What generation am I?

Ok, so I've been really searching my heart in recent days. I was raised in a old time pentecostal church. There was a deep power and anointing on that place. I was just a kid but I recall the prayer meetings, Bro. Milam and my parents would get together and pray. I used to love listening to Bro. Milam pray, he prayed like God as sitting there with him, like we talk to our best friends. He used to tell God stories about his kids or a hunting or fishing trip. He used to facinate me with his prayers, even as a teenager before he passed on I would catch myself forgetting to pray because I would get caught up listening to him. He was an awesome man, I'll never forget him wheeling around the church in his wheel chair or hearing him laugh in prayer.

I remember my Memaw and Sis. McFall and the prayer warriors that they were. Used to you knew when the spirit just started to move you would hear them start whooping, like indians, (LOL) and out in the aisle and around the church they would go. They weren't sophisticated or proper but they had a serious walk with God.

I remember prayer meetings where people would get so caught up in the spirit the ushers would have to go bring people out of the prayer room into the church. I remember walking with my Dad across the parking lot to the prayer room and going in and people would be shouting and jumping and praising God. Dad would just take one by the arm and here we would go to the church. Across the parking lot and into the sanctuary and he would walk them into an aisle, let go and back to get another one. People would be stumbling around like they were drunk. Worship service would be awesome people dancing in the spirit. The choir would get up to sing and the anointing would be so heavy upon them. That was Pentecostal worship. I can remember nights where the power of God would be so strong and their would be a mist in the air. Not literally but it would look that way and our church didn't own any fog machines. LOL.

My family would get with other families at the prayer room and get to praying and the next thing you knew someone would get up and start shouting, I was always a little worried about getting stepped on. You can't hide under alters they aren't that big. But then someone would go put their arm around another person and begin to pray. There was such a deepness in God.

I remember one night at choir practice we got to singing a song and we weren't praying or doing anything other than the normal practice routine and all the sudden a presence swept into that building and at the same time everyone begin to weep and speak in tongues, next thing you knew people were shouting and running and jumping. It wasn't anything worked up it was the power of God.

Miracles were something that we would see, I hated missing church because if you missed a service you would miss someone being healed or filled with the Holy Ghost. I remember someone (I won't mention names) but they would walk the pews, we had one man that rolled head over heals and I can't tell you how many times I saw someone roll in the floor.

The choir would sing and the anointing would come on us and it got to the point you couldn't stand there anymore or you would go crazy and off the platform one would go and then another until there would be only a few to sing, sometimes the musicians would start shouting and no music. LOL.

We had "after" services, we called them second services. Someone would be praying after everyone was gone and the few remaining would go over to pray with them and the next thing you knew you it would be 11 or 12 o'clock at night. LOL. I can remember sitting on a pew and not caring what people thought about me, just wanting more of God than I had before. It was so real.

I miss those times, I miss those services. It's like we are scared of the power of God. Pentecostal's have been know for years as tongue talking holy rollers, yeah we might talk in tongues a little but we sure can't carry the title of holy roller. Might mess up our clothes or hair.

I'm sorry, I want that power back, that deepness in God. I heard a sermon years ago in Kansas on Generation Translation. The minister (I can't remember his name) begin to share how in the Apostolic/Pentecostal people there is a cycle of generations. He said the first generation is founders and they have to search it out and find it for themselves. They pass it on to the second generation but in the "translation" something gets lost, so the second generation makes up for the missing pieces and seems to work out OK. Problem is the same thing happens to the 3rd generation. A little bit more falls through the cracks. So that they don't have the real power, they don't have that strong anointing and so they fake it, make it look right. Perform so people think everything is OK. The forth generation is a dangerous place because they become a first generation in the cycle and they either embrace the first generation or they reject it all together. They see the 3 generation pretending to have it together and they want something different and either they turn their backs all together and walk away from it or they will embrace it and begin to search to the truth, search for the anointing.

In the Bible it talks about Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and they same cycle really kind worked in them.

I want to have the real deal. I don't want to pretend. I've been so burdened lately with the fact that my walk with God is becomign all about how I look, how I sound, people push to make it about us. But folks I just want to go back to it being about Him. I have been praying for God to change me, put that fire back inside of me. I'm tired of never being changed, never really having that breakthrough that I need. Thing is I'm learning this is a lonely place.

I pray that God brings that deepness and that anointing back in my life. Where I'm real, I don't have to put on a show but it's real and coming from the depth of my being.

Change is scary and as I pray I ask God to lead me and show me His ways. It's not the easy road that is for sure. I told my brother Sunday night on the way home from church (we were on the phone) they say you know you are doing right when the Devil fights you. The promises God has given my family scares the devil. He knows if we ever rise above this hell he continues to put us through he is in trouble so he will continue to fight. But my family is getting tired of this and in Jesus Name we are going to do what we know is true!!!