Linger

Have you ever had one of those moments when God stops you in your tracks and then proceeds to make it a teachable moment? Well, I have on more occasions than I like to admit. It seems like I am running ahead of God at times, and He has to slow me down with the nudge of His Holy Spirit. I will never forget one of those teachable moments. He stopped me in my tracks because I missed the exclamation point of an important moment. 

I was ministering with Sanctioned Love at a conference that we had been invited to in Nevada. Weeks before the conference, the Holy Spirit had given me someprophetic words for a few of the people we would be ministering to. I wanted to be prepared to give the words God had given me for those He would highlight at the conference. One of the words He gave me was a simple phrase, “Beam me up, Scotty.”

The team was positioned in the front of the church. When we started ministering to people, God highlighted a man He wanted me to pray for prophetically. As I began to pray for him, the words were bringing confirmation to his heart. God was reading his story and speaking it back to him. It was truly a prophetic prayer over him. While I was praying,I felt the Holy Spirit wanting me to wait and listen,but……I didn’t!  When I was done praying, I asked what his name was, and guess what? His name was Scott! God had already given me his name, but I didn’t wait for God’s reminder.

As I walked away from praying for Scott, the Holy Spirit arrested me and spoke to me. He said, “Joy, if you had only LINGERED, that prayer over Scott would have been even more impactful. The both of you didn’t know one another or each other’s names.” I had missed an exclamation point moment by not saying, “Beam me up, Scotty.” God was teaching me in that moment of a missed opportunity to show the greater Word! I needed to wait in the LINGER.

I pondered that lesson for days, and now when I minister, I’m learning to wait.

There is something powerful about waiting………in the LINGER.

 I looked up the definition of linger, and it said; “to stay in a place longer, to be slow in parting, to tarry.” I then looked up synonyms for the word linger, and it said, “wait around, stay, remain and pause.” In the Greek, the word linger means; “to take time, spend time and to be a time-wearer!”         

Did you get that??       

A time-wearer!

God wanted me to LINGER and “wear time” in that moment. Wearing time causes a space for impact! It gives room for the Kairos time of God so that He canshow His love with profound expression and with an exclamation point!

These are the days that God wants to make an impact! There is so much hinged on the word LINGER. Moving in the Spirit requires us to LINGER in the presence of God. LINGERING with the Holy Spirit while we are ministering will bring a full counsel of His Spirit into that moment. He wants the exclamation point moments to be the signposts of His Love. It’s the paradox of Habakkuk 2:3, “For a revelation awaits an appointed time, it speaks of the end and will not prove false.Though it LINGER, wait for it because it will certainly come and will not delay.”

To wait and LINGER is a delay, but God uses a paradox in this scripture, saying that waiting and LINGERING will not delay things. It will certainly come…WOW!

My prayer today is that the Bride of Christ would WAIT in the LINGER. May we be time-hearers and leave the exclamation points of God’s love everywhere, to everyone we minister to. We are the signposts of His Love!

Numbers 9:19-21

“Even when the cloud LINGERED over the tabernacle for many days, the Israelites kept the LORD’s charge and did not set out. Sometimes the cloud remained over the tabernacle for only a few days, and they would camp at the LORD’s command and set out at the LORD’s command. Sometimes the cloud remained only from evening until morning, and when it lifted in the morning, they would set out. Whether it was by day or by night, when the cloud was taken up, they would set out”. 

Joy Pharo