Here you are down on your knees again...
trying to find air to breathe again.
And only surrender will help you now
the flood-gates are breaking,
they're pouring out...

[Again- Flyleaf]
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pp5XbvbHAmg ]






The lights were dimmed and not only the sounds of instruments coming out of speakers could be heard, but here, tonight, the atmosphere was different than ever before. Here, in God's beautiful presence, there was the familiarity of the place we stood in as we were with people of our generation, lifting the name of God and giving our hearts, but there had been a change. We had expanded. New faces filled the place. New hands lifted into the air and a new declaration of what their young mouths brought fourth filled this place. It was God's presence... and it was bigger and better than ever before.
Perhaps they hadn't expected such an encounter as this with God at a youth-group lock-in, but we had one.
And it was awesome.


Sometime in worship, I was praying in the spirit and after acknowledging the difference in this new place of worship our youth group had entered, I heard his voice whisper into my ear.


Look around you, Hannah

With my hands raised, worshipping his name, I opened my eyes and looked around myself.


It was On Fire Youth

Worshipping God in a new way

with new friends at their side

worshipping with them

ackowledging that this was a place of God and that this was different.
That this was his presence...
and stepping right into it.


The youth group that stood around with their arms crossed.

The teenagers that sat around in the presence of God not even seeming to acknowledge that this is the genuine presence of God and this is who we are
looked so much different tonight.

And in one phrase, he whispered inside my spirit again,

This is your generation.

And in another moment he whispered...

Do you remember asking for that?


And it was in that moment the revelation of the deeper plans God had for our generation sprung fourth within the depths of my spirit.

The realization of the significance of preparing the way in prayer
to bring fourth the most beautiful sight such as this.

Some of them were young.

Perhaps some of them didn't even fully understand what they were doing.

But they knew it was important.

And willingly and obediently, they jumped right in with the flow.

And a new life in the spirit was brought fourth.





In that moment I was brought back to my past. I remembered when I would lose air and begin panicking. The nights I cried into my pillow wondering if I would ever know what it's really like to be loved by someone so dearly. To be close to something real. I remember crying out to God...

and he heard me...

and he answered me.

He rescued me from the darkness I was in and breathed into me a life I would have never imagined.

And still to this day when I'm on the floor crying out to God to breathe life and fire into our generation and onto our youth group and city and praying for those people- people my age suffering the same darkness I once with-held,

He answers me.

And he's faithful to the end.