A friend of mine was giving me support, but I was still struggling through the finances. In the past we were on a budget and were trying to meet the budget weekly, but most weeks we didn’t have the money to meet the budget. It was getting hard to maintain my brain to focus on the business. Notice all this time it has been about me trying to get this to work. I was praying and reading the Word as much as I could but wasn’t getting any good breakthroughs with our finances. I was once in prayer telling God that I always pray for money. And I got this response, it is a business to make money, what else are you to pray for. 

As I grew through those days, I learned though I was taking on the responsibility to be a god worshipper, but it was the wrong god. I was worshipping money instead of God. But the way I was worshipping money was through worrying about bills. Worrying about bills and lack of money is the same as seeking money and not God. God knows what you need and if you will seek Him, He will provide. I know that now, but back then I was still suffering.  

It wasn’t until we made it through Christmas that I realized something neat about God I had never seen before. I sat back and looked at God has always provided for us. We may not have had a lot, but we are still alive and still have food on the table and a roof over our head. We still drive a nice truck that I glorify God with all the time. And we are still pressing toward the mark. 

I mentioned this to Renee and we just kind of thought, wow, we have been complaining about money and yet while we weren’t looking God still provided for us. We may not have gotten our bills paid when we wanted them, but they got paid before we went to the credit people about the late bills. So He was still providing as we were still complaining. I don’t recommend this route as there is much stress and anxiety to this whole process. One thing I do know is God used our mistakes to teach us His ways. 

For example, in early October of 2007, we were over at some friend’s house after the week of FCMI. We were listening to a friend who was a prophetic worshipper. I was trying to record her singing but everything there was going crazy in my recording equipment that I finally realized that it wasn’t suppose to be. So I gave up and the peace of God showed up in my part of the room. 

We began to talk about us not having any money and that I was going to have to pay estimated taxes on top of not having the money for our bills. We were about to have our house go into default and we were not looking forward to having that happen. As we were talking a lady named Donna said when is the last time you paid tithes? and as I thought about it I realized we hadn’t paid a tithe since we had to move the business home.  

You see in September we got kicked out of where we were running the business due to it was sold and the new landlords needed us to move out. So we moved out in the end of August so we would have the complete month of September at the new place. During this time I realized that God began to speak to us even I couldn’t hear clearly as I did in the earlier years. We had began to ask God in June where He wanted us to move. We looked everywhere that would be convenient for customers to get to us as we have customers from Jacksonville and Savannah to come to us for repairs. The only thing that came to mind was to move the business back home. I didn’t want to do this, but I felt this is what we should do. 

As we waited for God to show us the new place the business started to fail more and more and finally we were about a month behind in all our bills. We were waiting on God to show us where to move. We were talking with bankers to get money to buy places and we were seeking the places to move. However we were not seeking Him where to move. This lasted for several months and at the end of August I told Renee that we needed to move on home. We did a crash move to the house and it was only then did the business really take a turn for the worst. All along I was seeking at God not seeking God. I was trying to hang on to what He had made of this business. But it was failing faster than I could do anything about it.  

There were prayer warriors praying for our business, but no one telling me anything. I was getting depressed because there was no money and when there was no money, I couldn’t pay the bills, then when I couldn’t pay the bills, I would get depressed and I was in a vicious cycle. This went on and on. I stopped going to church. I fell away from my friends. Renee and I started to get a little closer, but it still wasn’t right. Everything was going down the tubes.  

So at the beginning of October when Donna asked us about the tithes, I told her that with all the confusion of the business I kept forgetting to pay our tithes. So she made a suggestion that we go back to the beginning of October and for the entire month of October figure out how much we made and pay tithes on what we had made for that month. All the money we had to pay this with was our estimate taxes that we have put back. So we agreed. Let me make a little note here. Renee had not come to a place of understanding why we needed to pay tithes. As Donna and I were talking about tithing these little horn like things popped out of Renee’s head as she got madder and madder about giving away money we didn’t have. But God had a plan as to why we went this long without paying tithes. 

So the next day we got up and paid our tithes from our estimated taxes and stuck it in the devils face that we were giving money to God instead of saving it to give to the government, not saying the government is the devil, but who knows. I went by my accountant and told him we just gave tithes to God that came out of our estimated taxes that were due next week. He said, ok, God has a plan. I was so used to people dogging me out when I did something like that that I didn’t understand the faith that was behind when someone said what my accountant said. So it shocked me. 

Monday morning I woke up to my house loan people saying they were about to default on my loan and it threw me into a panic mode. I called my accountant as he was also my financial mentor. I told him what was happening and he told me to pay my bills with my tax money and we would worry about what to do later about the taxes. As I was getting off the phone my accountant told me this. If I lose my home, my truck, my phone line or my electricity the business would shut down and I wouldn’t be able to pay anything anyway. So that gave me the push to pay what needed paying.  

Before I was able to get off the phone good, I felt that I needed to wait until Wednesday before I started to pay the bills. I had that week and the next week to get my bills paid and my taxes taken care of. So I waited until Wednesday. By the time Wednesday night had come I had all the money I needed to pay for my bills except about $300.00 and by Friday afternoon I had the rest I needed and what is neat about it, is I didn’t touch my tax money, I was able to pay it also. 

Did I learn that He was an on time God? No! I thought I had learned the pattern of God and so I just began to tithe so I could get my bills paid. But it didn’t work out that way. He was trying to show me something, but it wasn’t me paying my tithes to get my bills paid that He was trying to show me. It was a deeper revelation that He was trying to get me to see. However things did produce good fruit from this, Renee saw how God worked and how tithes worked and now helps me to remember to pay my tithes. And a friend of mine told me something one day that capped off our giving of tithes. When you show satan that you are going to pay your tithes no matter what, he will eventually leave you alone in that area, however he will still tempt you and that is where we stick it in his face and pay our tithes anyway. 

We didn’t go to church for awhile but while we were out we still came and paid our tithes to the church. Each week I would visit Jean in bookkeeping to pay our tithes and even though it was by faith that we gave we still didn’t see any up to date fruits from our giving. That is when we learned about standing on the Word. I have heard about it all my 11 years of walking with the Lord, but didn’t understand it. We had been standing on certain things in the scriptures but not what we are doing now. 

As we ended the year of 2007 I just knew that God was going to start giving us the money like we had seen in the past. Wrong, it was the same. At the end of January I went to Rock Eagle with Dennis Williams to work the Full Gospels Businessmen’s Fellowship International event that they hold every year. While I was up there I got to see David Parker of who I had seen a few years earlier. We had a chance to talk and we got to know each other fairly well or as much as you could know each other in that timeframe.  

As he began to teach and talk, he started saying things about spiritual pride. As he talked about this, I realized what he was talking about. God had gotten me to a place where our credit was exceptionally great. I was trying to keep it up and it caused me grief. The more I tried to keep it straight the more stress I had. That is what caused me to worry about the bills all last year.  

As I listened to David Parker who owns Covenant Transport, a trucking company that you may have seen on the roads of America, he continued to allow me to hear God speaking through him as to what I was doing wrong. So that was on Friday night, and on Saturday morning and evening Mark Rutland spoke and had some interesting things to say, but for some reason I don’t remember anything he said except for one thing. He said he knew a kid that made a vow that once he got out of his parents house he would never go back to church. I realized that I made that same vow and repented. That was why I was out of church. Judgments are everything they are cracked up to be. 

Anyway we came home and then went back the following weekend. Same people were there but I heard the man on Sunday morning that I didn’t hear the week before. He made me realize that God loved me and He wanted to do for me more than I was allowing Him to do. I was getting in the way and that I needed to depend on God more than I was. I was awestruck. I had never understood that until I heard it that morning. 

God has orchestrated our entire walk, if we would just let go and let God do it everything will be alright. But my fears of how my dad on earth did to me stood between me and God as the Father. Over the past few years I have been through counseling to remove the cobwebs that were hanging in my closet called my heart. I have been cleansed of many things, but the way I was still thinking about the Father were the old ways I thought about Him before I got cleaned. After I got cleaned, God has used people like Mark Rutland, David Parker, Mack Tucker, Jerry Youmans and several others to speak into my life to set me in the path I am now walking. 

When I got home from Rock Eagle, we always take a Shabbats days rest on Monday. I normally do it on Saturday but the circumstances have led me to Monday. I am not doing a legalistic Shabbat but I am taking 24 hours of my week off and resting my body. We turn off the phones and usually turn off the computers and would sleep, rest in the Lord and seek God. So it was after The Rock that I was resting and listening to a message I had gotten from Kevin Drury from his church talking about a message that Mack Tucker had spoke on. I finally listened to it. And it ministered to me. But it wasn’t until the following Monday that I heard what God was saying through Mack Tucker as I listened to that message again that set my mind a rolling. Here is the link to Mack's teaching  

I finally realized that I couldn’t do it. It wasn’t about me. It isn’t about you. He does have a plan for you and He will give His desires to you Psalms 37:4 and you will see what He had for you, but it will only be like David did it. Uninhibited love for God. You will have to dance naked before the Lord. I am not talking about removing your clothes as I am talking about removing you. To dance before the Lord with nothing but your willingness to do as He asks. If you are not ready just own up to the fact that you are not ready and ask Him to change you. He changed me, He will change you. As I began to seek God for who He was and not for what He can give to me, I began to see changes immediately in my walk with Him. I didn’t see the physical changes as I saw the spiritual changes. I felt faith coming on to me and I felt the renewing of the mind take place.  

That is when I decided that it was Him or nothing. If I wanted to be somebody I needed to seek Him and not worry about the other things. He has a plan for me and if I seek Him it will be revealed. The number one thing I realized in all this as I was beginning to venture into unknown territories. Was I didn’t need to seek God for the answers for my problems, I needed to seek God and He would take care of my problems. After that I wish I could say it was a cinch, but that is when the battles really started. 

The first night I just prayed in the spirit and sang a few songs to Him, nothing spectacle happened. The next night I realized that I didn’t want to make a ritual out of seeking Him so I asked the Holy Spirit to lead me in the right path to have a successful evening with my Father. I praised Him and worshipped Him. I started praising Him in tongues and something different started to happen. I began to get drunk. After getting pretty smashed in the spirit, I said something dumb. It was really smart, but I didn’t realize what I was saying until He honored it.  

Every time in the past when the Spirit if God shows up and I get drunk I could only go to a certain point and then stop. That night I asked Him to get me to that same point that I had always gotten too and then go one extra level. Boy was this a mistake, at first. God will give what you ask for if you are ready to receive it and I guess I was ready. 

Wow, did I get drunk. I was trying to sit in His presence but I was about to tumble out of the chair. I want to tell you something about this kind of movement of God. If you want the fullness of the move of God, you need to move when God says to move and do what He asks you to do. 

I see things instead of hearing things most of the time. As I was dancing before the Lord, I closed my eyes and saw myself sitting in a chair in my prayer room. So I got up and went and got that chair and sat in the chair and prayed to Him in the spirit just like I saw in the vision. As I was praying again I closed my eyes and I saw myself on my knees praying in the spirit. So I got up and turned around and prayed on my knees. I thought this will be a cinch. But I was wrong. I want to honor my Father by being on my knees, but my body structure prevents me from being on my knees for any long period of time. I stayed on my knees as long as I could. As I couldn’t take it any longer, so I got up and sat back down in my chair. I was struggling up to that point with my prayer language, but I think YHWH honored my obedience with me getting on my knees that when I turned back around to pray, I took off in the spirit. 

After a while I couldn’t sit straight in the chair and that is when I started to get drunk. 

So I was one level past where I had been before in the drunkenness of God. I guess that would be the level of anointing of God. So I got up and lay on the bed in the prayer room. I was sitting up in the bed as I got to thinking that I am drunk on the spirit of God and all I took that night was God. In the past I had taken sinus medication that could make you sleepy before seeking God and I thought that was what was making me drunk, but all I had that night was seeking God for Himself and not for me. 

Finally my flesh got to the point it couldn’t pray anymore and I stopped praying and just laid my head on the pillow. As I laid there I started to see something in what I think now was an open vision. I didn’t know what to tell the congregation on Sunday due to I didn’t know how to describe what I was seeing, but now I think it is an open vision where I can just walk into the vision at any time. 

As I began to watch, I saw through my eyes it was a big white wall. It was made of block with black mortar. There was a large door there with what seemed to be grapefruit halves all over the door, except they were white in color. The door was bumpy with these half grapefruits. I got confused and asked God how do I get into the other side of the wall. The door was there but I couldn’t see how to get through it. He said to push on the door. As I pushed on the door, the door split in the middle and opened. It looked to be a single door but turned out to be a double door.  

As I walked through the door, I saw clouds all around on the ground. In front of me I saw I large fortress like structure that had a large black drawbridge type gate at the entrances. You couldn’t see through it, but you could tell it was a gate. As I was looking around I started to wonder where everyone else was. I was told to keep looking I would find them. But I couldn’t see anything due to the clouds on the ground. So I told the Lord I couldn’t see to walk around, I was afraid to walk on the clouds. So a large hand came down and with a Wisk broom swept the clouds out of the way and there was a path of off white bricks as the walk where the clouds were. So I walked toward the door. 

As I got close to the door I couldn’t figure out how to get into the door. And I heard to ask Jesus. Jesus said I am the way, the truth and the life and no comes to the Father except through me. So I asked Him to open the door and the door started lowering. As the door came down I saw Jesus standing on the other side of the door. He was wearing a white robe with a brown sash around His waistline. He had long hair and a brown beard and He was welcoming me to come through the door.  

As I started to walk onto the door, I looked down and my foot turned from my normal foot into a kid like foot, sort of like a Nike high top sneaker. As I walked across this solid door, and got to Jesus He told me to look up. When I looked up I saw the stars. It wasn’t dark, but I could see the stars. I have always loved to sit and look at the stars and one of my wishes is to have a home in heaven where I can look at the stars. I have been told by so many people that God is light and you won’t be able to see the stars. But I did and I can still see them. It was light all around but I could still see the stars. And then I looked down expecting to see darkness or clouds, but what I saw was earth. Not earth far off, but earth as if I was standing in my own yard. I was standing on grass and dirt.

For some time now I have been having ideas about multiple realms of God. For example, when the disciples set sail in the boat and were out about 3 or 3½ miles they saw Jesus walking on the water. Now most people haven’t thought about this, but the wind was blowing and the waves were high and they saw Jesus walking on the water. For Jesus to walk that far in a storm, He would have to run all the way out there. He would have had to run up and down waves to get to the boat and then be exhausted by the time He got to the boat. I know He was God, but He was also human. Skipping on in to the word a little Phillip was translated into another town. Other stories in the bible refer to they were there and then they were not. So how did they go? I believe Jesus walked through a realm that is shorter than ours and He came out before they could see Him. I have a theory on these realms and I may try to draw them out and place them on the webpage. 

So while I was standing on earth in Heaven I realized that I could be on earth and in heaven at the same time. Heaven is on earth and all we have to do is walk into it. So we began to walk and I noticed all these other people that were walking as if they were looking up at Jesus like I was as I was walking through Heaven with Jesus. I told Jesus that I thought if we had a personal relationship with Jesus on earth that we would have the same in heaven. He said they are doing the same thing you are doing. They have made it to the Emerald city in their spirits and are walking around with me just as you are with me. They can’t see you but you are privileged to see them to answer your prayers. I questioned how two people could be together and looking up in the middle to see what as I didn’t know. It was one person on one side and one person on the other side looking up to see Jesus standing in the middle. I asked who they were and He said they were two who were joined as one. Married couples seeking Jesus together and they had found Me (Jesus) here as you have. I wonder why I didn’t see Renee and I was told that it wasn’t time for her to be seen up there and if she was there I wouldn’t notice her for I (Jesus) would be your focal point.  

As we continued to walk toward the actual castle inside the inner walls I realized that what I had seen with the two outer walls were the same as in King Solomon’s Temple and the Tent of Meetings. In the Tent of Meetings there was an outside wall of curtains that went completely around the actually tent itself. Then inside the tent courtyard you saw the Tent. If you went inside the Tent then there was another room where God would come down and sit on top of the Ark of the Covenant. 

In Solomon’s Temple it was the same thing. You had an outer wall, then you had the outside temple and then once you were inside the temple, you had the Holy of Holies. That is the way it is in this open vision. I went through an outer wall, then into the big drawbridge and then I was making my way to the Holy of Holies.  

As Jesus and I started up the ramp to the Holy of Holies I looked down at the brick paved ramp and it was gold, but you could see through it, it isn’t something that I can explain, you have to go see it for yourself. I really can’t explain the depths that this dream carries so if you want to see it for yourself you will have to go see it. 

As we walked up the ramp there was another one of those black doors, I asked Jesus why He used wood and He said it wasn’t wood it was a rare black marble. Two solid pieces that swung open in the middle as a double door. And there it was, on the other side of the doors, the Holy of Holies. I was beginning to get scared to go on any further, but I had Jesus so I figured if I was going to release everything to God and seek Him I needed to go ahead with Jesus and not be scared. As we started into the Holy of Holies I realized that I had been here before. It was marbled floor, but one piece that stretch throughout the entire floor. There was a white marble strip on the outside of the green marble in the middle of the floor. I said this is pretty marble and Jesus said it was Jade, not marble. I didn’t ask what the other white part was, I guess I still could as I can still see in that dimension. As I looked down on the floor I realized that I couldn’t see my reflection on the mirror like finish on the floor, but I could see Jesus’ reflection on the floor. He spoke before I could ask and said, You are not really here only through faith are you here, but I am here. That is why you can see me and you can’t see yourself. 

When we got closer to the throne, I really got scared and I asked Jesus why I was scared. He said when your earthly father left you as a child, you judged him and was scared because he left you. So I asked to let me go take care of that. As let go of Jesus I was back in my prayer room. I forgave my father and asked God to forgive me. Then I was standing beside Jesus again. When I got back I ran up to the throne and sat on the floor. I was a small child with kid blue jeans on, Nike High tops, green baseball cap and green shirt. I was sitting up at God looking as if I was getting something really big. I kept looking as if I kept seeing dimensions of God that I never seen before. 

As I saw myself sitting on the floor, I looked back and saw Jesus. I was standing next to the throne at this point looking up at the Father who sat in Abraham Lincoln chair in the Lincoln’s memorial except Lincoln wasn’t there it was God. It was a spirit, it was a ball of light. I can’t explain what I saw, but I knew who it was. I asked God how I could see Him without dying and He said I am looking at you through Jesus and you are looking at me through Jesus, that is why He said in the scriptures that when you see the Son you see the Father. I was at peace with that and went on.  

Later I was looking off to the side of Father and saw what seemed to be a large ball of cement. I know it wasn’t but that is the only way I could explain it. The Father started tell me something, and then He said all this is yours son. I said I don’t understand. He told me that everything He owned was mine. I still didn’t understand it due to I never fully understood what my father had was mine. It just never sunk in. As I was writing this I had a heart change and realized that every thing that God has given me in heaven and on earth is everything, even the stuff I have not possessed. It was between me and Him. But what about the others? And He said that is between Me and them. People freak out about what others have when in fact they have equal sharing in it all. If I got a spoon from God and it was the only spoon like that and somebody else wanted that spoon. All they would have to do is seek God and they would have that very spoon except it would be through the relationship between you and God. Same spoon different relationship. One on One thing. I can’t really explain that so seek God for the answer. 

The next morning when Renee and I were reading the Word, she read about the Pharisees giving Jesus a hard time about Him being on equal footing as God by calling Himself the son of God. Right then I understood what God meant the night before that everything that belongs to God belongs to me. I realized that what satan has taken from me and I have been claiming back like money, it then became a reality that God owned it all and if I am a co-sharer of His money then I was asking the wrong way. I needed to command satan to give me back my money instead of “the” money that he stole from me. I understood what the fullness of Col. 2:9-10 meant and I am now able to call those things forth. 

This was earlier Wednesday morning and on Wednesday night I was back before the Father again, this happened all week until Friday when I was doing something else for God.  

Sunday morning I was in church and as I was singing to the Lord I went back into the throneroom of God. I began to intercede over the church through warfare dance and I saw the River of God burst off the throne and flow through the throneroom. It filled the Holy of Holy’s with the river. It was more like a pool on the floor than a river, but it was a river. One lady in church said that God was in the river and in my open vision she was right. The river was coming from the throne and also Jesus was sitting in the river, so it was both. 

As I was watching people from our church began to pop up from under the water and stand in the presence of God. I realize that as they released there cares of the world they would sync up with God and walk into the throneroom of God. After church and sometimes on Monday afternoon, I saw those who popped up from beneath the water as they stood there they became as little children. There was one person that wouldn’t become child-like for he was hanging on to something that he wouldn’t let go of. 

I will continue this vision as the vision continues. As I remember things about this I will revise it also. There is a lot more I forgot, but it will come back to me. 

See you in the city!

Richard