During the past few weeks, we have had some storms here in the midwest. Lots of wind, rain and even some hail. The sirens were sounding this particular night as I drove home to beat the storm. It beat on us for a while, and later, since we had no power, we decided to take a drive and see the damage. I saw several trees which had been completely uprooted – huge circles of earth and grass exposing the shallow root systems of these impressive looking trees.
As I stood there in the road, staring at this tree, which now lay across someone’s freshly mown lawn, I thought, “Wow, I bet earlier today these folks would not have imagined their big solid tree collapsing into a heap of twisted wood and broken branches.” Immediately I thought of the prophetic word that Corey Stark had received from the Lord in 2002 — Rain, Wind, Oil, Fire. This word spoke of trees that were content to put out roots along the surface where the anointing was falling – lapping up the shallow tastes of goodness; never going down; never finding the deep earth that would securely root them when the storms came. And the storms will come.
The question is, will I be a tree with roots that have drilled down, seeking the true oil of the presence of the Lord? God, I don’t want to be a tree in someone’s yard that falls over when a storm hits and my roots are shallow. Don’t let me be content with the surface. I want to plunge to the depths of You.
“These trees roots labored downwards, continually excelling, as they forced their way through the earth (which represented depths of humility). They were turning and twisting, like a drill bit, as they plummeted through the layers of the crusted earth, chasing the rain that went before them … the rain led them straight to the source. It led them directly to the fountains of the deep! The Lord clearly showed me that the roots to these trees were three – Faith, Hope and Love….These three roots finally broke through the final layer of earth and to my surprise, what they plunged into wasn’t water at all, but an underground river of golden oil. The Lord spoke again and said, “This river of oil represents My presence that indwells each believer through the Holy Spirit.”
Yeah, I remember this word — can be very encouraging. I actually did an illustration for this word when he delivered it. Now that I think about it… where is that anyway? Thanks for the reminder.