Remembering the Call

I wrote this after returning from “the call” on 07/07/07.

Joel 2:12,15,16,17 (AMP)
12Therefore also now, says the Lord, turn and keep on coming to Me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping, and with mourning [until every hindrance is removed and the broken fellowship is restored]. 15Blow the trumpet in Zion; set apart a fast [a day of restraint and humility]; call a solemn assembly. 16Gather the people, sanctify the congregation; assemble the elderly people, gather the children and the nursing infants; let the bridegroom [who is legally exempt from attending] go forth from his chamber and the bride out of her closet. [None is exempt from the humiliation.] 17Let the priests, the ministers of the Lord, weep between the porch and the altar; and let them say, Have pity and spare Your people, O Lord, and give not Your heritage to reproach, that the [heathen] nations should rule over them or use a byword against them. Why should they say among the peoples, Where is their God?

The earth thundered under our feet, the heavens resonated with the cry of our hearts. The grass embraced us as we prostrated ourselves in repentance. The wind carried the blast of the shofar, and fought back the heat of the sun, as we waited. We waited.

We waited for 12 hours, all seventy thousand of us. A nameless faceless gathering of generations there seeking one thing. To connect with our King on behalf of our entire nation. We cried, we laughed, we worshipped, oh how we worshipped. My mind takes me back every day to that place, recalling the individual acts of repentance in proxy for all:

Abortion doctors, government officials, Native Americans, flower children, moms, dads, children, pastors, worship leaders, business-people. All of us got real with ourselves, and honest with our King.

Throughout the whole day, the focus was not on the spiritual leaders that spoke from the field, the only name I recall being mentioned was the name of a senator. Time after time, the visionary of “The Call” told us “Don’t look at me—pray!” The humility of all involved was empowering. They were all there, the forerunners of the song of the Lord, the prophetic voices, the elders of denominations, lay people. All gathered to confess their own faults, and call for others to repent for the same.

But it did not just start that morning, for thousands it started 40 days earlier with prayer and water fasting, Daniel fasting, media fasting, each determining in their own heart how they would build their focus. For countless more this was a culmination of a heart’s cry for intimacy with our Father – another step in our journey to the courts of our King.

From a historical standpoint, this summer marks 40 years since the “summer of love,” and the rise of cultural shifts mirroring those found in the worship of Baal and Molech. “The Call” was a day of repentance, and returning the heart of our Father, a day of divorce from the influence of Baal and re-marrying our Bridegroom-God.

At 9 pm we shifted gears from 11 hours of repentance to an hour of prophetic release, climaxing with the blowing of seven blasts of a primary shofar and on the seventh blast 300 other men (inspired by Gideon’s army) with shofars joined the first. The sound was pregnant with a primal release of our heart’s desire for intimacy with our Father. For me, writing this, I honestly cannot find words that carry the gravity of that day. If any of this resonates with you, then I encourage you to go to Firekeep.com and sign up for the free podcast, where you can hear live recordings of the day, it’s almost like being there. As we closed the day, so I close my writing “Let our praises rise like a weapon in Your hand.” Selah