It's Day One of my 7^th trip to Kenya. 

Just as each person you meet has a different personality, so does each trip I make here.  Unlike other trips to Africa, I have not had a lot of excitement or drive this time.  I actually wondered if I was going flat like a Coke that has been left out too long - still tastes like Coke, but have I lost my fizz?  Would I be an effective witness to the churches that I would visit?  Would the Lord be with me as in times past when the power of the Holy Ghost would crash down from Heaven?  Was anything going to happen that was truly supernatural, or would this just be a nice little trip to go talk about Jesus?

These are vital questions.  If you are not ministering under the anointing of the Spirit of God, then what is the point?  Your good works and fine efforts are great, but they won't spark a true revival - at least not one that will have any real substance.  If God is not going before you to prepare the way, if He is not pouring out His anointing on the people to prepare their hearts to receive His Word, if He is not speaking through your mouth, then all your fine intentions will be fruitless.  Either God is doing the work, or you are - pick one.

Personally, I want to be at a place of faith that waits upon God to move, a place of brokenness that can yield to His slightest leading, and a point of death that does not care about anything else.  What's that scripture, if the lord does not build the house, they labor in vain that build it?  I want my ministry built through the Spirit of God, not my own efforts.

My first services were yesterday at a church far out in the country.  It was as dry as could be - both spiritually and physically.  It had not rained there for so long that no crops were being harvested, all the rivers had dried up, and the dust on the road was like talcum powder.  It was dry.

The church was just as dry.  They were all believers, and they really wanted something special from God, but they just didn't have any life in them to reach up and get it.  The witchcraft in the area, on the other hand, was alive and doing well, and the spiritual darkness was draining the vibrancy from the church.  They really needed a breakthrough from God. 

As I was about to get up to deliver the 2^nd message of the day, I could sense that cloud of darkness over the land.  It was like a cloudy, grey day with none of the bright sunshine that makes a clear and joyous day in the Lord.  When I started to read from the Scriptures, I noticed no one had any Bibles ... and then I knew why they were so dry and helpless to combat the darkness.  They needed the Bread of Life to strengthen them, but all they had was the preacher's words and a blind faith in God. 

You need more than a great need to see a move of God.  It's not need that God responds to - it's faith.  If it was need that God responded to, there would be no widows, no poor, no sick, and no need.  God responds to faith, and without the Word of God to feed your faith, you will find little traction to get to the Throne of God.  These people needed Bibles badly. 

If the Word of God is our sword, then they had no weapon to fight the enemy with.  If the Word of God is the Bread of Life, they were weak from starvation.  If the Word of God is the Light, they were stumbling around in a spiritual twilight.  If the Bible is the way of Life, they were wandering around searching for the path.  The sad thing is that they had no idea how bad their condition is, because the farther away from the Light you get, the less you are able to see.  They probably could have found some money somewhere to buy a Bible if they really wanted to - they just didn't understand how badly they needed it.

In contrast, the service we had at the church I went to the next day was exciting.  The Spirit of the Lord was flowing so much during the 1^st service that everyone couldn't wait to start the 2^nd service.  We're talking on-your-feet-, hands-in-the-air, shouting-and-praising-God, life-changing, church-altering, Holy Ghost and Fire!  At the close of the last service, the pastor stood up and said that this church would never be the same ever again. 

Yeah, it was that good. 

What was the difference?  I have to believe that it had to do with how much they read the Word of God.  As we read the Bible, we not only feed ourselves the Bread of Life and strengthen our spiritual health, but we also rip off layer after layer of carnality, and we begin to see more clearly in the spiritual.  We can see how thin the veil of flesh is, how close to Eternity we are, and how dead the things of this world are.  Light and glory and power shine from the other side of that veil, and we can see it more and more clearly as we look through the lens of the Word of God. 

As we dive deeper into His Word, the gap between these two realities becomes wider and wider, and the stark difference between them becomes more clear.  We begin to see the outlines of a place called Beulah Land, and our hearts yearn for that home beyond the sky.  We feel more and more like pilgrims going through a land in which we are a stranger, waiting for that day when our Savior finally calls us home.

But when we forsake our reading and prayer, we lose our power in God.

"Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart."  Psalms 37:4