This is a long post, so please bear with me.

I flew up to Vancouver, B.C. today, as I’m attending a training conference over the next few days for some software we use in our company. I knew ahead of time I’d be here all Sunday afternoon and evening with nothing scheduled, and I’ve been reading and hearing amazing stories from Patricia King of Extreme Prophetic regarding their street ministry in Vancouver. Listen: they go into the very heart of the inner city areas that are thick with drunks, drug addicts, prostitutes, and violent criminals, and pray over people and speak prophetic words of destiny and life into their fractured lives. Many, many people have been saved and have gotten off the streets through their awesome ministry. God bless their efforts, and I know He does, but I wasn’t exactly keen on trying that myself (and alone to boot…not a good idea!). However, I figured that since I would be staying at the Hyatt downtown, I could walk around and see what the Lord would lead me to do. I’ve prayed over people in church settings, but not on a street setting with strangers — a scary proposition at the best of times.

Continued on the flip…

So, with a mixture of excitement and trepidation, I arrived in Vancouver. I was blessed to be able to share a prophetic destiny word with my fellow traveler on the plane, which alone would make the trip worth it for me, but I had done so after having a conversation with her about Vancouver, traveling, etc., so I really wanted to be able to talk to a complete stranger. However, as the Airporter started to reach the “City Centre”, I began noticing something that startled me — there seemed to be a surprising number of homeless people and street beggars everywhere. Now I’ve been in the heart of Berkeley, Oakland, San Francisco, and a few other big cities, so I’m not unfamiliar with begging and slums. We even have homeless people in my suburban “Americana” home town, I’m sorry to say. But this was…different. It was unnerving somehow, like something truly wrong was going on. Something that weighed heavily on the mind.

Anyway, after checking into the hotel and getting some much needed lunch, I was walking back to my hotel to grab my coat before “going out on a mission” when I saw a group of beggars spread out along the sidewalk. I tried to walk by unnoticed, but a beggar came right up to me and demanded that I give him money. I told him “No, thanks” since it was clearly obvious what he would go do with the money. (I always feel bad about this, and I hope I can listen to the Holy Spirit’s voice for that time when giving some money is the right thing to do.) But he wouldn’t give up! He started telling me how he was down on his luck, how he was hungry and needed to buy food, etc. I told him I really couldn’t, and I didn’t believe he would use the money to buy food. He pointed to a nearby restaurant and told me he’d go there to buy food. I then told him he should go into the restaurant and ask people to help him buy food there. Not unexpectedly, he angrily yelled at me: “Fine, if you don’t want to help me…” and I didn’t hear what else he said since he started to walk off and so did I.

The whole confrontation left me spiritually reeling, and by the time I arrived back at my hotel room, I felt physically ill and shaken. It was one of those things that hits you like a ton of bricks when you least expect it. Here I am, a Christian, trying to be a missionary, out to be a light of the world, to “save the lost” and love on them, and instead I’m hiding in my hotel room from an angry beggar. All I could basically do is ask God for peace and to forgive me if I didn’t respond in a more productive or caring manner, and I fell asleep for a much needed rest.

After waking a while later in the afternoon, I was still feeling rather shaken, so I prayed some more, and all of a sudden I realized that I had been demonically attacked. The anger and rage seething in that man’s soul was truly a supernatural force, and ashamedly I had to admit to myself that it had blindsided me. I identified a spirit of anger as well as a spirit of hopelessness that was holding people captive here in the street of Vancouver, and I prayed against them and bound them in Jesus’ name, telling them to leave my presence and declaring that God’s Kingdom was being established in this place through myself and others.

Almost at once, I felt peace and calm come back to me for the first time since arriving in Vancouver. I continued to seek God and read a bit of the Gideon’s Bible here in the room — appropriately enough, I read the beginning of the story of Samson and his victory over the Philistines.

Continuing my story, I then took a long walk out to the pier nearby (the Port of Vancouver and Convention Centre or something like that) and had a nice dinner. I didn’t feel lead by God to talk to anyone, but it was a blessing to be feeling so much better, both physically and spiritually. Now earlier in the day, I had noticed a beautiful old church across the street, Christ Church Cathedral. Looking at their signs and information out on the sidewalk, I could tell right away that it was a dead, liberal church. However, an ad for their Compline service featuring Gregorian Chant caught my eye, so after eating dinner I went over to the church. I wasn’t sure what to expect (I was hoping I wouldn’t have to battle with a religious spirit like I have had to do in some churches in the past), but since I’m a huge fan of chant, I was hoping it’d be pleasurable.

Little did I realize that I would learn a vital truth which all Christians who walk in the Holy Spirit need to remember: God can touch you anywhere, even in a “dead” church. Far from being hostile or at best neutral, I actually throughly enjoyed the service, the prayers, the beautiful singing, and the building itself (which is stunningly beautiful inside — especially in a dimly-lit atmosphere with the smoke and smell of incense wafting up to the Gothic buttresses overhead). Since 90% of what they said and sang was taken right out of the Bible, I could truly agree in my mind and my spirit with everything that went on. And God powerfully ministered to me as I worshiped him in body, soul, and spirit inside of Christ Church Cathedral during Compline.

Upon leaving the church, I saw another beggar on the sidewalk holding out a cup as people left. I was able to walk by unnoticed this time, and as I continued along the street (admiring a little waterfall/park area that I came across), I fully confessed to God and to myself how completely undone I was this day. How inadequate, how inexperienced, how little I am, how powerless I feel to do anything. How can I go up to a beggar and tell him “God loves you and I bless you in Jesus’ name” when I’ve lived a comfortable middle-class lifestyle in a nice town in a prosperous area of Northern California? What do I know of being drunk, of being a drug addict, of living hand to mouth, of being angry at the world, God, yourself, nothing in particular and everything in general? How can I identify with these people?

As I type this post in my swanky room in the Hyatt, bathed in opulence and paid for by the company that provides me with a solid income and excellent career, all I can feel is genuine, heartfelt gratitude that the Lord has so blessed me beyond measure, and at the same time deep, painful sorrow for the darkness that lies outside my door. I don’t know what the next few days of my stay here will bring — much of my time will be spent at the business conference — but I do know this: I will definitely come back to Vancouver one day. And this time I will have sought discipleship from missionaries who understand the plight of these broken men and women, and I will go out with a team of Christians, extreme, on fire, passionately in love with their Creator, ready to run head first into the black abyss of sin and death to bring light into the darkness, and I will be a part of the revival that is sweeping the world in these last days — bringing heaven to earth at a time when hell is already here on earth.

God, help us. Help us all, I pray.