Holy Hunger 2 - Leaders' Talks

You're listening to this edition of the world.

2007.

I actually was last time I spoke.

God woke me up at two in the morning and said, let's go take a walk.

I think that was his favorite time.

So I I went for a walk with God about a half mile down the road.

I said, You go so fast.

I wasn't coming back.

I'm thinking like you go so fast.

You go so fast that people are growing.

You're looking five miles down the road.

You're going so fast that you miss the divine connections.

Visitations that I've had prepared for you.

He says I want you to jump off the rat race may go around.

I want you to underwhelm your schedule.

So I can overwhelm your soul once again.

At The Road, our mission is to empower people to change the world.

For more information on The Road, visit theroad.org.

We hope you are encouraged by today's message.

So let's just pray and then we can get started.

But Lord, I just thank you for the opportunity to be here before you this morning.

I just moved myself out of the way, Lord, for you to have your perfect work done here.

And I, Lord, as I open my mouth, uh, I pray you fill it with the things that you want us to hear this morning in Jesus' name.

You know, I tend to speak extemporaneously and spontaneously.

I said that last time.

And so the nice thing about that is that I can change direction on a dime.

In the Old Testament, the words listen and obey are one word, and it's one action.

And if I sense that God wants to take us to a different direction, I will.

I have a message.

But um, the exciting thing about that is uh I never know what's going to come out of my mouth, so I'm excited to hear what I have to say too.

So it's I know you never know with me, you know.

So um I think sometimes we wait for an invitation to do what God's already told us to do.

And so um you don't have to wait until the end of my message.

If you're hungry for God, come up here.

If you have some sins to confess, you don't have to wait till the end of the service and someone pray for you, come up here.

If you need healing, you don't have to wait, you don't need an invitation, just come on up and sit up front.

If you died today, didn't know you were going to heaven and want to know, you don't have to wait till the end of the service.

Just come on up, you know.

How many of you have little children?

As in little children, I mean babies like nine months or younger.

Not too many, but some.

But all you out there that were parents can remember when your babies were little.

Babies are amazing creatures.

I mean, they have the ability, without even speaking a word, to articulately uh uh communicate exactly when they need to be fed.

I mean, they will kick, they will scream, they will cry, they will groan, they'll do anything it takes, and with every kick, scream, and cry, they're screaming out, feed me now.

But they don't care where where they do it, they don't care who listens, they don't care where you're at, you might be in a grocery store, you could be at a fine dining restaurant, you know, the the kind where you gotta hold out your little pinky?

Uh you could be, heaven forbid, in church.

Doesn't matter when babies are hungry and they start crying and screaming, by golly, uh they'll do whatever it takes to be fed.

The question I have this morning is when was the last time any of us cried and screamed and groaned and travailed before God?

And we did it relentlessly until God came and fed us.

We need more of that.

We need more of that in the church.

Early Friday morning, as in a couple days ago, God woke me up at 2.43 in the morning, and I think he waited till I was fully awake.

Then he said something to me three different times.

Same thing.

He said, Desire your fire and claim your flame.

The first time I heard it, I thought, man, that sounds strangely familiar.

Like I've heard it before.

And I I mean I've got a lot of catchy phrases and sayings and um and quotes, and if you've known me for any length of time, I'm full of them.

But I didn't write those words, but I knew I heard them somewhere before.

I heard it again.

Desire your fire and claim your flame.

Then as he was saying it the third time, I remembered where I heard it.

And it was up in Toronto.

How many are you familiar with the revival when it took place in Toronto, the Toronto blessing?

You know, during the mid-90s and the late 90s.

And I went, they had conferences up there, and I went up there, and and near the end of that revival, it got a little bit goofy, but but no one can deny the impact that it had all over the world.

Tens of thousands of people got saved up there.

So I went up there in '97.

They had these conferences called Catch the Fire.

And um, and that's where I heard it.

Everyone was saying, Desire your fire and claim your flame.

And I think it's a significance that God spoke it three times.

It's like in the mouths of three witnesses, or uh, things are established.

And so, um, and I don't know if God was telling me, Al, desire your fire, claim your flame.

What kind of revival do you want to see?

And I don't think it's without significance that it was, I heard that in Toronto.

Now, does what happened in Toronto, is that what God wants to do here?

I don't know.

It could be, but I do believe that what God's about to do here is is gonna have just as big an impact where tens and thousands get saved and we're impacting the world.

I uh I talk about Tommy Tenney a lot, and um I'll tell you one story from him.

He wrote the book God Chasers and a bunch of other books, but he had a friend in Houston, and Tommy was from Louisiana, and his buddy called him up and said, Tommy, come out of this Sunday and preach.

We're getting so close, I think we're about to break through.

So Tommy went out there and it was a good service, but God didn't break out.

So Tommy was back in Louisiana Monday or Tuesday, and his buddy called him up and said, Tommy, I've never done this before, but why don't you come out again Sunday?

Second time.

I think we're so close.

What do you mean?

I think this could be the week.

So Tommy went out there and the service was great.

But God didn't break out.

So Tommy was back in Louisiana Monday and Tuesday here, and uh his buddy called him up a third time.

He said, Tommy, come back a third time.

I've never asked anyone to do this.

And he said, uh he said, We're so close.

He said, Okay.

So Tommy walked in the door and he felt this expectancy, this electricity.

He thought the place was gonna explode.

And he was sitting on the front row and he casually walked back to the sound booth because he wanted to see just where and when God was gonna break out.

And all of a sudden they heard this loud boom.

It was like a thunder, and the pulpit split in half.

And for the next many, many weeks, every day they had a service, and thousands and thousands got saved.

We're that close for that happening here.

I'm not saying our pulpit's gonna split in half.

If it does, I hope my computer's not involved.

But we're so close.

There's a significance that God woke me up at 2.43 in the morning.

You ever play the guessing game when you wake up in the middle of the night?

If I have to get up and go to the bathroom, I always try to guess what time it is, and then I'll look at my my phone or whatever, see how close I was and see if I nailed it, you know.

And uh, and sometimes I I do, sometimes I don't.

But then you you look at the numbers and you try to associate that with scriptures, and you wonder if, well, maybe that 243 had something to do with some scriptures.

Sometimes it does, and sometimes you're just blowing steam, you know.

But as I was chewing all these things, God was so patient with me as I was processing all these things, and before I could even say anything, he says, turn to Acts 243.

So let me read you Acts 243.

And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles.

That awe that came on every soul, that's that same reverent, holy, hush awe.

The kind of awe where people they're afraid to tiptoe out of the sanctuary because the presence of God is so thick.

The kind of awe that people were afraid to have sin in their lives.

They came up and confessed it right away because they didn't want to be like Ananias and Sapphira.

That's what's gonna return, I think, to the body of Christ.

So as I'm chewing on all these things, God reminded me.

Last year I was sitting in Rosie's Diner in Monument, and uh I always loved the diners.

Um, because I love I love breakfast specials, Rosie's 5 49 before 9 o'clock, you know.

So uh, but I love it.

And I was I was there typing on my computer and waiting for breakfast to come, and they're they're always playing songs from the 60s, you know.

So they started playing this one song and I started tapping my foot, and you'll remember the song, and I'm gonna sing it at the risk of having old ladies run for blocks here.

But it was uh there's a kind of hush all over the world tonight, all over the world you can hear the sound of lovers in love.

Remember that song?

Uh I love that song, and so uh, but I was just tapping my feet to it, and I'm still plucking away in my computer, oblivious to the fact that God was trying to speak to me.

So the chorus came up again, and God said, Al, just be quiet and listen.

There's a kind of hush all over the world tonight, all over the world, you can hear the sound of lovers and love.

So listen very carefully, closer now, and you will see what I mean.

It isn't a dream.

The only sound that you will hear is when I whisper in your ear I love you forever and ever.

As he was singing this, or as they're singing this, God said, You know, Al, the words awe and awesome are used so much these days that they've lost their meaning.

But I'm gonna bring back a holy hush to the body of Christ.

I'm gonna bring back that reverent awe back to the sanctuary, and when I do, it's gonna be followed by miracles, signs, and wonders.

And God back then gave me Acts 2.43, the same scripture.

When was the last time, you know, that that reverent awe?

When was the last time we were in a church service?

And I'm not knocking church, it's not knocking our church, and the pastor said, Let's just drop everything we're doing and wait on God.

I know why we don't do it.

Every church that's of any size has a service flow chart.

There's so much time for the announcements, so much time for worship, so much time for the message, and that leaves very little time for God.

I'm not saying that God doesn't work through the announcements.

I think people can get saved during the announcements.

You know, our announcements are great, you know.

I think they can get saved during worship.

They can definitely get saved during the message.

But if God wanted to go a different route and do a little bit differently, would we have time for them?

And would we allow it?

Number one, number two.

I remember in Pennsylvania we'd we'd have Heidi Baker come in a couple times a year.

And I don't know if you know how many heard of Heidi.

Heidi is so humble.

Her and her husband, Rollin, they had up Iris Ministries.

They feed about a hundred thousand kids daily.

And um, so Heidi came in, she walked up the steps and sat down on the stage and put her head down in her lap.

Didn't say anything for 10 minutes.

After 10 minutes, she cried for another 10 minutes.

So she was there 20 minutes and said a word.

And then she looked up and she said, If I seem a little distraught, this morning I got shot at, my house got broken in two, and these things seem kind of incredible.

It's kind of a daily occurrence when you're in Mozambique.

And so I just wanted to come in, and I knew I had some things I wanted to say, but I wanted to come in, just sit down and hear from daddy to see what he wanted to say.

There's gonna be more and more of that in churches across America as that holy hush comes back.

2007, I mentioned this last time I I spoke.

God woke me up at two in the morning and said, Let's go take a walk.

I think Adam's favorite times with God were the early morning walks in the garden.

So I I went for a walk with God, and about a half mile down the road, I stopped at a park bench, and God says, You go so fast.

And I thought I thought it was a compliment.

I'm thinking, like, thank you, Lord.

He says, No, you go so fast.

You go so fast that you miss the people in the roses that are growing at your feet.

He says, Al, you're looking five miles down the road and you're going so fast that you miss the divine connections and and uh visitations that I've had prepared for you.

He says, I want you to jump off the rat race merry-go-round.

I want you to underwhelm your schedule so I can overwhelm your soul once again.

So for the last 13 years, God's just having me slow down.

And I'll tell you, when things aren't adding up in your life, sometimes it's time to start subtracting.

And when do you know you've subtracted enough?

Well, I think when life's luxuries are no longer necessities, there's nothing wrong with having stuff.

There's a lot wrong with stuff having us.

And so God wants us to slow down.

I think there's five things that attract the presence of God.

The first one I talked about last time and a little bit this time, and that's holy hunger.

Isaiah 44, 3 is one of my favorite scriptures.

It says, I'll pour water on him that's thirsty and floods upon the dry ground.

Holy hunger is like an intoxicating perfume to God.

What bacon is to men, holy hunger is to God.

In fact, ladies, if you put a little bacon grease behind your ears, you can get any man you want.

You know, firmly convinced that.

There's something about holy hunger that gets people to come up and come in for 5 a.m.

prayer.

So I don't know if you know this, that we did it for 10 days, but we haven't stopped it.

So today was day number 14, 5 a.m.

prayer.

And I'm just so grateful to the people that came.

I'm not mad for people that don't come, but the only thing we're really giving up is a little sleep.

And um I do my best sleeping when I drive, so it doesn't really matter.

But um one of the things, one of the days, I think it was Thursday or Friday, I wrote something a long time ago.

And uh I read it to these guys because they to me they were really a remnant.

You know, they got up at five in the morning, they really hungered, and I so this is what I wrote.

There is still a remnant that hungers for his presence, who have gone from being warriors to warriors a long time ago.

They're driven by a holy discontent that only God can quench.

They are awakening a sleeping church and breathing life back in to the hopeless.

They are reigniting the flamethrowers and regathering the bloodstained allies.

They have the resolute fortitude to stand up with reckless abandonment and say, Not on my watch.

They will give themselves no rest until the glory of God covers the earth.

Their contracts are for life and they're written in blood.

They call themselves the Sons of Thunder.

I'm one of them.

God's looking for a few more recruits.

Will you join us?

There's something about holy hunger that gets people up in the morning like that.

So I think it was Thursday and Friday.

I asked people, What gets you up?

Why are you here?

What do you want to see accomplished?

And each one had something a little bit different.

But as each person responded, my heart was just everything they're saying, I'm screaming, yes, yes.

So we're gonna continue this 5 a.m.

prayer and um what I'd like to see happen.

Uh there, I mean, there's days, Steve, how many we have?

55 some of those days.

And that's that's something.

You know, there's a difference between a church that prays and a praying church.

A church that prays has prayer programs, a praying church has developed a culture of prayer.

That's what we're turning into.

We're going from a church that prays into a praying church.

And when that happens, when we start repenting of sins we've never committed on behalf of people we've never met, when the carpets are wet with our tears, crying out to God, revival is gonna come, and we're this close.

We don't come in at five in the morning because we have to.

We come in at five in the morning because we get to.

There's a big difference.

Second thing that I think attracts the presence of God is is worship.

I remember we were Nathan and Brett Higby and I got up uh how long ago?

Where where are you guys?

Oh, back there.

When was that?

About a month and a half ago or so?

Okay, two or three weeks ago.

Seems longer.

But uh, we went to Garden of the Gods before sunrise.

We had a sunrise service there.

And with it, Nathan brought his guitar and we were praying and and worshiping.

It was one of the coolest things I ever witnessed in my life, you know.

And we're in all the rock formations and and we started having all these hikers coming through.

I mean, there was tons of them.

Some would stop, some would raise their hands and stuff like that, and uh, some you know would pray a little bit.

But but then these three guys from Kentucky came, and they were just three guys coming out west to see the sights, and their first stop was Garden of the Gods.

And we happened to be there at the same time.

And one guy had a camera, his name was Alex, and he's taking pictures, found out they were Christians, and so um we we got to pray for them, they prayed for us, and then Alex said, Hey, hey, dude, you got an extra Bible?

Because I left mine at home, and uh, it'd be cool to have one.

All I had was my duct tape Bible that had 25 years of notes in.

And I said, Alex, I want to give this to you.

But I said, Alex, I just can't do it unless you know that you and I are gonna be connected for the rest of our lives.

Because part of my heart is in that.

He says, Let's do it.

You know, so he uh Facebook uh friended me.

Me and and so he's been sending me stuff.

He'll send me pictures, and their trip is done now, but he sent me pictures, or he'd look at um some things or notes in there, and he says, and he and he'll take a picture of it and said, Dude, this is really deep, man.

You know?

Anyone can give away something that costs a lot, right?

But it's uh altogether different story to give away something that's costly, you know.

And that Bible was costly, but I figured it's just a Bible.

I probably got ten other Bibles.

It's about time I can break another one in, you know.

I just like that one because I knew where everything was, you know.

When God gets hungry, I think he dines on worship.

There's just something about worship that it tends to reset our spiritual factory settings.

It washes the filth of the day off of us.

It takes us from where we are into where God is.

You know, we enter his gates with thanksgiving in our hearts.

We enter his courts with praise.

There's something about worship that attracts the presence of God.

The third thing that really attracts the presence of God, and one thing I've never lost all my life, and that's being childlike.

I still wake up, I said last time, like a five-year-old on Christmas morning, and literally I wake up like this.

It's like, God, what's gonna happen today?

You know?

Who am I supposed to talk to?

Give me a due word in due season for everyone I talk to.

Today, Lord, today could be the day, Lord, that you break out.

And I'm excited like a little kid like that.

I put on Facebook a couple weeks ago, how old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

So a lot of people responded, and uh and uh and a lot of people shared it, and the people that shared it responded, and and those people who uh had a lot of responses, and other people shared it, and other people, so there was about 200 responses.

So someone finally asked me, Al, how old would you be if you didn't know how old you were?

And I said, Well, on my most grown-up days, when I'm really feeling adult-like, maybe 12, you know, but uh but most days about nine.

I really consider it a great day if I can make it out the door uh and my pants aren't on backwards, or my shirt's not inside out.

I mean, I there's I I've always got plenty of opportunities to laugh at myself.

I remember one week I locked my keys in my car three times.

In fact, I just locked my keys in the car the other day.

Remember it, Steve?

So it still happens.

I locked my keys in my car three times in the same week.

And I used a coat hanger and broke in there and got them out.

And uh my daughter Hannah said to me, Dad, you ought to get one of those hidea keys, you know?

It comes with a little magnet, you can put it underneath your car.

And I said, Hannah, that's a great idea.

And I started thinking for a minute.

I said, Hannah, I think I bought one of those about a year ago.

I look, I looked under my car, there's a key there.

I broke in my car three times and didn't have to.

And and uh my daughter Hannah said, Dad, you're just like a kid.

He says, uh, you could probably plan your own surprise party.

I said, and and pull it off without a clue.

I said, I I think I could probably hide my own Easter eggs, you know.

There's something about being childlike.

I think childlikeness is the standard for maturity in the kingdom of God.

And to be filled with wonder and awe and hope and expectancy.

You ever notice kids never worry?

I never worry.

I mean, maybe a handful of times in my life have I worried.

Don't worry about money, I don't worry about anything.

God told me a long time ago, most of the things you fear, they never happen.

Most of the things you hope for do.

So fear less, hope more.

You know the words fear not are in the Bible 365 times.

One for every day of the year.

I think God stands on the edge of eternity and skips rocks across our biggest fears.

So worry not.

That's what being childlike is all about.

Last week I put on Facebook, I have decided to run for childhood.

If elected, I promise to bring back midday naps and chocolate milk with my lunch.

By the way, by the way, Vince likes chocolate milk with his lunch.

I'll bring back splashing and rain puddles and making silly faces and laughing, and of course, recess.

So I'm running for childhood.

Fourth thing that I think attracts the presence of God.

And Melissa, you can put that picture up.

So I saw that picture on Facebook, and it came with the greatest meme or greatest, greatest quote, and the quote was this is every guy over 40 who wears skinny jeans.

That's funny right there, you know.

Because it seems like guys over 40, they're just everybody's trying to fit in, and God keeps setting us apart.

Just be yourself.

You can take that picture down now, but so you know, you know, good, every guy over 40 in skinny jeans.

We keep trying to fit in, God keeps setting us apart.

Do you know why?

Because he's endowed each of us with characteristics and traits and gifts and talents that set us apart from everyone else on earth.

As far as I know, uh originals are a lot more valuable than copies.

Just be yourself.

I tell people, be yourself.

Besides, everyone else is already taken.

You know, God is attracted to his own.

Would you agree?

God is attracted to his own.

When we try to be someone else, he might not even recognize us.

So just be yourself.

And the last thing that really attracts the presence of God, I think, is being humble.

Which I have such a large personality that it's hard to be humble, but God always humbles me, you know.

It's like you read my last book, right?

Humility and how I achieved it.

The sequel's coming out next week.

It's called Dig Me, you know.

But a couple weeks or was it last last week?

Jerry Fristman and I went to um IHOP in Kansas City.

And by IHOP I mean the International House of Prayer.

I don't want, I don't want people to think I drove nine hours to eat pancakes.

So, although, as you can tell, I've really never met a meal I didn't like, you know.

It's bad when you step outside on a hot day and skinny girls chase me for shade, you know?

So that's really bad.

Or I step on one of those talking scales and says, excuse me, only one at a time, you know?

There's something about humility.

We are in IHOP, and if you don't know, the International House of Prayer has had continuous worship since 1999.

21 years of continuous worship.

And they they have like two-hour worship sets, and then the next team will come up there, then the next team, and and you might have three or four guys up there, but most of these sets have eight, nine, ten people in them, and they're incredible.

What I thought was really inspiring was Mike Bickle, is the founder of IHOP.

He's got a little office right there in the prayer room, and he's got a little chair and a place for his computer right there outside of his office.

He was there for a lot of the sets, and um, that means he's still hungry after 21 years of hearing continuous worship.

He's still there, and he's still soaking it all up, and I thought that was pretty neat.

But we got there like Thursday, about two, and we went out to eat around seven, came back.

So we got about five hours or more of worship in the next day.

It was like 10 to 12 hours of worship we were in, and and then Sunday, like five hours, and we came back home, or Saturday came back home on Saturday.

But on Friday in the afternoon, I ventured over to the bookstore.

And there was a book that uh Lou Ango had talked about in his uh latest book, The Fast.

Uh, a book, and it's I think it's atomic, atomic power through prayer and atomic power of God through prayer and fasting, something to that effect.

And Lou, if you watch this, uh uh I ordered it.

So great book.

But people that read this in the this book in the 40s and 50s were went on to be some of the greatest evangelists the country's ever known.

So um, so I wanted to read it, you know.

I wanted to get me fired up.

So I asked um the gal in there if she had that book, and she said no, but she could order it, and I already ordered it.

But her name was Astrid.

And Astrid was from Sri Lanka.

And what I always like to do, I always say, hey, if there's one thing I could pray for you for, what would it be?

So Astrid told me her one thing, and I said, Astrid, can I pray for you?

And she said, Yeah.

So I prayed for her and I got done.

I'm thinking, man, that was a great prayer I prayed.

You know, that was Pentecost prayer, you know.

I was feeling pretty good about myself.

Then Astrid said, Al, can I pray for you?

And I said, sure.

So Astrid prayed.

And she prayed, and she prayed, and she kept praying.

And what seemed like 20 minutes later, it might not have been 20 minutes, but it seemed like it.

And I'm thinking, I've never heard anyone pray like this.

And I looked up to God and I said, God, I know nothing about prayer, you know?

And I was so humbled.

She got done, and I just said, All I could say was, Astrid, I'm so glad you're on our side.

She was she was so good.

It's our job to humble ourselves.

It's God's job, it's God's job to promote us.

And we insist on doing God's job, He will insist on doing ours.

And so just be humble.

Being humble ushers in the presence of God.

So I got a couple stories.

I had some stories last time, and um, and I have a takeaway uh first, but uh the takeaway is all these stories that I told last time and stories I'll tell now, um anybody can do this stuff.

Um it's not because Al's got a special gift for it or anything.

I'm just uh I'm a guy that picked up the Bible one day and read it and believed it and just went out and did it, you know?

And I didn't have a church background.

I just just like Nike, just do it, you know.

Um I can't tell you how many people I prayed for before I ever saw one person got prayed.

It might have been hundreds, and one of those guys died.

I'm thinking like, well, that really builds up your faith right there, you know?

And uh, but then started people started getting healed.

Do I does everyone I pray for get healed?

Maybe probably not.

But uh God told me a long time ago, it's not my not my job to heal people.

That's his job.

It's my job just to pray for people.

And what that does, it takes all the pressure off of me.

And I just let God be God, and I just try to be sensitive to who he sends my way.

Rest assured, there's people out there that I could never reach, only you could reach.

And so that's why we need you to rise up and be all that you can be.

I say faith without works is dead.

I like to say love without traction or action carries no traction.

Just do it, just go out and do the stuff.

2009 I was down in Daytona, Ormond Beach in Daytona for bike week.

I didn't have a bike, but I was down there.

I had a friend Jeannie, she was a pastor at Calvary Worship Center, and they had a bed, big tent there in the middle of bike week.

And what was pretty cool about it is the group's Leonard Skinner and Motley crew had just gotten saved.

So they were playing in the tent, and all these bikers wanted to come over and see these guys, and there'd be like 20 people in the tent, leading people to the Lord left and right as all these bikers were coming over.

I was um on a street corner, and there's about 10 of us on different street corners, kind of leading people to the tent.

And this guy started walking up, and God said a couple things to me real quick about him.

His name's Rocky, just got out of prison.

He's got a son, Anthony, and a son, Jonathan.

So I called him over and I said, uh, Rocky.

He says, Yeah, yeah, yeah.

He said, How'd you know my name?

He said, Well, God sometimes tells me things, you know.

And he says, uh, Rocky, did you just get out?

He says, What do you mean, man?

I said, Did you just get out of jail?

He says, Yesterday.

How'd you know that?

I said, sometimes God says things, I said, and Rocky, you have two sons, don't you?

Anthony and Jonathan.

And he says, Tony and John, John.

Man, he said, how'd you know that?

And as soon as I said their names, he just started weeping.

So, how did you know that?

I said, I said, Rocky, the God of the universe, loves you so much that he told me those things about you so you'd know how much he loves you.

And he's got so much in store for you, and he wants you to see your kids and have a relationship with them again.

He says, What do I gotta do, man?

What do I gotta do?

So I led him to the Lord right there.

But it's just amazing the things that can happen if we listen.

Two years ago, I took my youngest child uh up to Glacier National Park for three and a half years.

Um she didn't talk to me for three and a half years, and I don't know why, but for three and a half years, I'd call her up and leave a message and say, Hey, it's dad.

I love you, I miss you, can't wait to hear your voice.

My lights always on, just like Tom Baudette, and uh I'm here.

After three and a half years, she called me up one day and called me everything but dad, you know, and was really angry with me, and I'm not really sure why to this day.

But we started talking, started having a dialogue.

Now we we talk once or twice a week now.

But I took her up, um, we're gonna go camping in Glacier and picked her up in Missoula, right outside of Missoula.

She said, Dad, can we stop off of this donut place?

Um, they make donuts by hand there, and it's like it's like a religious experience.

And uh I said, Yeah, that'd be great.

I'm all for the religious experience.

And uh so we got up there and um and there was a line out the door because they made donuts by hand order.

So it took a while because they'd cut them and they'd fry them.

And as I'm waiting in line, I could see this, it was a husband and wife team.

The lady had a scarf on her head like she'd gone through chemotherapy.

And as we got up closer, I just said, Um, are you going through chemotherapy?

She said, Yeah.

And she said, I have cancer.

I said, Well, I know what cancer is like.

I said they took a chunk out of my face about this big about a year and a half ago.

And uh, I don't know if you guys knew, but I had some bandages on my face about a year and a half ago.

And um, and when the doctor took the bandages off of mine, he shook his head for like a minute, and I thought he did something wrong, you know.

And he says, I I've been doing this for two decades.

No one has healed that much in a week.

So unless you know, people can't tell that I had surgery on my face.

But what they did is they cut me from here to here, down to here, down to my chest, and took all that skin from my chest, rotated it up over over my face.

And um this used to be my chest.

That's kind of weird because hair grows there when I'm shaving.

You know, it's it's funny how the body knows how to do these things.

So I said to this lady, she had was going through cancer, I said, Can I pray for you?

She said, Oh, I'd like that.

So it was such a small, confined place.

I reached over the counter and her husband was rolling out the donuts.

He had one hand under, I had one in her, and I just started praying.

There's a line out the door, and everybody started weeping, you know.

And I God was doing something special there, not just in this lady, but in everybody in line.

And we got outside in the car, and Sarah, Sarah said, Dad, that's one of the coolest things I ever saw.

And he said, she said, that's what church should be all about.

And I said, I agree.

As we got to Glacier National Park, we were in a restaurant, and I always liked praying for servers.

I was in the food business for so long, and it's always near and dear to my heart.

There was a lady with a name tag on, and it said, Dee Dee.

God said, her name is Dawn, it's not Dee Dee.

So I said, Dee Dee, that's not your real name, is it?

It's really Dawn, isn't it?

She said, How'd you know that?

And I said, Well, sometimes God tells me this, and I said, and Dawn, you've got a daughter named Dawn, don't you?

And she just broke down and started weeping.

I said, I haven't talked to her in 10 years.

And I said, Let's pray about that.

So we just started praying, and Sarah again got out in the car and said, Dad, that's what church should be all about.

2009, I was in um New York City.

I had a friend that lived in Minnesota.

Her and her nephew came out to see me, and we we went up to New York City.

We took a train up there, and she'd never been to New York City, so I wanted to show her some of the sites.

And it was only a couple hours from where I lived in Pennsylvania.

So we were in Central Park, and um we met this homeless lady, and her name was Donna.

Donna was probably in her 70s, although she looked, she could have been in her 60s, but she looked a lot older.

She only had a few teeth.

So we sat her down and we said, Donna, everyone's got a story.

What's yours?

And we just wanted to love on her for the whole day.

So she told us her story, and we said, Donna, we want to do a couple things for you today.

We went out and got her a manicure and a pedicure, and we took her out to a nice restaurant to eat, and we just loved on her.

I said 2009, it's probably 2007 or even earlier.

Many years later, I'm in my office at Life Center, and I get this call.

It said, Um, you don't remember me.

But you were in New York City many years ago, and you I was a homeless person, and you came and loved on me all day, and you gave me a manicure, you took me to a manicure and pedicure, and took me out to eat.

And I want you to know what you guys did that day.

Changed my life.

I gave my heart to the Lord, and now I'm running a homeless shelter in New York City.

We just never know what even the smallest act of loving-kindness is gonna do.

So there's people that um out here right now that God's speaking to your hearts.

We're gonna have time of worship, and I'm gonna come back up, and I think God's gonna want to minister to quite a few of you.

So let's go back into worship and and because it's one of the things that attracts the presence of God.

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