Recently, I walked into the worship room at our Southeast Asian partner ministry to find a huge mess: the floor had warped in the center of the room overnight. The floor tiles were now loosened, causing the dirt and debris underneath to be exposed. It looked like ocean waves had hit our worship room, with warped portions in the center of the room coming up past our ankles...we couldn’t walk in the room. Our worship students were fearful of entering. What happened?
“Worship Loosens the Ground.”
Those who know me well know that I use this phrase a whole lot! Psalm 65:10 says, “You water the fields and level the lumpy ground. You send showers of rain to soften the soil and help the plants sprout.” I have seen the Lord pour down his “rain” like water on dry, fallow ground when we invite his presence with prayers, songs, dance, prophetic art, etc. He really does show up when we invite him into our hearts, our situations, and our nations.
As I walked into the worship room that morning and saw the ground that seemed to have been “plowed up” overnight, I sensed the Lord was inviting us to wait on him in prayer. I called in the worship class leaders and young prayer warriors. As we prayed, we sensed the Lord showing us that the broken floor was a sign in the natural realm of what our worship and prayers were accomplishing in the spiritual realm: the hard ground was being loosened. Dark, “hidden” plans of the enemy were going to be exposed in our area as we continued to press in with worship and prayer. “He reveals deep and hidden things...” (Daniel 2:22).
Worship causes demonic “roots” to be exposed and easily uprooted. When the ground is tilled and softened through worship, the “hidden” plans of the enemy become exposed, making it easier to cut them off for good. In Psalm 9 David praises the Lord for uprooting the enemy strongholds, for wiping away even the memory of them!
Over the past three months, our worship and prayer times have increased. Our local young people, ages 10 to 17, fill the worship room several times a week to “go to the throne room” in worship. They love the presence of the Lord. They are truly being trained up as mighty warriors as they cry out to him for their land. What used to be a classroom where kids gathered twice a week for learning to play instruments and once a week for worship has shifted: “We want to worship every day,” they tell me.
Now, five sessions a week are dedicated to intercessory worship and prayer. The kids and leaders are also participating in a 24-7 prayer movement with other prayer groups from churches and NGOs all across our nation in Southeast Asia. Every Friday morning, our students cover a two-hour stretch on this weekly prayer calendar, joining in praying the same assigned verse as others in unity.
In the past few months, we have seen a significant shift in darkness being uprooted in the country! We know this is in response to prayer and worship flooding the land. Here are just two testimonies:
In April, our students traveled with me to another city to soak the land in worship and plant a new worship class. As we prepared to go in prayer, we sensed God showing us that his light was going to expose darkness in the land. A few days after we returned from our trip, a man was arrested in the area for taking hundreds of inappropriate photos of underaged boys. Since that time, two new major cases of minors being trafficked for sex in the area have been uncovered. Our local partner organization's director says, “Now the cases are actually finding us!”
In June, the anti-trafficking police partnered with our local organization for a sting in the red-light district where our worship students pray. Thirty police stormed the temple area where the organization's been doing kids outreaches for years, arresting three pimps and three mothers who had been selling their underage girls. Three precious girls were rescued, ages 13 and 14. One girl had been forced to have an abortion the day before, but would have been sold to a customer again that very day. Now these girls are safe in a Christian recovery home. Our local organization's director says, “The government has never partnered with us to this extent to fight the darkness.”
Worship loosens the ground, and uproots enemy strongholds. Pray with us that more of the enemy’s work would be uncovered and uprooted in the nations of the world.
Pray for the kids in our worship class as they continue to fight darkness with worship and prayer.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
This CRM staff serves with Ethne in Southeast Asia, where she is leading a prayer and worship movement among some of the nation's most vulnerable children.