Captured by Love!

This Barbaric path that the Lord has laid before us started sometime in the early Fall of 2009 for Maira.

Maira’s Account: 

Just desiring more of God and wanting things to change in life.  I was doing what I could in ministry but knew there was more.  Eli was not going to church.  He worked almost every Sunday.  Life was just dull and boring.  I do not really know when things happened.  All I remember is the Pettus’ starting showing a Friday night web stream of the Awakening Services from the International House of Prayer at our church.  I remember going by myself or with Lisi most of the time.  On one of the Friday nights in November, Wes Hall (speaker on the web stream) begins to tell everyone in the service to begin to pray for each other.  I just kept on worshipping.  God moved on one of the guys that was in the church, Bill.  He began praying for one woman who was there and afterward came and prayed for me.  I began to cry as he prayed for me.  Two words the Lord gave me through him,” Kinsman-Redeemer and the next one was “Miracles”.  After Bill prayed for me, He asked what the miracle was that I needed.  I said, “My husband, that God would do something.”  He said, he would keep him in prayer.  On Sunday, I was speaking with Jean and she asked me what I thought the miracle was.  I told her, there were so many things.  My husband, my in-laws bookstore, my dad, and the list went on and on.  My primary miracle at that moment was my husband.  I continued to seek the Lord and just draw closer.  God really began something new during this time.  He really began to woo me and capture my heart in ways that are unexplainable.  I began to seek Him more.  It was easier to read His word; I had a desire for it.  I also was praying more.  A few weeks later Jean invited our family over for Hanukah.  So we went.  I had a great time and the Lord captured my husband’s heart a few weeks later.

Eli’s Account:

Well, I was bored with church and to be honest, I had become a little cynical.  It was so predictable; we go in, sing some songs , listen to the preaching and then we would go home.  So I chose to go to work rather than go to church.  Maira was going to this Friday night thing and I had no interest in going because to me it was just another boring “church thing” and after working all week I just wanted to be left alone.  One day Maira tells me that the Pettus’ had invited us over for Hanukah.  I wasn’t too thrilled, but I did it because I knew she wanted to get out of the house.  While we were there, they began speaking about how a revival had broken out at IHOP.  I was confused, I couldn’t figure out what pancakes and God had to do with each other.  When I asked them to clarify, they looked at me as if I had three heads.  “You’ve never heard of IHOP, The International House of Prayer!” they said to me.  I said, "no", so they put the web stream on and Allen Hood was speaking about self-hatred and something about it began to tug at my heart.  I told Maira that we have to go there.  So we moved some money around and booked a hotel within a weeks’ time.   

On the way up (a 6-hour drive), I was asking God a lot of questions.  “God, where has my passion gone?  I know there has to be more than just what we are doing at church!  I grew up seeing it and experienced it myself.  So what happened?  Is this all there is for my life?  What about the words that where spoken over my life as a child?  Were they all fake?  What kind of mark will I leave after I’m gone?”  So we get there and register for the conference.  The next day we went to the prayer room and as soon as we walked in the presence of God was so thick, you could just lie down and go to sleep.  I went to the front by myself to pray and listen to the music.  While I was praying I felt like someone sat down next to me and put there arm around me (btw, I was in the row by myself) and all my questions were being answered, “you lost your passion because you conformed to your surroundings.  You tried to do it your way and in your timing.  You didn’t ask me to do it and you assumed your way was the right one.  Your right, there is more but because you allowed yourself to conform you stopped searching.  You haven’t allowed me to capture your heart.  And no, the words given were not fake, dive into me and watch.”  The voice was external but yet internal.  I was a little intimidated because even though there was compassion in the voice, there was a sound of authority.  And while all this was happening the song, “This is the Air I Breathe”  took on a whole new meaning for me because my nostrils felt as big as watermelons and my lungs as big as those black garden trash bags.  And the way it just flowed in and out of me is indescribable.  Right when the last question was answered, Maira came to me and told me that the kids needed to eat so we left.  I had not realized that about four hours had gone by.  I didn’t say anything about what happened because I was trying to process it all.  I’ve never had an experience like that before.    

The next day we went to the prophecy room.  After they gave Maira a word, they turned to me and said, “Eli God says your being like Samuel.  I keep calling you but you keep ignoring me.  The Bible says that the call of the Lord is irrevocable.  You keep trying to throw it behind you but it’s like a snowball, it just keeps getting larger.”  Well, I started to ask God how I could go into full time ministry with a family and bills.  That night we went to the conference and Mike Bickle was speaking on the love of God, and it really began to minister to me.  I don’t know why but I never realized how much God loved ME.  It all began at that point, how God loves us so much, but we just turn our backs.  We lie to Him every time we sing songs like, “I Give You My All” because we never really mean it.  It just makes us feel better and we think we made God smile when all the while He’s waiting for us to put it into action.  Thinking to myself “ok God, how do I put these words into action?”  I went up for prayer and told the usher that I think God wants me to go into full time ministry but I didn’t know how to do it with a wife and two kids and bills.  And he asked “Well, why not?”  And I said “Like I said, I have bills, a mortgage, a wife and two kids.”  He asked me “Where is your faith?  Haven’t you ever read Matthew 6, where Jesus said that He takes care of the birds and clothes the grass but we are more important?”  “I guess I need more faith.”  I said.  So he said “let’s just pray that God will increase your faith and give you guidance.”  After we prayed, I went to the rest room.   On my way back I heard God say, “You have one year.  One year to get out of debt and then you’re moving up here to go to school and going into full time ministry.”  A little stunned by the word, I went back to my seat and asked Maira what she thought of me quitting my job and going to IHOPU.  She said, “Fine.”  And I asked her again, “You heard what I said right?  I’m going to quit my job and move up here to go to school.”  She says, “Yeah I heard you, and I said ok.”   

When we got back, we went to the Pettus’ house and I began to tell them about what God had done and called us to.  I told them that I felt like God was stripping me of my identity.  I felt for so long that I was the provider and the protector, but God was saying, "No!  I am!”  John looks at me and says, "Where is your faith?  Haven’t you ever read Matthew 6?”  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, that’s what they told me at the conference.”  I said.  And John replies, “Well then what’s the problem?”  So I asked them to help me pray and fast.   

The next morning when I was getting ready for work, I was praying and asking God for confirmation.  I must have put about five hundred different fleeces before God.  And He answers, “You have peace and your wife has peace, What more do you want?”  “God you sent Gideon an angel and he still put out a fleece.  God I didn’t get an angel.”  I replied.  To which God answered, “You’re not Gideon and I don’t have time to play games!”  So then I began to pray and fast because I knew that what God was calling me to do would not work if I were in the way.  It had to be God completely.  And it wasn’t long after this that the revelation of His love for me became known and all of a sudden this made perfect sense.  That to Love God with all of my heart, mind, soul, and strength would mean to sacrifice everything and withhold nothing just as God has done for us.