The Galvanizing Passion of Personal 
Promise
PromiseIn a vision, I was Simeon. He is recorded in Scripture as a man with a promise. He would see Messiah. He lived his life waiting for the fullness of God’s promise.
“I will see the Messiah, the hope of my nation!”
For years he stood in the Temple looking at parents bringing male babies for circumcision. Year after year, he waited. He held hundreds of babies. He looked into those ruddy little faces, expecting one of them to be the One.
“Your eyes will see Him!”
Time after time, as he blessed the male child of yet another couple, he hid his disappointment as much possible. He was dying inside a little each time he handed a “one that was not the One” back to his mother.
Now, I am in a vision experiencing what he experienced. In the vision, I am Simeon.
His disappoint burns. He feels guilty about his disappointment. He wonders what kind of man feels empty after holding beautiful little babies. He wonders if his frustration has polluted each blessing. He thinks, Does my voice hold hollow sounds that filtered through when I bless?”
Heavy heartbreak presses inside my chest as I experience his inner conflict. He climbs the steps and skirts the crowds to present himself available again. He is a faithful servant. He carries the burden of a powerful promise. He returns each day prepared, positioned, and postured.
Each day he rounds the corner up the street from his home, trudging down unforgiving stone streets as cold and worn as his soul.
“Your arms will hold Him!”
Until one morning, things changed. He rehearses God’s promises. He has heard a rumor. Midnight skies suddenly alive and shining with an angelic chorus and dirty shepherds wild-eyed with wonder. His steps are lighter. His face is shiny with hope. His eyes take in the street. He hears the soft sounds of crying children he has ignored.
“Could it be today?”
He sees them approaching his prepared position. He postures himself for the presentation of the male child just as he had for several disappointing decades. Today, he has a strange, new feeling.
He looks up to bless, a bundle in his arms. He looks down at the child.
When he looks into the eyes of little Jesus of Nazareth, Simeon feels an ancient, deep well open within his spirit. Something he has carried with him all his life springs up. What he has waited for since the moment the promise came begins to speak.
Simeon blesses Messiah!
Vision Experiences
I entered the vision as Simeon. I experienced the emotions and thinking I have recorded here. I felt my own disappointment. I have blessed a thousand things in my prepared position with proper posture. I have felt the guilt that I was disappointed they were not what God promised me.
As I went up to pray on the platform with other leaders at the “Giants Will Fall” meeting here in Chattanooga, Tennessee, I remained in the vision. I tried to get out of the vision, but I could not. I was in the vision as I prayed.
I realized that what I was experiencing was intercessory. I experienced for the Ecclesia gathered together here. They, like Simeon, have been prepared, positioned, and postured to pray prayers for this moment. They, too, carry God’s promise to see and hear the giants fall.
I realized that intercessors have prayed over many moments that they hoped would fulfill the promise. They have blessed many things, only to hand them back without the fullness of the promise. They have experienced disappointment at the moments they released blessing that the many beautiful things they have prayed are not the fullness of God’s promise.
Then, they feel guilty that they are disappointed about such wonderful things.
But now….!
Today I shook. I could not stop shaking.
I left the platform after praying. I was shaking so much that I wanted to get off the platform, not wanting to call attention to myself. It is not about me.
I felt my whole body shaking, inside and out. I knew this was what Simeon felt when he looked into the face of Messiah! His knees – my knees – went weak. His body – my body – trembled. He felt inadequate after praying and waiting for decades. He felt overwhelmed. He knew that a deep well had opened within him that poured out in a few moments of prayer the accumulation of decades of intercession.
“I was born for this!”
When I prayed, I heard myself praying, “We are here. We are assembled by His Hands. We are convinced by the One who prepared and positioned us. We displace the strategically-positioned authorities of God’s enemies. We represent the Inheritor, equal inheritors with Him reclaiming the nations. And, we are in “oneness of faith” as Paul said an Ecclesia would be. We are convinced enough to pray the same thing with one voice.
We can tell “the baby” is coming toward us now. This baby is the One for which we have waited all our lives!
