Doug's Personal Experience with the Holy Spirit
Doug’s Personal Experience with the Holy Spirit
(Written Jan. 25, 2005 – edited March, 18, 2007 - then again December, 3, 2023)
In November of 2004 I had been praying and aching for several months to see the Holy Spirit come in power and do something. I had read Acts over and over and we were having a Bible Study time on Sunday nights at my furniture store with the folks I respected the most. What I was really hoping for was that book of Acts, Pentecost, tongues of fire stuff – but had no idea what I was doing. TWICE in my life (before November of 2004) had I ever even been in a room with someone speaking in tongues - and one of those was at a concert with like 2500 other people. They didn’t teach me anything about this in the Baptist church except to be skeptical and suspect it’s made up - or worse, that it’s from the enemy. (Even now, I’m still hyper-sensitive to it and it’s appropriate use. Which is a good thing.)
Round about November, Andrew Strom, a revivalist from New Zealand that had moved his family to Kansas City, and I met and had lunch and he liked a lot of what I had been saying online about the problems in the church. He asked me if I had been baptized in the Holy Spirit and I said, “Huh?” We talked about it for awhile and he encouraged me to read up and pray on it. A couple days later I went down to his Sunday evening meeting he was having and he asked if I would like to speak - which of course I did. Had a good impact, although kind of preaching to the choir since his crowd is already sort of outside of the standard “church” streams. But that was also the first night the Schafers were there and we really hit it off.
The following Tuesday (11/23/04), Andrew was having a prayer meeting at the home of one of the folks in his group and suggested I come and they would pray for me to receive “the Blessing” - that is, to be filled with the Holy Spirit. They were all his family and a few other folks he trusted a lot. (I’ve learned not to let just ANYBODY lay hands on me!) I was fully primed by the time it rolled around. We had a meal and talked for awhile and then we prayed a little and then they were going to pray on me. They wanted me to sit in a chair in the middle of the room and I said, “Heck, no! I’m kneeling. No way I’m going to sit there all comfy before God.” So, about four or five of them are praying on me in tongues pretty loud. It was hard to concentrate, but I just decided that they were nice folks, so I didn’t care how they wanted to pray as long as they were sincere and they helped me get what I came for.
Since I was a kid, I never prayed for anything but wisdom. It’s just a math problem to me. Solomon was the smartest guy ever, that’s what Solomon prayed for, that must make it the wisest thing to ask for. It’s always at the top of the list of Gifts in I Corinthians and elsewhere. Why pray for tongues? It’s at the bottom of the list! Just my business instinct, I guess. Go for the good stuff. Anyway, so they prayed on me for about 30-40 minutes (I think) as I begged for the Holy Spirit and promised to do right if He would bless me. I promised God that if He would empower me, I was willing to
give up anything and endure anything. I just wanted to be the most dangerous person on the planet to the cause of evil. I wanted to sniff it out and rip out it’s heart with my teeth. I wanted to be God’s pit bull. I wanted wisdom, I wanted a high vantage point, to see through the eyes of Jesus. To know what people needed to hear to convict them, to burn away all the impurities and see just the pure kernel of the essence of what we should be doing to please Him.
I begged Him to shine a light on anything in my heart that was in the way and I would scrub it out. Together, He and I just went through one thing after another. I have plenty of sins - maybe not big ones as the world judges them – but there is plenty of darkness in my heart for which to repent. I had to drop some angers at old bosses or girl friends or others. At one point, He said, “You’re pretty good with the orphans, but you’re lacking with the widows since you haven’t gone to see your grandmother in the hospital.” So I promised on the spot that I would go see her before the week was up and make it all right. That seemed to satisfy him. I kept getting a warm fuzzy feeling like this was my time and He was going to answer my prayers, but then it stalled out. About then, I think Andrew and them were getting tired (they have to lean over, because I refused the chair!) and he asks me if there is anything in the way or if there is a history of Free Masonry in my family. I said, “No,” and we just all agreed to pray that the Lord would shine a light on what was the problem. Nearly as soon as we started praying again, the Holy Spirit reminded me that there wasn’t any Masonry, but I had been in a fraternity in college that required that you take an oath of secrecy on God. Even though when I was an initiate I hadn’t said the oath at the time, later on I was the ritualist and administered it to others. I instantly repented of it and renounced it and stepped away from that. That was the last thing in the way.
Just then, Andrew suggested that maybe I should stand up. When I did, the vision started. I prayed for wisdom and to see through the eyes of Jesus. To me that’s just a higher vantage point - where you can see more of the Big Picture. Both the love and the anger, the judgement and the mercy. I had prayed to take on any task, no matter the cost. So what He showed me was as much wisdom and responsibility as I could handle without passing out. I distinctly remember a sense from Him that I didn’t really know how big a thing I had asked for, but He was going to show me as much as I could handle anyway. He was glad that I asked, but almost grinning because He knew what it would do to me! Fatherly love like when your nine year old son wants to build his own race car or something.
So for about ten minutes or so (maybe more), God ran this through my head. It was as if I was in outer space looking down on the globe. On the right side is a reel of faces going by. All children, all different colors. The vast majority are crying or hurting or sick or dying. It was like fast forwarding a DVD, they whip by real fast and then it stops long enough to see a few, then they whip along again. On the left side of the globe is the outline of America and a nasty, inky blackness covering it with tendrils spreading out all over the world. I knew that this was the sin of the church - selfishness, apostasy, greed, pride, waste, denominationalism, fraud, prosperity gospel, etc. that was spreading out from America and reaching all over the world. The reel of pictures of kids was running full speed. The Lord said, “You wanted to see through my eyes, I’m going to show you ALL of it.” He knows that I have a heart for kids (as He does) and that’s the way He sees us anyway, so that’s how He showed it to me - as innocents hurt, killed, maimed, abused, impoverished, starving because of the nasty blackness coming out of America. It was clear to me that these weren’t little kids, these were God’s children of all ages. And He made it clear I was seeing ALL of them. I mean ALL of them. I honestly believe that all six billion plus spun by. Maybe more, maybe it was all of them EVER. I can’t even comprehend it. But He made it clear that they were dying because of US and what WE have done maliciously or selfishly neglected to do to push back the darkness. I had a horrible pain in my chest and ached and groaned instantly.
Andrew’s middle girl, Kirsten (who was about 11), was praying hard on my right and without really knowing I’d done it, I grabbed ahold of her and hugged her to me and just stroked her head and cried big huge sobs. Out loud I kept begging God to stay His judgement and apologizing for what we’d done to the children. I just felt so much pain in my chest and I was groaning and crying and just kept watching and saying out loud, “Oh, the children! What we’ve done to the children! Please help us save them, Lord. I’m SO sorry.” (Or some derivative or combination thereof.) And I REALLY, REALLY needed Kirsten at that moment as a real live kid I could pet and hug and cry over. (She and I are bonded in a way I can’t really explain. She just let me pet her head and drip on her and kept right on praying for me. What a good sport!) This went on for a long time (to me) and then finally faded with Him saying, “YOU’RE responsible for them. You said you would, so now it’s on YOU.” I asked the Lord, “What do you mean?!” He said, “You wanted to be the most dangerous person on the planet, you wanted to see through the eyes of Jesus, I showed you everybody, now you’re responsible.” I said, “Lord, you’re telling lots of other people they’re responsible, too, right? It’s not just me?” He said, “It doesn’t matter, you said you were willing, so now GO!” I got it then (and still do) that somehow I personally have a responsibility to reach them all with the Gospel and turn this thing around. (Still trying to figure out how that’s fair -- or possible!)
After it was over, I was still in a lot of pain in my chest. We sat back in the circle and I was groaning and wincing in pain. They asked me what I had seen and I tried to tell them, but it was hard to breathe and every time I’d close my eyes I’d get a glimpse of it again and it would hurt. Like an ice pick in my chest. The folks there wanted to reassure me that it was OK that I hadn’t spoken in tongues - which I found myself HIGHLY irritated about since that’s not why I was there. I said, “Hey. I got what I came for and then some! I will never be the same. I asked for wisdom and to see the big picture and that’s what I got.” There was a kind of quiet pressure that the tongues part was REALLY important, but they could see clearly that something big had happened and I was still sitting there wincing and groaning and twitching in pain every so often. Mostly I was too distracted processing it to have been bothered, but it was an important lesson about the subconscious pressure that can be put on the experience without even realizing it. They all seemed to NEED tongues to happen at that moment, but then every single one of them went around and told about how when they started speaking in tongues it was some time after their Baptism with the Holy Spirit, some of them a LOT later. I didn’t comment much at the time, but I thought it interesting that they all felt it SHOULD happen a certain way, but none of THEM had it happen to them that way. I didn’t particularly want tongues, so it didn’t much matter. At last Andrew made the most sense when he explained it mathematically (without meaning to). He explained that tongues is a way to let the Spirit help relieve you of a burden so heavy that words won’t work anymore and that I would probably need it sooner or later if the pressure was high. THAT made sense, because I knew what I was carrying! So at that point, I started to see that it was coming and I was going to need it. (A couple days later I had to get a physical for the adoption anyway, so because of the chest pain I had them run cholesterol checks, just be sure I wasn’t having a heart attack! But I checked out perfect!)
Anyway, we said goodbye and I got in my van to drive home, still wincing from the pain and moaning a groaning with the weight of what I’d seen. For several days, every time I closed my eyes I would see it again and wince and ache and moan. For a couple of days after, I had this amazing love for everybody. I would go about my day just wanting to hug on people and pinch their cheeks because I just KNEW how much Jesus loved them! I knew they were one of the children that had whipped by in my vision. I went into Wal-Mart and everyone was SOOO beautiful! But that faded in a couple of days - especially in Wal-Mart.
Things started to change instantly. I couldn’t play video games anymore. I couldn’t watch TV. I couldn’t curse. I couldn’t survive without at least a couple of hours of praying a day. The Bible was opened up for me and I saw things and connections that I’d never heard ANYBODY say before. I couldn’t go anywhere without my Bible and I spent every extra minute in it. Sin repulsed me. I had surely spoken out of turn or pridefully or not considered someone’s feelings or misprioritized my time or been irritated - but was instantly aware of it and repentant. I had a hard time getting any work done because I wanted to talk about God all the time - to anybody - and when I did, they were convicted. I would get physically pained if a dirty spam email popped up before I could delete it. I couldn’t even think about anything intimate with anyone other than my wife. Couldn’t even consider it or picture it. Gone was the fighting at home over stupid stuff, lots more love all the time even
though it was a hard walk and there’s still disagreement. One night He woke me up at 2am and said to pray for my wife. Comfy in bed with her on my arm, warm blankets, eyes closed - I prayed until 6:30am without a break or dozing off or anything. Just like on auto-pilot, but not asleep. Which is nuts because I’ll fall asleep typing sometimes and bash my head on the keyboard. Much less, comfy in bed with my eyes closed!
Plus I started fasting. Never would know when or for how long, but I shouldn’t be able to fast even a half a day with my hypoglycemia. But I get up in the morning and go to the fridge and ask the Lord if I get to eat today. Sometimes He'd says yes and sometimes no. If I could physically GET the food in my mouth, I was not fasting. It wasn't even a decision anymore. In the two months after the vision He had me fasting several times for 24 hours or less, once for almost three days and once for almost four days. Just water. No cravings, no pain, no headaches or dizziness or weakness. It usually would end with some big event for which I needed to be fully concentrated or clean. Then I can get food in my mouth again. I would actually look forward to fasting because I know I’m being obedient and I know it’s going to end with something that will glorify Him. (Once was the Christmas Day trip to the children’s hospital.) Plus it’s evidence of a supernatural protection over me, because I should NOT medically be able to fast at all. (Update: Since this was written the fasting changed to mostly without even water, 1-7 days at a time, on average 3 or 4 days a week without water for over two years. That’s just God! I lost over 70 pounds and feel great!)
The following three weeks (after 11/23) held a constant conversational closeness with the Holy Spirit and some AMAZING prayer time where He laid out more of what is coming and made promises to me of weapons I would have in order to fight the battles ahead (including the gift of healing and discernment/deliverance of evil spirits and other stuff). In that time I got to participate in two good friends getting full of the Spirit - one dear friend at another of Andrew’s meetings (who started singing in tongues right on the spot!) and one by myself in the office with her. Also gave some really hard specific prophetic words individually to specific people - that changed them. Also in that time, the Schafers came to work with us. (James and Cindy have been such a critical component of the learning that has been crammed into those first 12 weeks! I can’t even begin to imagine what I would have done without their intercession and gentle advice and example.) God sent this missionary family from Canada to Liberty, Missouri to spend their time at my for-profit furniture store and help grow me!
Nonetheless, the following three weeks were miserable because I felt a growing despair and unhappiness and darkness. I was getting a massive pressure inside and no release valve. I was praying desperately for the gift of tongues at that point because I felt I couldn’t get it all out. The burden on me felt huge and I wasn’t getting any relief. Then bad things started happening at home - the sewer backs up into the basement and the dog throws up all over the bed and the kid is acting up and the wife is sick. Lots of people are heavily burdened and are praying for me like crazy. My wife didn’t know what to do with me, because she was very skeptical of the “charismatic thing” and I’m up at all hours and crying and praying and moaning
and groaning. She said, “Where’s your joy? We know who wins in the end! Why all the crying?” But I can't help but see the badness.
One Sunday evening, I’m sitting in the living room asking what to do and the Lord tells me to read Hosea. So I’m reading Hosea with a towel over my head (just needed to get UNDER something!) and crying and shaking and rocking back and forth as the Lord shows me how desperately bad the judgement on America will be because we’re doing everything in Hosea that brought judgement on Israel, except with thousands of times worse. Then Rachael wakes up from her nap and walks through the living room, shakes her head at me and says, “Except for the nonsense syllables, you might as well be speaking in tongues for how weird you sound.” Well, she often has bursts of wisdom hidden in the most unlikely, sarcastic comments, so something clicked in me that it was so strange that she would say that since I’d been praying so hard about tongues.
So the Lord kind of nudged me that I ought to figure out what it was I was doing and led me through some “moaning and groaning” scriptures. Romans 8:26 is probably the most well-known:
26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints in accordance with God’s will.
Others include:
Romans 8:23 (all NIV) - Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.
2 Corinthians 5:2 - Meanwhile we groan, longing to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling,
2 Corinthians 5:4 - For while we are in this tent, we groan and are burdened, because we do not wish to be unclothed but to be clothed with our heavenly dwelling, so that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life.
Isaiah 59:11 - We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Micah 1:8 - Because of this I will weep and wail; I will go about barefoot and naked. I will howl like a jackal and moan like an owl. 9 For her wound is incurable; it has come to Judah. It has reached the very gate of my people, even to Jerusalem itself.
But (unfortunately) the ONE that most resonates with me is :
Ezekiel 21:6 - 6 “Therefore groan, son of man! Groan before them with broken heart and bitter grief. 7 And when they ask you, ‘Why are you groaning?’ you shall say, ‘Because of the news that is coming. Every heart will melt and every hand go limp; every spirit will become faint and every knee become as weak as water.’ It is coming! It will surely take place, declares the sovereign
LORD .” The word of the LORD came to me: “Son of man, prophesy and say, ‘This is what the Lord says: “ ‘A sword, a sword, sharpened and polished- sharpened for the slaughter, polished to flash like lightning!” (... And other scariness following!)
The next day, I talked to Janice and James and Andrew about it and whether that’s what maybe I could have in the slot where tongues would normally be - 'cause I’d been doing it since that same night (11/23), even during the vision, but nobody thought to tell me to consider that that was one of the options! So that Monday I just went around the office wheezing and groaning and the pressure went down. That night I got home and confirmed it with God in prayer time (3 times) and He told me to stop asking for something else, that this is what I was to have and it was better for me anyway (and explained why). Glory to God!! From then on I’ve been moaning and groaning and grumbling and wheezing all the time to get the pressure down. This gift was given to me this way for specific personal reasons and is very powerful. I feel like I could move mountains with it. I was talking to another revivalist I knew about it and He asked if I’d read anything about it because it’s a consistent component in all the major revival movements and some folks try to fake it. I hadn’t and haven’t since. If I had known it was one of the options, I would not have prayed desperately
for tongues for three weeks! So he had to rethink his sense of the validity of it as reality and not myth - since I have it and didn’t even know what it was. I think it’s cool because it’s not exactly subject to the I Corinthians 14 rules for tongues. In fact, God actually orders Ezekiel to do it in public! Also, I can do it all the time and most folks don’t notice - or just think I have asthma. Also, it’s very breathing focused and I asked Him about why this and He said, “To keep you from being prideful because every breath is MINE and if you don’t use it to MY glory, I might decide you don’t need any more breaths.” Zowie! That got my attention! He also said that, “The time is coming when you will be an object lesson. People won’t have time to waste anymore as things move faster. They will have between THIS breath and the next one to decide if they are going to dedicate that next breath (and all after it) to me. If they don’t, they could be lost forever or like Ananias and Saphira who held back and lied to Me, so I just made them stop breathing. Someday people will only have between this HEARTBEAT and the next one to decide who’s team they are on and get right!” Things are moving faster all the time.
During the last 12 weeks, I have been through four or five major philosophical directional frameworks, tested and rejected bunches of theories and ideas, started two or three new websites, tempered my anger at the church and now refocusing and finally finding the pure central kernel of what God wants. Just now finding a voice that He can live with and God can use without creating more trouble for myself by distracting from Him. The LAST thing I want to do is say something that will create an obstacle or keep someone from seeing the One True God.
Anyway, so that’s where I am at the moment. Who knows what next month will look like!
UPDATE: (3/2006)
That was as of 1/25/2005. The “Apology to the World” was written in February, 2005. The business started to flip upside down in March and April resulting in a migration of people leaving the business that were Christians, but couldn’t live on faith quite THAT much. We started having prayer meetings in the store, as the Lord directed. Then the Lord led us to start accepting donations of food and toys and clothes and furniture and other things at the furniture store and caring for the poor - which has mushroomed into something amazing. The Church of Liberty website went up in June, 2005. Things got REALLY freaky in October, 2005. Now they’re just completely off the charts!
People come to a furniture store to get healing and deliverance and groceries and prayer - or just a hug. More people keep showing up to help. Now we have authors and poets and musicians and artists telling us God gave them something and He told them to give it to ME so we could get it to the world! Miracles happen every day around here. It’s just not uncommon at all for a customer to come in and find two or three people on their faces crying. Praise God! I could have never imagined a wilder adventure! Pray to be dangerous to satan. Pray to get everything out of the way between you and God. Pray that He would bust out of the box you put Him in and reveal Himself in whatever way He thinks best. Stop telling Him what He can and can’t do. Let Him talk to you and He’ll direct your paths in EVERY way. And I GUARANTEE you that He’ll make sure that you stop conforming to the world!
MORE UPDATES: (1/2007)
In July of 2006, God dramatically closed the furniture store and said to walk away. In September my wife moved out and took the kids. The house got foreclosed on. Lots of bills unpaid. God says He'll take care of it all and I'm on HIS time-clock from now on. As of October 2006 God said to hit the road, so I've been traveling all over the country praying and meeting folks and breaking things in the spirit. Sometimes alone, sometimes with a brother traveling along. Sometimes picking up hitch hikers! God is lighting up people all over and I get to watch! He's restoring the Body and bring connectivity and harmony back. Maybe you don't see it yet, but I do! It's coming. The New Song is being played! Praise God and it's just in time.
MORE UPDATES (3/21/2007)
On February 21, 2007, my road trip ended. Total was 17,500 miles to 32 states. Amazing trip, totally dependent on God for every dollar and every direction. Finally got to see my daughters after nearly five months. God said to let my goatie grow until my family is restored. Somehow it all has to do with His Bride and His kids, too. We're walking this one together, trying to get our houses in proper divine order. Since February 21, God has been having me fan the fires in Liberty with lots of praying and fasting and listening. I spent a lot of time blowing on other people's flames, now it's time to get a blaze going here at home. On April 1, we're going to have the “Liberty Restoration.” I have no idea what that means or what it will end up looking like, but God named it, He's organizing it and He'll have His way. I just know that it's time to take “church” outside the walls and BE the Body. If I had to describe what this is that we're going to do, I'd have to call it battlefield triage for a town. I think we're going to set up a M*A*S*H in the city park and treat the wounds of everyone that comes – whether physical, emotional, mental or spiritual. We'll see what that does to the spiritual temperature around here. :-) Stay tuned! I think this is the big one! I thought I was ready after those first 12 weeks and knew what I was doing, but BOY, was I wrong!! Not until NOW did I know how to rest and get out of His way. Just in time!
MORE UPDATES (12/3/2023)
Well, it's been awhile. Later in 2007 we started a homeless shelter in a townhouse in Liberty, Missouri. There was no way the city was going to approve it, so I just rented a house and invited my friends over. Then we rented another one and another one. We lived there until about 2016, renting three to six houses at a time, housing 50-60 people at a time. In the summer of 2007 I started loading videos on YouTube and getting attention from all over the world. In the beginning it was full on homeless shelter, then in about 2010 it started to become more of Christian community. Over the years I've written eight books, over 2000 videos, a bunch of articles, written music, spoken at various congregations, been banned for life from lots of others, seen people healed and delivered - and more. In 2015, in fulfillment of a lot of prophetic words that we would get a cave and a farm - then with no cash saved up to do it we got a farm with a cave under it near Excelsior Springs, Missouri (in Clay County - Liberty is the county seat). We wanted to build a village of tiny homes on the farm, but all the neighbors freaked out and it stopped being worth the fight. So God had a backup plan and a mobile home park a mile down the road started donating old mobile homes for us to rehab them and move nice Christians in. Now the ministry owns 10 mobile homes, plus other people that have moved here from all over that own their own. In October of 2021 God told us to start a thrift store and "community storehouse." Then (with no cash saved up to do it) He led us to the right building with 15,000 square feet, moved on the heart of the landlord to make us an amazing deal, waived the security deposit, and gave us four months free to get us going. God said He would pay for it, so we agreed to a three year lease. Two hours after we saw it and committed to it, we got an unsolicited email from a very large corporate donor wanting to donate 900 pallets of paper towels, toilet paper, soap, sanitizer, disinfectant, gloves, masks, goggles, empty jugs, spray bottles, and more. Nine hundred pallets is 35 semi trailer loads. It took us eight weeks with two big box trucks, picking up loads twice a day to move it all. The tax donation receipt we gave them was for three million dollars. If we sell it at ten cents on the dollar, it would pay the rent for 10 years! It was just God showing off that you can't build barns faster then He can fill them! God's given us a lot of promises about revival coming to Kansas City. We look forward to being used by the Lord in whatever way He thinks best and continue to pray for the restoration of the Bride.