Dear Friends and Intercessors, 

I woke up this morning with an amazing dream. Gladys and I were somewhere at a conference about revival and prayer for revival. Somebody was talking up at the front about an experience where they had been in a place, and the presence of the Lord began to touch a couple of people. You could tell they were having profound encounters, and he said that there came a point when everybody just knew that God was there. 

At that very moment, I woke up from my dream, and I just lay there enjoying the experience—it was as if I was still in the dream, and the presence of the Lord was so wonderful. Then I began to reflect on that and remember other times where we've experienced God's visitations. Then the Lord brought to mind the description in 1 Kings 8:9-11 when Solomon dedicates the temple and how they bring the ark into the temple. Verse 9 says, "There was nothing in the ark except the two tablets of stone which Moses put there at Horeb, where the Lord made a covenant with the sons of Israel, when they came out of the land of Egypt. And it happened that when the priests came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud, for the glory of the Lord filled the house of the Lord."

This is such an amazing and captivating theme. In our day, we hear of the people of God experiencing His glory and their lives being changed forever. That phrase that says "...when the priests came from the holy place, the cloud filled the house of the Lord, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud..." could have knocked me over. But there I was flat on my back, caught up in a beautiful reverie of this dream, and just recalling the things that God has done over the years for and in ourselves and countless others. I was overwhelmed with a glorious joy.

Then it dawned on me that this theme has been the essence and goal of our prayer for all these decades. What I mean is that since I came to the Lord in the 70s, and was adopted into the incredible family of Christ, we've desired for God to pour Himself out in revival power and glory so millions more can come to know Him and His saving grace and fullness of joy. Psalm 26:8 says, "Lord, I have loved the habitation of Your house, and the place where Your glory dwells."

Later on in my daily readings, I was stopped by this portion that describes this heartbreaking antithesis in 1 Kings 17:15. "They rejected His statutes and His covenant which He made with their fathers, and His warnings which He gave them. And they followed idols and became empty, and followed the nations that surrounded them, about which the LORD had commanded them not to do as they did." This sounds like the plague that besets the world around us today. It seems to be unravelling right before our eyes! People are empty because they are destitute of the knowledge of God, His ways, and His redeeming love. "...strangers to the covenants of the promise, having no hope and without God in the world." Ephesians 2:12. 

Paul goes on to proclaim this triumphant hope in Ephesians 2:19-22. "So then you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus Himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, is growing into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together into a dwelling of God in the Spirit."

We want to encourage you to continue seeking His face. We are called to serious prayer for serious times. May our hearts yearn for his glory to be manifested to those within the church, and even more so, those who are waiting for deliverance, whether they know it yet or not.

Prayerfully,

Dick and Gladys