When God Shows Up! ~ by Joseph Brooks

When God shows up…

As many of you know, I attended Love Twin Cities in Minneapolis, Minnesota the weekend before last. As part of our participation, Cynthia had signed us up for a session from midnight to 2am in the 24/7 prayer room. A session in which I played the 12-string guitar while she sang, prayed, read from the Bible, and accompanied the guitar with her djembe. These sessions are two hours long with NO stopping, as it is meant to be seamless, uninterrupted music for the entirety of the event (24/7, for 10 days). I have never played for an audience or in public before in my entire life. Cyndi and I had never performed together except for a few spontaneous prophetic songs when The Builders were visiting on her back porch.
Our only practice session was about an hour at the hotel on the Sunday afternoon we were scheduled to play. It was disastrous! I hadn’t slept hardly at all the previous night and I just wasn’t “with it”. We tried 3 or 4 times to do one song, but I kept messing it up. We decided to just try to “wing it”, and proceeded to the temple.
Before our session, we went on an outreach with a prayer team of about 4 others. Cyndi and I took our instruments and just played whatever came to mind. It went OK, but we were busy moving and engaging people (another wonderful story about our group and the Muslims near the Somali Mall).
We arrived late for our briefing before going on stage, but this is where the real story begins: Within a few minutes of sitting down for our briefing, I had a wonderful feeling of calm and confidence come over me. As we relayed our story about the disastrous practice to our briefers, we both kept saying “It’s going to be fine, this isn’t about us, it’s about God and He will be there to guide us”.
Once on stage, we started with the song that we had not been able to play during practice. It went absolutely perfectly – no missed timing, choruses, bridges, etc., and we extended it for 20-30 minutes as The Lord poured Himself into and through us. When Cyndi gave me the “wrap it up” sign, I moved into a chord progression, she closed the song book and simply smiled at me. For the rest of the session, I played various chord progressions while my most talented and wonderful partner sang, prayed, and read and sang from the Bible. We wrapped up with a gentle chord progression and Cyndi “personifying” various lost and broken people to the Chorus “Lay it All Down”.
After the session, Cyndi told me that after about an hour and a half, she heard a man singing in her monitor. She initially thought it was me, but saw I was still simply playing the guitar. She then realized that it was the voice of Jesus, sort of far off, but sweet and definitely REAL. I then told her that I had closed my eyes about that time and asked God to help me through as my fingers were starting to hurt from the constant playing. The pain eased off and I felt a hand placed lightly on my shoulder, and I softly heard the words “you’re doing fine”.

So this is another testimony about the power of prayer and how God can work through you. He gave us confidence when we were afraid of failure. He guided us as we began to praise and glorify Him through song. He comforted us and encouraged us when we were tired. He showed up!! Thank you Father for your love and support!! It was never “us” or “about us” – always You, sweet Jesus!! We love you!!

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