Treasure Hunt

I just want to start by saying that God's faithfulness is not contingent upon ours, however, when we show that spark of faith, God, to simply put it, blows everything up. Our smallest willingness to accept that the Lord is who he says he is opens doors for his kingdom to break forth. This is what happened in the Haywood Mall in Greenville.

A few members of the body from Georgia came up a few Saturdays ago and were teaching on an aspect of evangelical ministry called "treasure hunts". This involves seeking the Lord for a place to go, who to speak to, and essentially all other parts of what to do – full reliance on the Lord for everything. As Victor, one of the Georgia boys, began to explain the heart behind this, he spoke truth into my life that I quietly knew but had never capitalized on. He said that the kingdom of God would break forth when we decide to put aside the fear of man and step out in faith. This step of faith involves sometimes walking up to a person that we feel led to, not even knowing what to say. At that exact point we are to rely on the Holy Spirit to bring us words for that person. Having that reality explained to me in a tangible way allowed the Lord to break off the fear of man from my heart. I'm really glad he brought this truth to light, because it took that encouragement for me to step out in full faith.

After speaking to us for a while, we decided to head to the Haywood Mall and try out this form of evangelism. After shedding the fear of man when we got there, praise God, we began to seek the Lord on what to do and where to walk. Throughout this time we approached 5 or 6 people and the Lord consistently pointed out areas of struggles and deficiencies in people's lives. At one point, Claire had seen a vision of a necklace a few hours earlier, and she saw the necklace on a girl she walked by in the mall. After grabbing me, we went over to talk to her. Once we got a hold of her, we both felt like there was some sort of disconnection or brokenness between her and her father. So we asked her about it and she didn't know what we were talking about – at this point I froze.

At that point we sat there for a less than a second wondering what to do, and then the girl she was with said, "Umm, that's me." Her father was dead, and her relationship with her stepfather was not good at all. At that point we encouraged her that the greatest fulfillment of a father can only come from the Lord, and that his love and jealousy for her is unquenchable.

As if 5 or 6 people were not enough, earlier that day the Lord gave a picture to me of a green shirt with a yellow line across the front of the shirt. I thought, well, maybe that was just a random thought. It wasn't. Two hours later, Claire caught a glimpse of a guy wearing a green shirt walking away from us. As he turned while walking, we saw a sling over his shoulder and a yellow line on his shirt. I couldn't believe it, so Victor and I ran over to grab him and talk to him. He was a hockey player who had recently broken his collarbone while playing, and his green shirt actually was a hockey practice shirt with his name monogrammed across the front in yellow. We asked to pray healing for him and he agreed, so we began to declare a release of healing from the Holy Spirit. After praying once, he could raise his arm up to his chest. After praying a second time, he took his sling off and raised both hands up in the air in disbelief, then said, "I'm healed." He walked away with his sling in his hands and the reality that God's love surpasses all afflictions.

-Jonathan Lassiter