It was a normal Tuesday morning for us on the fireschool, grab a hot drink and then upstairs in the House of Prayer for teaching before we pray. Last Tuesday was a bit different and will stand out as one of those times when God took over.

We had a guest speaker who came to talk about his mother who had been a part of the Hebridian Revival. Many of us were deeply moved by his testimony of how people across these Scottish Islands were pursued by the convicting power of God until they were left powerless but to surrender their lives in service to their creator.

I felt challenged by his words but did not expect what God would do next…

As I moved into the HOP to pray I suddenly felt an overwhelming desire to worship God that I could not push aside. We were supposed to be praying but I could not stop the worship that was bubbling up inside of me. I found myself being taken deeper and deeper into his presence until it seemed only He existed. I felt Him whisper to me that I must kneel before him and with tears streaming down my face I obeyed. As I knelt I felt a deep conviction come to me that utterly ruined me as I realised that He was Holy and I was a sinner. I began to sob. The microphone was passed to me to pray as is our usual practice but I hardly knew what to say I was so broken by his presence I was afraid to speak, all I could do was ask for mercy.

At this point most people were either on their knees or faces crying out to God. God had broken in. I can’t speak for anyone else but I know that this experience has marked me.

The last couple of weeks in Fireschool have for me been an intensification of all that God has been doing throughout the year. There is a theme that I cannot escape, which is dying to self. What I am discovering is that God is not asking me to do intercession for this nation but to really identify with Christ in His ultimate act of intercession on the cross. As we pray, I become more and more aware of how much we limit God with our flesh. The less of me there is in my prayers, the more God can do through them. Over and over God has been speaking to me about laying my self down in intercession and making my life the kind of sacrifice that God would be pleased to send His fire on. On Friday evening we learned about the intercession that Aaron made for the people of Israel when he ran through the camp between the living and the dead. What he did broke all the rules that God had given Moses of how a priest should perform his duties. He risked his life to save a nation. Esther did the same when she went before the king to plead for her people. Dying to self and living in intercession isn’t so that I can have a better relationship with God but so that other people can have life. I guess I’ve been learning this week that thats what Fireschool is all about.

so its half three in the morning and im in the house of prayer meeting with God. what an awesome privilage. There is something about praying in the night- something about there being just you before God in a big empty building. i love it.
God is really breathing on my prayer life right now. about a week ago i began to ask him to make me a lover of him. i wanted to be more than a convert, more than a follower and even more than a son in terms of my relationship with God and God has already begun answering my prayer. i have begun to meet God on a more intimate and intense level than ever before and i have a growing hunger just to be with him. not only this but it affects my intercession because i am begining to see it as more than a need from the point of view of the people concerned but a great desire of Gods heart and i want to do what i can to give God that desire as it were. now im saying God i desire to stand in the gap so that you can turn away your judgement cos i know a bit of how much it grieves you to hurt your kids and i want to lead them to you because more than anything you want to encounter souls.
God really spoke to me from a bit in Song of Songs chapter 5 where the lover comes and knocks on the door of the beloved wanting to meet with her but the beloved says ‘ oh i have got undressed for bed do i have to get up and get dressed, do i have to get my feet cold and dirty walking across to the door’? and even though she goes eventually and decides to meet her lover by the time she opens the door he is gone. the challenge to my heart was ‘what is my response when God whispers to me and i feel him drawing me. do i count the cost and decide that its worth it or do i jump up immediately because that is the very thing my heart has been waiting for and anticipating’? psalm 63 talks of the man hungry for God and it says that he is already thinking of God all through the night. he is ready to leap up.
the way i think of it now is this. of all the planets in the whole of the universe God has set his love on us. so when he looks down from heaven on this tiny pin prick of light and draws near to see all the people getting on with life, heads down and busying thenselves with their various things, i want my face to be looking up,not down at my life and whats going on- waiting, anticipating, excitedly longing for him to look and come and meet me. this is how i want to live each day. so im keep praying God make me a lover of You and ill see where he takes me!

Whilst praying for Durham today, the Holy Spirit showed me a picture of the map of the UK and there was like a beacon of light shining out of durham. Slowly other cities began to catch this light, and started lighting up one by one. It was really cool!! I felt like God was saying what He wants to do with the students in Durham is to birth something that will spread across other campuses in the UK…almost like a new student sound…living for holiness, righteousness, and intimacy with Jesus!

As usual we arrived at the House of Prayer for our revival meeting an hour early to pray, personally i felt an expectancy that God would do something big that night, with a real feeling of wanting to press into God for more. The evening before a few of us had been in the House of Prayer and we really felt that God was wanting us to push into a new thing and that what we knew was just not enough anymore. So when the meeting started i was really up for it and had, had some thoughts of what God might do. God really suprised me and where i thought he would have moved in my natural mind he actually moved completely differently, reminding me his ways are not my ways. God moved in waves of love and we just lay there being ministered to by the Holyspirit it was awesome, i know that this evening was key and as i heard from Mike later it had really impacted him.