When Awakening Comes Full Circle

I’ll always remember the night I stepped into a Florida Panhandle church in the midst of full-blown revival. Rick Curry invited me to check out what was known in 2014 as the Gulf Stream Revival.

Being a journalist by trade, I stood back and watched as revivalist Damon Thompson declared everyone who needed healing should run a circle around the church. After one lady passed me a second time, the Holy Spirit spoke these attention-getting words to my heart, “I’ve called you to be a participant in revival, not just an observer of it.”

With that, I started running around the church with the rest of them. That night awakened in me a newfound hunger for transforming revival. Not long after that night, I had a dream in which Dutch Sheets shared advice with me about the next step in my journey—and weeks later, I heard Dutch’s appeal-to-heaven message for the first time.

There’s been no stopping me since. You cannot tell me God is not going to bring a Third Great Awakening to this nation. You cannot convince me the Earth will not be filled with an awareness of God’s glory just as the waters cover the sea (Hab. 2:14). You cannot sway my faith in the prophetic promise the Holy Spirit gave me about transforming revival when He woke me up after midnight in 2007.

I’ve been contending for this revival in every way, shape and form I can find for several years now—not nearly as long as many others but with everything in me. I’ve met plenty of hungry believers along the way who are also waging war with the prophecies over their cities, states and nations. Recently, though, my 2014 experience came full circle.

It was rainy and cold in Virginia Beach. We were at Cape Henry on the Atlantic shore of Virginia—named in 1607 in honor of Henry Frederick, the prince of Wales—and home to one of the greatest revivals in history some 300 years later.

Cape Henry goes down in American history as the site of the first landfall of Frederick, son of King James I of England, during his expedition from Great Britain to North America. When they arrived, the British colonists erected a wooden cross and gave thanks for a safe landing.

King James devoted pieces of the land for the intent of spreading Christianity in his First Charter of Virginia, which reads: “We greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance … .”

Our visit to Cape Henry on April 29 on a prayer assignment was more than coincidental. It was a divine appointment. April 29 was the same date Frederick and his crew landed at Cape Henry and a nation was born. That date in 1607 was also the eighth day of Passover, and at sunset April 29, 2016, the eighth day of Passover began.

Curry was standing alone, considering the history. He decided to Periscope and make an appeal to heaven right there. Suddenly, he realized he was not alone. Three ladies toting flags as part of an intercessory prayer assignment were standing behind him. One of them interrupted him with a message they said was from the Lord: “The Lord would say to you, ‘The appeal has been heard in the court of heaven, and the time for awakening has come!'”

“I was speechless,” Curry says. “They asked me if that meant anything to me. We talked for a while, and it was such a wonderful and amazing encounter—totally unexpected. They said they had read two books on appeal to heaven—The Next Great Move of God by Jennifer LeClaire and Appeal to Heaven by Dutch Sheets—and had heard the dream. They had no idea I was the one who had the dream when they approached me.”

Curry is referring to a dream he shared in my book about seeing the generations come together in an auditorium. In the dream, Curry saw Sheets waving a flag with an evergreen tree on the front with writing across the top he could not make out. That was the appeal to heaven flag.

“Tell everyone you know,” Curry says. “Things are about to change dramatically! The nation is ready for a move of the Spirit sweeping millions into the kingdom of God! We are inspired by hundreds, so encouraged by thousands, but many, many more are turning their hearts to the Father!”