As I have finally "let go" of the things that were holding me back, life becomes so much more clear. I'm able to recognize and hear God speak to me often. The bible talks about several ways God speaks to us; his word, prayer, the holy spirit, dreams and other people (angels) etc. There are several times in my life when God would place something on my heart and later I would discover it's validity. One example is my mother's accident, shortly before she died. I was lying in bed in the middle of the night. I awoke from a dead sleep, sitting straight up in bed and heard the still small voice saying, "Carissa, something bad has happened to your mom, when you get the call, know I will be right here with you". Two minutes later, the phone rang. The person on the other end told me that my mom had been in an accident and was in the hospital, in a coma.
ANOTHER DIVINE EXAMPLE
About a couple of months ago, back in St. Louis, I had a dream where I was given a lady's name and phone number. The next morning, I asked my roommate if the name sounded familiar, did some research on the internet, and soon realized I could be researching forever. I figured if the information was important, it would come up again. Two weeks ago, I received a text from one of my new Christian friends in Nashville. He told me that the spirit led him to to connect me with this woman he'd met recently, he then gave me her name and number. He also told this woman the same thing, that he didn't know why, he was just supposed to connect us. The name sounded familiar and I recalled that dream I had, however some of the details were fuzzy. As I was going through some of my stuff one day, I came across a piece of scrap paper with some writing. It contained a woman's name and phone number, the name and phone number I had written down from the dream...It matched the name and number of this woman with whom I received the text message. She and I have been talking for 2 weeks now. We don't know for certain if there is one reason why God brought us together, but we stay in faith, we talk regularly, support each other, lift each other up and fellowship a lot.
I didn't want to leave anything to chance, so I began reading scripture and other biblical materials about how God speaks to us. I prayed about it and God put me at peace that when he wants me to know something, he will use whatever method he sees fit in order to reach me personally. He has also been really pumping me full of, "prepare your fields Carissa" "Prepare for the rain". There's a movie called "Faith Like Potatoes". Long story short, two different farmers need rain, they both pray for rain. Only one man prepares his fields for the rain to come and only one farm was supernaturally blessed. The moral was, which one do you think trusted God? All day long he is softly telling me to prepare my fields and I've been asking him to show me what that means in my particular situation.
Last night, I had another dream...TobyMac called me on my cell phone. He told me that he'd been caught up on the #MissionTobyMac journey and he asked if we could meet to work together and perform something. A time frame was not specified. This morning, the lady from my other dream that God connected me with, sent me a message. It was the first message of the day I received. It said, "When the door opens, BE READY!" It continued with, "Be ready to move at ANY time, just like the disciples!"
I know there will be some who think this is crazy, but I am at peace knowing that God is at work in me. He is powerful, his vision is beyond what we can comprehend sometimes and I stand firm on his promise that when he wants to reveal something to me, he will how he sees fit, whether I understand it at the time or not. Does this mean things will happen in the exact same fashion as my dream, not necessarily, but something is about to happen...
What are you believing for today? PREPARE YOUR FIELDS FOR RAIN!
