to drizzle. As nightfall squeezed out the last daylight, we could now see flashing lightning in all directions. The black clouds were surrounding us like a wave of soldiers in battle and we could see the lightning flashing in front of us and now flanking us on either side as the rain began to intensify around us. The safe covering of our picnic area was overwhelmed by the extreme force of winds blowing rain across our shelter. Our vision was quickly being reduced to a matter of yards under the torrent rains.
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- Daytime view atop the hill
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- Night view
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- Grill area of park
Cold and wet we wrapped the kids in a blanket as I continued to cook. Glancing at Jonali, we non-verbally wondered to ourselves if this was a horrible idea. Minutes earlier, which now felt like hours, we had made the decision to stay, rather than escape to the safety of our nearby apartment. We had joked then about how we never would have rode this out prior to completing our Discipleship Training School but now, being there with a couple on staff, we felt a strange sense of comfort together. However, this situation was growing more gnarly by the second.
The lightning was now on our doorstep and I felt a wave of terror and fear come over me, standing under our metal structure in an open area atop a hill. This was one of those moments where you wish you could just close your eyes and it would all be over. And it was in that helpless moment, amidst the pressing attack of the enemy upon my mind and faced with danger on all sides that the strength of the Lord came rushing in like a flood and overwhelmed my spirit with faith.
As the Holy Spirit reminded me of the power of His word, suddenly I transformed from a helpless victim to a brave warrior like David. Indeed, it was God with David that gave him such courage to face Goliath and I was drawing on that same inspiring awareness. Walking around my hiding place behind the grill, I came to face the intimidating storms that had us surrounded. Drawing upon the faith that now pumped through my veins from the Holy Spirit, I began to rebuke the lightning storm and command it to leave and prayed for a hedge of protection over our location. Meanwhile, my friend Len was encouraging me onwards to pray and believe that the storms would flee.
After praying, I continued enjoying the meal and the company I was with. No longer was I feeling that fear. I was now standing in faith and I would remain in that posture until the battle was won.
Time passed by and we continued to enjoy the evening together. As the night was coming to an end, it dawned on me that the storm was now gone. And the inevitable lightning had never made it to our location. Indeed, what seemed like checkmate with the lightning striking on every side of us from less than a mile in every direction and moving directly at us, had been turned around for our good as the storm that reached as far as the eye could see to the East and West quietly slipped away into the night. Indeed we serve a big God and I’m so inspired by the power that He wields that “even the winds and the waves obey Him!”
At the moment it felt like we were going to be swallowed up, our King swallowed us up in His robe of love and pushed back the threat like only He can do! Now that is what I call a miracle.
While I tried to capture the dire situation we were in and how impossible it would have been for this lightning storm to miss us, you may be inclined to write this off and think it was just chance. I assure you if you were there, you would be calling this a miracle too. There is no other explanation for it.
The story doesn’t end there. About 3 months earlier when we were in our DTS class, we were doing a time of impartation and prayer for spiritual gifts. I had asked around if anyone on staff had the gift of miracles and was directed to an amazing man of God from Fiji. As I approached him for prayer, he told me stories of two different occasions where he had commanded storms to change directions in Jesus’ name and witnessed their sudden shift. On one occasion, as I recall, he was at a base with a hurricane headed for the base. Directly in the storms immediate path and awaiting impact at any moment, he prayed, the storm never struck them. Later analysis on news sites revealed the storm had within relative inches of their location and suddenly made a complete change of direction and zig away from them. The timing aligned with the exact time they had prayed.
He prayed for me to receive that same gift and encouraged me to look for opportunities to exercise the gift. Fast forward 3 months, now having just returned from outreach in Africa and he we were having dinner with a couple before we left Australia. The amazing irony of how God jokes with us is captured in the fact that the same friend, Len, who was with us in the storm, encouraging me to pray and rebuke the storm, also happens to be the Fijian man of God who had prayed for me 3 months prior to impart the gift of miracles and here we were, caught in a storm together with daunting circumstances and he was there with me to see the outworking of the inner working of the spirit that he had initiated. God is so funny sometimes!
For a short teaching on miracles and why God gives authority to His children to call upon His name to do the same, check out Making Sense of Miracles.