Dear People Who Keep Company With God,
Once a powerful man from Zimbabwe, Pastor Sam Manyika, prayed for me one afternoon in my office. As he prayed, the Holy Spirit came upon him in an unusual way. Simply put, he went ballistic on me. 
The energy, authority and power in which he prayed stunned me. It is the only time in my life that someone has prayed for me like that. It turns out that I was going to need every drop of heaven in that prayer.
He prayed that I would I have the power to keep what God had entrusted to me (2 Tim. 1:14). It wasn’t long after that afternoon in my office that I walked into a very long and trying season in my life, but that prayer from heaven sustained me.
A few years down the road and I found myself in a much worse situation. It was like I had stepped into a river of sorrow and was being swept away by its current. I could not get out on my own.
The day came when a hand from heaven somewhat like when Peter was sinking in the sea, reached out and pulled me to safety.
I came out of that time broken and spiritually disoriented. My confidence was shaken to the core. It took months for my heart to be healed, restored and finally be able to get perspective from heaven.
One day my eyes came across these words from the Passion Translation.
“The confidence of my calling enables me to overcome every difficulty without shame, for I have an intimate revelation of this God. And my faith in Him convinces me that He is more than able to keep all that I’ve placed in His hands safe and secure until the fullness of His appearing.” 2 Timothy 1:12
I remembered Pastor Sam’s prayer. God heard and empowered me to keep what He entrusted to me. Actually, as the Passion Translation brings out, God kept it and kept me.
God remembers everything, every prayer, every tear, and every promise. He is the God, who never forgets His goodness, promises and plans for our lives.
I have learned through the trials and times of testing that it is our personal revelation of God that keeps us in the worst of times.
When Jesus was baptized in the Jordan, He experienced the revelation of an open heaven, the Holy Spirit, and His God given identity (Mark 1:9-11).
Right after that He experienced a time of testing in the wilderness (Mark 1:12-13). It was the revelation of the Father back at the Jordan that sustained Him.
“Then Jesus returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee.” (Luke 4:14) He went into the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit but came out clothed with the power of the Spirit. His ministry began.
This a pattern repeated over and over in the Scriptures. God speaks, God promises, then we go through a season of preparation. Most of the time that preparation includes times of testing, trials and personal brokenness. Finally, there is the fulfillment, the provision of the promise.
We love the promise and the provision, but try everything we know to circumvent the process, but without the process we can’t carry the promise. Graham Cooke once said, “It is one thing to get a breakthrough. It is a whole other thing to keep your breakthrough.”
We have promises from heaven, dreams of God for our lives. May we all grow in a personal revelation of God that includes the power to keep what was entrusted to you.
Many Blessings, BW