He Walks in God’s Power—and Teaches Others to Do the Same - #156 Howard Olsen

I had this out-of-body experience. I literally floated out of myself and from the corner of my living room. I was now suspended out looking back, me looking at me, looking at my wife who was sitting on on the sofa and she was sitting right there and all of a sudden I just sucked back into my body. My wife is back. I'm back in the living room. She said, "Your body went limp. Your eyes went gray." And I literally just watched you die right in front of me.

About 3:00 in the morning, I can only describe it like this. This tower of white light falls into my sleeping body. This living God, this voice spoke right deeply into me and said, "Howard Olsson," and call me up by my name, Howard Olsson, I've given you incredible gifts. I've given you incredible talents and all these years you've done nothing with them. You've been around the world. You've made all kinds of money and you've had more fun than most human beings will ever have. But that is not the plan or the purpose that I have for your life. I want you to give hope and courage to those who have lost it, but they don't know where to find it. Go back to bed. I love you. I have a great purpose for your life. I love you. It's going to be okay.

Howard Olsen didn't grow up seeking God, didn't come from a church background, and wasn't looking for anything spiritual. In fact, his life had reached a breaking point marked by loss, despair, and the very real desire to end it. What followed was an encounter with God so personal and so precise that it not only pulled him back from death, but set his life on an entirely new trajectory. And what makes this conversation especially important is that Howard doesn't just talk about what happened to him. He lives in the fruit of it. He now walks in authority, witnesses healings and transformations, helps others to step into the same life of faith, obedience, and power. I'll also say this, I don't know if I have ever personally met a Jesus follower who carries the fire of God quite like what you're about to experience today. So get ready and please meet Howard Olsen.

What What's a person from Vancouver called?

>> A Vancouverite.

>> A Vancouverite. Well, you're you're I think Lacy Sadler was from the Vancouver area and um so anyway, love that. I think it's great. So Howard Olsson, welcome, man.

>> Yeah. Thank you. It's great to be here. I've been since that first conversation we had, even by phone, I've been looking forward to coming and spending time at your table here.

>> Yeah.

>> Yeah. Thank you for having me,

>> man. What an honor. I'm I I'm spiritually enthusiastic about this. Sometimes I'm like, "All right, how how do I need to be prepared?" And as I prepared for this, it was different than any other time that I've prepared. I looked at what I felt like God gave me and I'm like, "Is that is that it?" It was like, "Uh-huh." And it was it was five minutes and I was to get up and it was like yeah. So I'm excited about this for that reason and uh we're going to jump right into it.

I'm going to ask you a question that I used to ask people every now and then because I wanted to understand the arguments or the reasons that people believed that there was actually a god. But it's a question that I had to refine because I asked one person, you know, why do you believe in what causes you or what makes you think that there's a God unmistakably? And it's like, well, I can't because that's where faith comes in.

>> And and it was a pastor. And I was like, wow. Um, that is a real troubling answer for me. So, the question that I I I came up with, and I'm going to ask you this to start with, and you may very well laugh at this question. Well, let's see what happens. What causes you to believe that God is real?

Wow. Uh the answer is very simple for me, but the what underpins it is complex. Of course, I've experienced them. I listen, that's the power of a testimony. We can argue dogma. We can argue scripture. We can argue religious perspective. We can we can argue all those things. But the one thing you can't take away from me is the story that he's written on me, with me, to me, and through me. I know what I've experienced. And once you know what you know, nobody can take that away. So I know what I've experienced. And I'm asked this kind of question actually quite a lot because my testimony is pretty out there. And I just look at them in the end at the end of telling that story and I just ask I ask them a question of my own. I said, "Now I got to ask you. Do you think I made any of that up or do you think I was telling you the truth?"

>> Oh, no. I believe that every word you just spoke was the truth.

>> I said, "Well, then you got yourself a question to ask. What do you believe? And what are you going to do with what I just shared with you?"

Well, the the question that I often ask here to start with is, you know, people sit in that chair because they say that they have experienced God, which you just said. How have you experienced God?

>> Uh, in a multiplicity of ways. You know, I I would I would probably start by saying this. I didn't grow up in any kind of a Christian home. We didn't go to church. I didn't wasn't looking for God. I never we didn't talk about God. There was none of that in our home. It was a very secular home. Interestingly enough, I my two older brothers are both 20 years older than I am. And I say, "Well, you know, we didn't grow up in a Christian home. We never went to church." And my brother David says to me, "Well, we did." And I said, "Well, I don't know what happened in the 20 years space between you and me, but we didn't, you know, and so I grew up in a house, so my older brothers were they were in university. I didn't grow up in the same home as my older brothers. So we don't have any kind of shared experience. So we tell these stories. He says to me one day, "We used to go to we used to go to church." I go, "You went to church?"

>> Man, we didn't even talk about that stuff in our in the house that I grew up in. And so, but how have I experienc I mean, it starts really um I was pretty clever kid. I went to a pretty good private school in down in Fort Lauderdale and as a Canadian boy born in Toronto and moved back to Canada, went to university, graduated university with business degree, got involved in international logistics, uh rose up the corporate ladder, worked for a $40 billion company and by the time I was in my late 20s, I was living in Hong Kong with a senior executive position responsible for a for our tier one category one global multinational clients. I was making money. I was flying first class everywhere and I met my wife there. I met my German wife in Hong Kong. So, Canadian boy meets German girl and uh she had a very good job working for a huge multinational German company. I was a Canadian boy working for a huge Swiss multinational company and uh we were making good money. We were living a very good life. I mean, we worked hard but we played hard and decided to get married. Our I I tell you the truth, our wedding ceremony was literally 5 minutes long. Uh we got married at the wedding registry of Hong Kong. 100 guests from around the world flew in. We threw a party. We rented the Hong Kong Yach Club. James Brown came and played our wedding. And uh the wedding was Godfather of Soul.

>> He was there. His well, he wasn't there. His entire band.

>> Okay.

>> We had Macio was there and all all the cats were there. We we we threw a party of all parties. It was it was a good night.

>> So, you know, the the wedding was literally 5 minutes. The party went on for about 3 weeks and when that was all said and done, we moved down to Australia. I took a transfer, went to Australia to try to clean that thing up a little bit. And um while I was in Australia, I was recruited back to the parent company to come and assume uh a vice presidential role within the same company over in North America. While I was we loaded up a couple containers. Uh one container was full of household effects and furniture. Another one was full of cars and motorcycles. We floated them off on the sea, hopped on a plane, landed in Vancouver. This was in uh this was in 2000, January 17th. I remember the day pretty clearly. Landed in Vancouver on a Saturday, Saturday the 17th. Sunday I I borrowed my buddy's car and went and bought a car. On Monday, I bought a house and on Tuesday we went exploring the city and while we were looking at this new city that we're going to call home, Vancouver. I got a call from the from the from the CEO basically saying, you know, we're in the middle of a merger. I said, yeah, I know that. Well, I've just been merged out and they don't need two VPs of sales and uh you've just been fired. Welcome to Vancouver. That's how life began. And I didn't really wasn't really too concerned about it. You know, I had a pretty good resume. I was fairly well known in my industry. And I figured, okay, we'll just we'll just sort this out. And, you know, one thing, one day led to another. I figured I'll find I'll find some work tomorrow. I'll find some work tomorrow. I'll find some work tomorrow. And after a couple years of tomorrow, it didn't show up. You know, when you're living a pretty good lifestyle, you got a big house and you got a bunch of cars and motorcycles. I mean, it's one thing. it it's it's it's it's easy to turn on lifestyle. I discovered it's not so easy to turn it off,

>> you know, and and you know, after a couple years of tomorrow that never showed up, I found we found ourselves absolutely broke. We lost the house, we lost the cars. Uh I had pretty much defined myself by position, by money, by influence, and all the things that I used to define myself, they were all gone. And I I I slipped myself into a catatonic depression. I can only describe it like that. I went from dejected to depressed and from depressed to suicidal. And I spent I spent a good year looking for creative ways to kill myself because now we were out of our house. We were living in a 300 foot apartment in the middle of downtown Vancouver. That little apartment was smaller than my office in Hong Kong. And I just would look out that window from the 27th floor thinking, "What the hell has my life become?" Everything I touched used to turn to gold. So now nothing I touch and and there there's more a little more to the story. I I had found some work with some small companies, little upstart technology companies. Vancouver is kind of a hotbed for technology. It's they call it Silicon North. Also call it Hollywood North. A lot of films get made there. And but I I just couldn't find any work. I finally did find some work. Uh and both of those opportunities blew up that even the money that they owed me was never paid forward. And I just thought, you know, what has my life become? And from that little that little apartment on Georgia Street in downtown Vancouver, uh well, if I look at your studio here, I mean, that black wall over there is about I don't know 3 ft away. I would and the door was in 3 ft in that direction and there was these floor to ceiling windows and I used to just come and take a run at those windows every day and slam myself up against the glass hoping that it would give way that when I hit the ground below it would look like an accident. Well, for whatever reason that glass never broke and I just slipped off into a into literally a catatonic depression. And I just I want I I I don't remember 6 months of the year 2002, 2003. I don't remember I don't remember any of it. Whether the sun was shining, wasn't shining. And my wife tells me, she goes, "You just you slept for six solid months." I I remember one morning I woke up and my face was overgrown in a beard. I heard I heard a voice. I said, "Get up." Said, "Huh? Get up." I was all alone in this little apartment. And I just heard this voice said, "Get up." And so I I got up, take a shower. Like literally just talk to me like this. Take a shower. Shave. I was overgrown. I shaved up and said, "Start reading." I said, "Well, read what?" And I was talking to an entity. I couldn't see, but I knew for sure I was having a conversation, and I knew what I was hearing, and I didn't feel like I had lost my mind. I I felt pretty clear in my thoughts. And so that conversation just unfolded like that. I ended up I I cleaned up. I took a walk. I was we were living downtown Vancouver. I walked. So here here in the States you call it Barnes & Noble. Our our bookstore is called Chapters. It's like a Barnes & Noble. I walked down I walked down to Barnes & Noble. Went up to the self-help. I found a book said Think and Grow Rich. I I pulled it off the shelf, started reading it. I read the book, put it back on the shelf, went home. The next day I went down there and read Norman Vincent Peles, The Power of Positive Thought. I read it, put it back. Next thing you know, I started feeling pretty good about myself.

One day, I get this phone call. Uh, and I'll never for Chuck Warner. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia. I I didn't know him. He says, and and the phone rings like this. He goes, "Ring ring." And I so I answered. He goes, "You Howard Olsen?" And I said, "Yeah, Howard Olsson speaking." He said, "My name is Chuck Warner, and you and I never met, but uh, I know a guy in Texas who knows a guy in New York who knows a guy in London, England, and says you and I got to meet." I said, "Really?" And you know, after having been defrauded by a couple of companies and having had I'm I'm a little skeptical. I'm a bit jaded, I must admit. He says, "You and I need to meet." And I said, "Why is that?" He says, "Well, we got this business opportunity and we need some sales and marketing muscle. We hear that you're one of the strongest marketing muscles on the in North America today." I said, "Oh, really?" He said, "So, he outlines this this business plan for me. I'm listening to him. on I'm on the phone and and I I just listen to him and I said, "Okay, what so what's the pitch?" He says, "Well," he says, "We're going to teach people how it it is basically a financial financial literacy program long before the days of YouTube." YouTube was really nothing. I don't don't think anybody even heard of it back then. He says, he says, "Let me ask you a question." He says, "When you think about most people," he says, "Do they have a plan to get themselves out of a debt and to be able to retire in the next 5 to 10 years?" And I said, "No." He says, "Uh," he says, "What about you?" And I said, "No." He says, "I want you to think about something." He says, "You went to school, you learned reading, writing, you learned the three Rs, reading, writing, and arithmetic." And I said, "Yeah." He said, "Who taught you about money?" I went, "No one." He goes, "That's exactly the problem. We're going to build a financial literacy program built on streaming a video platform where we can literally sell these courses to teach people about money, how to make it, how to accumulate it, how to how to tax preserve it and and use that as a tool so that people can actually get themselves financially ahead. He said the problem is most of them don't have any money to put into investments. They don't know how to shelter it. So, we're going to attach it to a business opportunity so they can keep their regular paying jobs and do this on the side. Reselling this program, it was ultimately it was a network marketing program. I I'm a corporate guy. I went to university. I never I I didn't know what network marketing was. Never heard of it. And uh but as I was listening to him and it made it just made sense to give people an opportunity to use the education that they're receiving that as they sold this onward and as we supported them that they could sell these financial literacy programs to bring in some extra income and use that extra income so they could start using what they had learned in the programs. I went brilliant. And then the little wheels in my head started turning. as well. Okay. Uh if you can convince me with a pitch like that, I know I can do this better than you. As long as it's legal, as long as it's legitimate. And so we I I I said, "Okay, let's go." It was a brand new company. And they were just getting started. We started making phone calls. I started doing phone calls and webinars and teleconferences and all this kind of thing. And you know, first we had five people with us, then we had 10, then we had a thousand, then we had 10,000 of them. And all of a sudden things started going and and it started working. And one day I called up Chuck Warner and I says to him, I said, "You know, we got to we got to train on fire here." I said, "We're talking to firefighters and stay-at-home moms and people that have no business experience." He says, "And so we've got them all excited on the power of the opportunity, but this is unsustainable. We need to get out there. We need to touch them. We need to train them. We need to we need to encourage them. We need to show them how to run a business." He says, "Okay, I don't disagree with you. How do you want to do And I said, "Well, I you know my story, my backstory. I've just been wiped out. I'm not flushed with cash." I said, "But if if you'll if you'll fund the venues, I'll put together the training program and I'll go out and train them." He said, "All right." So, we did the first one down. I would drove down to Seattle, did one there. Couple hundred people showed up. It was a great success. Came back into Vancouver and did one in Vancouver. Then I drove out to Calgary. By the time I got there, and we were doing we're still doing these teleconferences every day. And there were like a we were maxing out the telephone lines. And so I I drove out to Calgary, which is I don't know about 12 hour drive over the Rocky Mountains. Had never driven through the Rocky. We show up at that hotel in in Calgary and there's like four Greyhound buses out in the parking lot. And I go, I wonder who's who's in town. I thought maybe it was a band or something. So anyway, we we pull in, we check into the hotel, we go down. I had booked a room to hold a couple hundred people. I got go down to the room at 7:00 at night for that for this conference that we're going to hold. and people thousands of they're lined up down the hallway out the parking lot go who's here you here to see me. Yeah, we're here to see you. I mean if you're not coming to Winnipeg, we're coming here. We rented buses to come to this. So anyway, we we do this in Calgary. I do another one just like this in Edmonton. Uh it was a great success. People started signing up. People are very encouraged. They're feeling like they know what they're doing so that they can actually work from home and drive back into Vancouver. My phone rings and it's my buddy Chuck Warner. He says, "Man," he says, "It's incredible what you've done." He says, he says, "The results that we've had, the growth of the business is incredible." He says, "That's why this is such a difficult phone call to make." I said, "What does that mean?" He said, "We've grown so quickly. We've outstripped our capital. We've we've outgrown our capital. We're declaring bankruptcy on Monday morning." I hang up the phone. My wife looks at me. She goes, "You're not getting paid again, are you?" And I went, "Nope." and she's been very stoic and she just begins to cry and says, "I don't think I can take this anymore. We needed this. If we don't get this without this money here, our lives are finished. I mean, this was our last hope." And I looked at her and I said, "No, you know, I think I think we're going to be all right." She goes, "You think we're going to be all right? Are you diluted? We have no cash. We have no money. you've just invested eight months into this and you've got nothing to show for it. I said, "Yeah, but if you look at where I was six months ago trying to kill myself every day and you look at what happened in Calgary and Edmonton, at least I believe in myself again."

And as I spoke those words, I can only Stacy, I can only describe it like this. I had this out-of-body experience. I literally floated out of myself and from the corner of my living room I was now suspended out looking back me looking at me looking at my wife who was sitting on on the sofa and she was sitting right there and as this scene unfold and it's as real I mean I'm experiencing this as real as you and I are sitting here talking right now and I'm I'm up in the ceiling looking back at myself and as I'm watching myself. All of a sudden, the sofa melts. My wife is gone and I I the scene opens up and I'm standing on a stage talking to I don't know tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people delivering some kind of message of hope, inspiration, and encouraging the crowd. And I can feel like it's it's as real as you can hear my voice now. I can feel the wind. I can feel the heat of the lamps from the stage. I like I can feel it. And I don't know how long it's out there. To me, it feels like I was out there about half an hour delivering this this inspirational, encouraging message and all of a sudden I just suck back into my body and my wife is back. I'm back in the living room and Michaela, my wife, is sitting on the couch. She looks at me. She says, "What just happened to you?" I go, "You saw that?" She goes, "Oh yeah, I saw it." I said, "Well, what did you see?" She said, "Your eyes went your body went limp, your eyes went gray, and I literally just watched you die right in front of me." And she was sitting here. People ask her that question all the time. Well, what did you see? She goes, "It was like I was looking through a ghost. He was there, but he wasn't there." And uh she I was literally calling an ambulance to come and get you. I watched you die right in front of me. And I go, "Wow, let me tell you what I saw." And so I described to her this vision. Clearly both of us experienced something lifetime and saw it from two completely different perspectives and angles. I don't know how to reconcile this. I've got no spiritual background. I just a strange thing has just happened and I don't know how to describe it. I can't I can't put words to what had just happened besides describing what had happened. She's kind of the same. So, we don't even talk about we go to bed that night and uh so we typically go to bed around 11:00 or so. I'm I'm sound asleep about 3:00 in the morning. I can only describe it like this. This tower of white light falls into my sleeping body. And you know, if you if you read if you read the book of Acts, you know, Paul Paul on the road to Damascus gets kicked off the horse. Well, I literally got thrown out of bed that night. I started vibrating in the bed. I fall on the floor and I'm crawling back up into bed and my wife is looking at me. She says, "What are you doing?" And I said, "It's not me." She says, "What do you mean it's not you?" I said, "I think God has just come and spoken to me." And she says to me, "Man, if that's coming out of your mouth, that's got to be the truth." because I mean I can promise you the only time the word God was ever used in our home out of ignorance was probably in the most inappropriate of ways. We didn't know any better. And I said, "I think God just came and spoke to me." She says, "Well, if that's coming out of your mouth, you must be telling the truth. What did he say?" And Stacy, I'll never forget what he said to me that night. This this living God, this voice spoke right deeply into me and said, "Howard Olsen," and call me up by my name. "Howard Olsen, I've given you incredible gifts and I've given you incredible talents and all these years you've done nothing with them. You've been around the world. You've made all kinds of money and you've had more fun than most human beings will ever have. But that is not the plan or the purpose that I have for your life. I want you to give hope and courage to those who have lost it, but they don't know where to find it. Go back to bed. I love you. I have a great purpose for your life. I love you. It's going to be okay.

So, I'm lying in bed 3:00 in the morning. I speak this to my wife. This is like 12 hours after this experience that I had earlier in the day, floating out and seeing myself on this stage. And I'm lying in bed. I'm just dumbfounded by this. So, she's like, "Okay, yeah, I I I believe that that just happened to you." But anyway, we don't know how to reconcile it. Clearly, something supernatural has happened twice in the span of 12 hours. We have no frame of reference for it. And honestly, we never talked about it again. You never talked about it again.

>> Well, what what do you say? I mean,

>> well, I don't know. So, so these are I mean I've heard people say it was like an out-of-body experience.

>> Yeah.

>> And not being not actually referring to their consciousness detaching from their fleshly body and moving to a different location. Yeah. or or exiting and going some now I have had people sit in that chair who have had out-of-body experiences right where they died

>> motorcycle accident um think of Rachel Nethers to to start with um over a year ago I think probably but anyway if I remember correctly in your account of this you were just like I don't think it's going to I don't think this is the end I just I now believe in myself again. I mean,

>> I I don't know what could trigger a thing like that in your environment and then for you to actually say that your consciousness, are you literally saying that your consciousness separated from your physical body and you were in a different spot in the room?

>> Yeah. Well, I actually in retrospect, what I believe actually happened, I I believe that what my wife saw was correct. I actually I think I died. I I believe that I died and I was sitting outside of myself looking at a scene of what he was bringing me back. So I I can't say that I felt like I was dead, but knowing what my wife tells me that she saw from her perspective. Your eyes your your body went completely limp. Your eyes grayed out and I was calling an ambulance to come and get you. I literally watched you die in front of me. Those are her words, which is not what I experienced.

>> You I'm assuming you were like sitting on the couch or something and

>> I was standing. So she was sitting on the couch. So, did you like collapse onto the floor?

>> Yeah. She says you just you just your body limped over and you were gone. That's what she says. That's that's the way that she saw it.

>> And you didn't go to the doctor?

>> No. I mean, I because by the time the whole the by the time the whole encounter was on, I felt alive. I was I was fully in myself, but I had had this this encounter and this experience and then of course followed up later that night with this encounter. And I, like I said, I can only describe it as white light descending into the room. And it was just, it was just a presence. And I felt it speak to me. This wasn't a dream. Wasn't a dream. Clearly not a dream. Because I was vibrating in that bed so strongly that my wife Michaela woke up and she says, "What are you doing?" And I said, "I I think I I think God just came and spoke to me." What's the explanation for these things other than God? I don't think there can be one. I from my perspective, there is. I I mean I knew in a moment when the not the first encounter, the second encounter, I knew for sure that a God that I had never looked for, a God that I wasn't hungering for had just come and spoke to me. You, you know, the first question you asked is, "Well, why do you believe in God?" I said, "Because I know what I've experienced, and I can't deny it, and nobody can ever take this from me." I know that I heard the voice of God that night that said, Howard Olsen, I've got a plan and a purpose for your life. I want you to give hope and courage to those that have lost it and don't know where to find it. Those words are so deeply burned into me that no one can ever snatch them away. I know that that happened.

>> Hope and courage.

>> Hope and courage.

>> Did you hear this voice audibly or was it just deep in your spirit?

>> I can't answer. I don't know. It's like when Paul says, I whether I'm in the body or out of the body, I don't know. I I I believe that I heard it audly audibly. It could be. I mean, this is going back 23 years now. I know that I heard the voice, but I've also heard the voice so many times since then where it's just a a knowingness. I believe that I heard his voice that night.

>> Yeah. Uh these things are are rare.

>> Mhm. Not unprecedented, but rare. We look at in scripture. We know Paul had uh an encounter like that. We know that John had an encounter like that when he wrote the book of Revelation. Uh we know that Moses had an encounter like that. There's a handful in scripture where um spec John's happened later in very late in life. Um Moses and Paul's were not should have been later in life for Moses, but it wasn't for him. He had a lot still ahead of him. But from that encounter forward

>> almost immediately did their life's trajectory changed.

>> Yeah.

>> What happened to you? Not much. Not much for about 6 months. I mean little opportunities began. I started a new business. That business became successful. Uh wasn't pursuing any kind of spiritual outreach. I mean I knew for I knew what had happened and but spiritually speaking I mean fruit started showing up because our business started flourishing again. A brand new business began to flourish and I mean honestly I started a little thing and I took it from 0 to 10 million in the first year hit 20 million in the second year and it it became it be really quite a success. Um, but I wasn't pursuing any kind of spiritual matters, but yet I was completely aware that I had been touched by God.

>> Yeah. And a lot of Christians would say, "No, you didn't." Because had you been touched by God, it would have you would have it would have been like Paul in that moment. You would have immediately transitioned, transformed, whatever else it is. I'm not saying that necessarily.

>> Yeah. Well, let me finish the story. Yeah,

>> because so here's how this unfolds. So I have these encounters and you know we you know business starts running again and you know we're starting to get a little flush with some finances. I mean we're not we're not flush. We're not out of debt or anything but but we're cash flow positive at at least. So you know life had begun to shift and change and some semblance of being able you know pressure coming off and all those other sorts of things. Anyway, that was all that was all in August of 2002. Those two encounters happened in the same day on January 3rd, 2003. So this is almost six months to the date. And if you look at not not third, January 5th, first Sunday of 2003. I'm sitting on on our on the sofa. It was a Sunday morning and I don't even remember I think I was reading a newspaper. It probably had the st we always turn the stereo on. Music's always I mean I'm I'm a musical kind of guy. I'm always in music all all around me. I'm sitting on the on the sofa about 10:00 in the morning on this particular Sunday morning, first Sunday of 2003 reading a newspaper or whatever. I maybe a magazine or something and I just hear it goes off in my ear, I want you to go to church today. I said, what? I said you're going to church and the I just ignored it. I actually thought it was maybe somebody, one of these evangelist time of guys out on the greenway outside the outside our condo. And I was, my first inclination was, "Shut up. Don't you know it's Sunday? Just shut up." But it kept going. I want you're going to church today. I want you to go to church today. And the more I ignored it, the louder it got. And as I ignored, not only did it get louder, but it came with greater frequency. And it was like, "You're going to church today. I want you to go to church today. I said you're going to church today." And it started it just drove me crazy. Well, I didn't know where church was. I hadn't I'd never looked for a church. I hadn't considered a church. You know, remember this is 2003. Internet was still pretty much infant. So, we had yellow pages back then. I went to the closet where the yellow pages was. I literally pulled the yellow pages out of the closet, threw it on the dining room table, and it flipped open in the middle of and it literally opened right in the middle of the section of churches. And in the top left hand page, there was a little ad, just a quarter little quarter ad. It said coastal church for people like you service times not like you can't make this up. Coastal church for people like you service times 9 and 11. Well, it's like now it's 10:30. I don't even know what I Okay. So, I went I I took a shower, grabbed some jeans. Michaela and the dog are in bed. She goes, "What are you doing?" I said, "I think I'm going to church." She says, "Have you lost your mind?" I go, "No, you want to come?" "No way. I don't want anything to do with that." Okay. She's a recovering Catholic. Grew up in the Catholic tradition. Doesn't want anything to do with it. I was, "All right, I'll see you." So, anyway, I get in the car and now I'm now I'm irritated that I'm going to be late for a church service that I didn't even ex knew existed 30 minutes ago. So, I start driving to this church. Now, you know, when when you and I met when I when I came and knocked on your front door and we talking about the dogs and I talked about my Harley adventures, you know, how this dog and I I'm a Harley guy. At one point, we had four Harley's. I still I still am a motorcycle fanatic. For me, it is the it's it's a great release. I can just get out there and get into a place of freedom. So, anyway, this voice goes off and says, "You're going to church." I look I I find this church in the yellow pages that I wasn't even looking for. I said, "All right, I'll go there. Take a shower. Drive there. park. It's now like 5 after 11 and I'm a little tweaked that I'm late for this thing that I didn't even know existed. And on because it's a downtown church, they've got a security detail. So I walk up to the front doors and there's this little guy, well little guy, I mean I'm 5 foot tall guy, you know, not a sixoot guy. So little but stocky kind of guy and he's dressed in leathers. He looks like a motorcycle guy. And he looks at me, he says, "Don't think I've ever seen you before." I go, "Buddy, I'm absolutely certain you and I had never met." He says, "But remember, he looks like a motorcycle guy." He says, he says, "Well, welcome. They're waiting for you." I said, 'What? He said, 'Ay, go on and you'll figure it out. He says, "Anyway, welcome. This place is for people just like you." And this is what he said. This what comes out of his mouth. And I'm like, "All right, this is this is kind of weird. My heart is pounding. I have no idea. I really don't know why I'm here." I walk in and the way that there's a lobby downstairs and there's a staircase that goes up into what they call it. I walk up there and there's it's like an 800 seat 700 seat theater circular beautiful stage. I walk in, there's a band playing kind of rock me. I mean clearly it's Christian music but it's pretty upbeat and not what I cuz I mean the only time I'd ever been to a church was for a wedding or a funeral

>> or if I was in Europe I would take pictures of these archaeological uh you know kind of masterpieces. That was my only experience. So, I'm in there and now this there's a modern-l looking band playing modern sounding music and I'm like, man, what what what is this? The place is packed. It's the first Sunday of 2003. The place is completely packed out. So, if the place seats 700, every seat is taken. There's like not an empty seat anywhere in there. I'm looking for a play. And anyway, it it's kind of a round amphitheater and in the very back corner. So, you know, this pew will seat seven. This one seats 10. But in these corners, there's these two little there's a pew on this side on this side. Each of them seats two. The I think for sure the only open seat in the entire place was this one seat on that sits to as far away from the stage as you can get cuz it's on the very back wall and you know it's 20 maybe 25 rows deep. So it's I'm way back there. Anyway, the music is playing. I'm sitting in there. I'm kind of looking around trying to figure out what I'm doing here. Music stops. A guy walks out on the stage in a, you know, I was I was expecting a collar and, you know, all fan fair and all. No, just a normal looking guy in a in a sports coat. Comes out and he opens with, "Hey, good morning church family. This is our first Sunday of 2003. Uh, his name is Pastor Dave. He's me and me wife Cheryl. We've been praying over Christmas." I I'd never heard anything like this before. We've been praying all Christmas. And I believe the Lord's got a message for us today. It's going to be a great year. The year 2003 is going to be this incredible year. So much opportunity. Restoration is coming. The people have been beat up. I want to talk to you today about a guy in the Bible. His name is Jabz. Of course, I never heard of JZ. I've never read the Bible. I don't know anything about it. And he just says JZ was a guy and anyway, he turned he Jabz more honorable than his brothers. Beat up. The name Jabz means born in great pain. How would you like to go through life knowing that your mother called you the only thing that you ever caused her? that every time someone uses your name, it's a reminder of how much your mother detests you. I go, "Wow, that's a pretty heavy trip." Anyway, so he this is how the sermon opens. He says, "But we can read in the script." So he he he takes this story. So the prayer of Jabz comes out of the book of 2 Chronicles. It's three verses and it says, "And Jabz, more honorable than his brothers, one day decided enough was enough. And he got on his knees and he prayed to God. He says, "Oh God, that you would bless me indeed. Oh God, that you would enlarge my territory and oh God that you would put your hand upon me that I can feel no pain, nor may I cause any." Very simple. It's a, you know, takes 20 seconds to say the whole thing. Well, this pastor unpacks that over a course of an hour and what it really means, what it means to be blessed, to be provisioned, to be loved, to be restored. Uh, so that I want to bless me indeed. God, would you bless me? Would you cause me to be able to do things that I could never do on my own? And God, would you enlarge my territory back then? You know, so today we measure in property, real estate, stock portfolio, savings. Back then it was farmland, number of cattle, number of sheep. God, would you bless me? Would you enlarge my territory? Would you increase my circle of influence? And father, would you put your hand upon me? So he unpacks this story over the course of an hour. And I'm I'm sitting on this back pew with my arms across my chest. I'm listening to this and I go, man, this doesn't sound like church. This is this is like going to a Zigg Ziggler motivational concert or some, you know, convention or something. And I'm kind of I'm like I'm sucked into this message. And so he he he leads into he says, "So maybe maybe some of you out there, your marriages are in really bad." Well, I can tell you after the years of stress that Michaela and I were under, all this financial duress, our marriage was not in a very good place. I go so far as to say it was in a terrible place. Our finances were destroyed. Our businesses have been destroyed. Our hope had been destroyed. He says, "So maybe some of you out there, you know, your relationships are in a bad place. Maybe your your marriage is in a terrible place. Maybe your finances have been decimated. Your businesses aren't working. And I'm like, check check. And he just simply says, he says, and this is why I told you the story of JZ today. That's exactly the same place that JZ was in. And one day he just said, "Enough is enough." And he got on his knees and he prayed to the God that he knew. He says, "And what the scriptures are trying to teach us through the book of Jabz is that God already knows who you are. He's the one who created you. He's just looking for you to cry out to him." So maybe you've never had that kind of relationship with God. Maybe maybe you've never prayed before. Maybe today is your day. So I want to just invite you, you know, listen, if you would like to start that relationship and have God help to restore everything that's been lost in your life, to restore your hope and all these other sort. So he starts praying. It's the end of the service now. And he just starts praying. Well, so I'm sitting on the back pew, my arms across the chest. He says, "So, church family, I just want to encourage you to come and pray alongside with me. Heavenly Father." So they he So he recites a line. He says, "Heavenly Father." And if there's 700 of us in there, 699 of them are like, "Heavenly Father, this Sunday morning, s this Sunday morning." So they're all praying. As far as I know, I'm the only one who's not

Praying this morning. I'm just watching this and I'm a little, I'm, I'm intrigued, but I'm freaked out, to be honest with you. So, heavenly Father, Heavenly Father, this Sunday morning, this Sunday morning, I open up my heart. Open up my heart.

And he gets to, "I open up my heart," and this pastor comes, Pastor Dave comes to a dead stop in the middle of the stage. And he says, "Ladies and gentlemen, church family, I'm really sorry." He says, "This has never happened. Not like this." He said, "But there's somebody here today and Holy Spirit has told me he wants you to know that he knows you to hear and he, he's got a message for you."

Well, I'm just looking around. I go, "Okay, this, this could be anybody." So he says, "The Lord wants, wants you to know that it was him who came to your living room and gave you an experience so bizarre, so strange, so unexplainable that you haven't told anybody about it." And, um, okay, whatever. That could be anybody in here. That's pretty generic.

He says, "And he wants you to know that it was him who came into your bedroom that same night. And this is what he said to..." Now, you got to understand, I've never been here before. My wife doesn't even know where I'm at. He came into your bedroom that same night, and this is what he said to you. He called you by your name, and he said, "He's given you incredible gifts and incredible talents, and all these years, you've done nothing with them. That you've traveled around the world. You've made a lot of money, and you've had more fun than most human beings." But that's not the plan or the purpose that he has for your life. He wants you to give hope and courage to those that have lost it and don't know where to find it. And he's going to use your life to do that.

And he spoke those two words. You can't make this up. Those are word for word what this tower of white light said to me six months earlier in my bedroom. He says, "But there's more." He wants you to know that he knows that you're here today. And he wants you to know that he knows that you found this church in the yellow pages about an hour and a half ago, that even this morning you didn't know where this place existed. And he wants you to know that he loves you so much that every word he put into my mouth this morning, he put into my mouth for your ears. He loves you so much that he, he'd bring a message to you in front of 700 other people. And all he wants to know now is, "Are you ready to know him?"

And I heard those words and something in my spirit broke. I just, I began, I just, I just started crying. And he says, "Are you ready to know him?" And I just looked up and I went, "I don't know who you are and I don't know what you want, but clearly whatever I'm doing is not working. I want everything you've got for me. Jesus Christ, I give you my life." And I can, I can only tell you it was like something broke. Pressure and stress that I had gotten so comfortable with, I didn't even know was there. I just felt, felt it. You know, we, you and I talked about peace this morning before we started filming. That was the first time I ever felt genuine peace and it just flooded over me. And I knew that something had happened. I couldn't quite explain what it was, but I knew that I gave my life to the Lord. I knew that he was present there. That this guy would speak word for word exactly what this spirit being said to me six months earlier, going, "There's just no way you can make this stuff up." And I gave my life, I gave my life to Jesus that morning. Stress just, I, I just, I felt unbound. I felt freed. And, uh, that was my first confirmation that I had actually had a God experience.

I asked him many times. I said, "Listen, a lot of people hear that story. Said, 'Man, why would he talk to you like that? Why would he do it like that?'" Man, I, I, I, I, I would, I would, I beg for for an encounter with God like that. So be careful what you, what you wish for. There was a lot of pain that preceded it to get to that point. And I asked him, you know, so I obviously I matured in my faith. And I asked him one morning, I said, "Why? Why like this? Why? Why did you come to me like this?" He said, "Because you're willful, stubborn, and obstinate." He said, "If anybody would have tried to invite you to church, you probably would have punched him in the nose. I needed to come and get you myself with a 2x4." That's what he said to me.

>> Yeah. Um, I mean, that's, that's really an extraordinary experience that you're describing. I mean, with a lot of specificity. And what do you say to people? It's like, "I don't believe that."

>> Well, honestly, anybody who's heard that story, I've never heard anybody, nobody's ever said to me they don't believe it.

>> Really?

>> I've never had one say, "I don't believe that." That I, and, and that's, that's why I said earlier that that's the power of a story. You can't take that. I know that this is what happened. I know with every fiber of my being that this is what happened and I believe that when I tell that story that the conviction of the belief is so strong that people just say, "I don't think you made that up."

>> Yeah. Even with the detailed words like that. I mean, I, how you remember that kind of, I mean, the pastor going into that kind of detail is really extraordinary.

>> It's extraordinary and that's what makes it to me so convincing because I didn't know him and he didn't know me and his message was, "Holy Spirit has just stopped me here in the middle of this service to bring you a message." And then he speaks word for word what he had said to me six months earlier and I go, "There's just no way that anybody could make this up." And you committed your life to Christ in that room, right there on the spot.

>> I mean, he led me through a prayer. Or he led the entire congregation through a prayer. But it became very personal to me in that moment.

>> Yeah. I mean, it, the experiences you had before were pretty remarkable.

>> Yeah.

>> Right. Yeah. That is, uh, that's going and getting somebody. He was setting me up. Lord, I believe the Lord was setting me up. Yeah. That I, I hear a lot of things here doing what I do and that is really, really, uh, unique and, and all, most experiences are, are pretty unique into themselves, right?

>> God's not, uh, applying a template or a set of templates, I don't think, in, in these, in these things. Um, what happened after that? So I, I, I, I came home from church because, yeah, because, and where I'm going with that is I'm going to lead into that, the fruit of, I mean, go from there. So, so let me just, extraordinary.

>> I'll take you on this journey now. So, so I come home from church that day, and I knew, I knew for sure I had just had a supernatural experience. I mean, I knew that the other ones were, were, I didn't know what to call them. But now I know for sure in the context of Jesus Christ in a church, I had had a supernatural experience which confirmed the previous two. So now it's three over a span of six months and maybe more than I'm even unaware of. I don't know. So I come home from church. It's about 1:00 in the afternoon and my wife, Mel, is standing in the kitchen. I come in the front door and she's looking, she's got her arms across the chest. She's very skeptical, like that. She was a recover. I didn't even know she was Catholic. I mean, we never talked about these things. I'm married to her, that she came up in a Catholic trad. I didn't even know that. It was, it was never part of our discussion or vernacular. So, I come in. All she knows is that I decided one morning that I've lost my mind and I decided to go to church. That's her perspective. I walk in the front door. She's standing in the kitchen. I'm on the other side of the counter. She's like, she goes, "How was it?" Like, kind of cynical. "How was it?" And I just knew I couldn't tell her. I just said, "It was, it was interesting." And I'm, I'm absol, I was still processing it.

>> Sure.

>> So I, I, I didn't even know what to say to her, but I knew that something changed and I knew that I wanted more and I knew in that moment I couldn't say anything else to her. I said, "It was interesting," and I just left it at that. Anyway, the next week, Sunday's approaching and I decide I'm going to go again. Wife says to her, "I'm going to go to that church again. You want to come?" "Nope." Okay. So, I went. I came. She didn't ask any questions. I went again. This went on for, this went on for several weeks. And I just, you know, every, every Sunday I would say, "Hey, would you like to come?" And of course, I'm growing in the me, the messaging and, and my fa, whether I know it or not, my faith is growing. You know, you know, there's one of the scriptures says, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God." I remember for years I used to scratch my head thinking to myself, "What does that mean?" And let, what I didn't realize is that I was experiencing it. That the more I was going and the more that I was hearing, the more my faith was beginning to grow. I just didn't realize it.

>> Yeah. I mean, did you, did you like get a Bible and?

>> Well, the church actually gave me a Bible.

>> They gave you a Bible.

>> Did you begin to read or?

>> I began to read it. I was traveling a lot in those days and I, I, I, I had, I, I developed an insatiable appetite for reading it.

>> Yeah.

>> And I mean, this is also a very, this is an interesting point of contrast. You know, when I was, when I was, when I was working in the corporate world, I, you know, I listen for all intents and purposes, I was executive VP. I've done over a billion dollars worth of sales. I was living in airplanes. I was traveling 260, 280 days a year. You know, I stayed in a lot of fun cities. I was a younger guy back then and back in those days, you know, whether I'm in Amsterdam or Frankfurt or I want to check these places out. And but every, but sometimes you just, the weariness of the road and every hotel room had a Bible in it back in those days. I, I remember going into these hotels, pulling it, opening the Bible, looking at it, try, trying to read it, unable to read it, and just put this, that this makes no sense to me and putting it away. And then all of a sudden, I have this encounter. I say yes to Jesus. They give me a Bible. And now all of a sudden I have a hunger and I can't put the thing down. It was like saying yes was a key that unlocked the scripture. And all of a sudden I couldn't get enough of it. I was just reading it in every spare moment that I had. I devoured it. And you know, and that to me, I, and I, I can't, I just can't forget that how the number of times that I had tried to read a Bible, unable to, uninterested in it, and the day that I said yes, it was like it just unlocked it. It's almost, I, I don't know what the percentage is of people I have here that talk about and the same thing happened for me.

>> Uh, that very experience, the insatiable hunger and, and the recognition that in fact, it is alive.

>> Yeah.

>> Uh, that occurs on something that previously was just dead and you might as well be reading a foreign language.

>> Yeah.

>> So let me finish the story of my wife. Okay? Because this, this, it, it, it, I mean, it's a journey. This, our lives are this continuum. So anyway, I keep going to church and after, you know, several months of Sundays asking her, "Hey, you want to come? You want to come?" And her like, "No." I just said, "Okay, I'm not, I'm not even going to bother with this anymore. I'm just going to go." And honestly, there was a divide that began. I mean, if we were already a little divided because of all the pressure, all the stress, the change in lifestyle and everything, it was getting worse because now, perceptually and perspectively speaking, if things aren't bad enough, now he's turning into a church boy. Now, she never actually said those words, but I know that's what she was thinking and this is what we're experiencing. So, a bad marriage was actually getting worse the more that I went to church. Not becau, maybe because I was changing, but because of the perception, okay, if there isn't enough separating us now, this also. But I kept going and then, you know, so this was, this all started in January. Now, probably in February or March, and the church started talking about this thing called the Alpha course. And the Alpha course is a, it's, it's a 12-week video program where you watch, you know, you watch, you watch a 30-minute video that explores different facets of faith and then you have a discussion around it. So, does God still heal? Uh, does he, does he forgive your sins? You know, so all, what, what is prayer? How to pray? So, it'd be all these, all these topics. And it was put out there as an exploration of the Christian faith for people that are still questioning or looking or seeking. It's a great place to come because no one's going to push a dogma on you. You can just come. You can accept it. You can reject it. You can, you're free to do whatever you want with it. And if you're new in your faith or if you're in a sight, come and explore this thing that you've now come to believe in that you've come. So I said, "Okay, I'm going to go. I'm going to go to this Alpha course." But of course, I mean, I'm going to church every Sunday now, and I, I'm not going to tell her I'm, I'm going to another church event. So, it was on Monday nights at 7:00. So, I just told her, I said, "For the next, for the next several months, I'm, I'm going to, I've got this business networking thing I'm going to." So, I, I just told her I'm going to a networking event. Because I didn't want the hassle and the stress attached to the perception, "Oh God, now not only is he going to church on Sundays, but now he's, he's going to church on Mondays." So, but I started going. I started going to the Alpha course and it was, it was interesting. I mean, the, the, the videos are lively, they're engaging, the, the, the discussion is, is, is lively and I started making some friends there. I mean, I'm still kind of feeling my way around this. This is all very new to me. I don't really get it. And then, anyway, about five weeks in comes the subject on prayer and they talk about what prayer is and, and how to pray and it's just really just, you know, having a conversation with God. It's not, it's not a formula, but you come, you, and you just lay your request before him. You just talk to God like he's a friend. So that was, that was the video of the night. Of course, what follows that is a discussion around that. And then they want to encourage you if you've never prayed to pray. So, you know, whoever's leading that group that night looks at me, says, "Hey, Howard, do you, you want to try praying?" And I'm like, "No, no, no, no. I don't. I, I'm very uncomfortable with this. I don't know what to do with it." And there were eight of us in that group. I remember, cuz I kept, there were eight small intimate groups. So, I mean, if there were a couple hundred people going, multiple groups of eight. And, "Well, can we pray for you then?" I go, "Sure. What would you like us to pray for?" Nobody had ever asked me a question like that before. I didn't know what to do with it. So, I thought about it for a moment and I said, "Well, honestly, I know that I found God. I know that I'm growing in it. I'm grateful for this Alpha thing, but the, the more I'm coming to church, the worse my marriage is getting. I know that I had a profound experience with the living God and I know that I've met Jesus Christ. I know that. I said, if I were to ask you to pray anything, I'd ask that you could, that you would pray that my wife have a similar experience to mine, that this division between us be eradicated." And I remember these, so that there I was, number eight. So seven people that I, relative strangers, never met my wife. They began to pray for her. I watched them pray for her. And what I, what I, and I, so I'm, I'm just, from a witness perspective, from, I'm just observing this. What I saw maybe for the first time in my life was a purity of love without any string attached to it, as a bunch of strangers began praying for a woman they'd never met and maybe would never meet. And it was just pure. It was, it was, it was love like I had never seen it before. And they just prayed for that. God, God, would you, would you, would you touch her life the way that you touch? And I, I don't remember all the things they prayed. I just remember I was deeply touched watching strangers pray for a stranger with no strings attached to it. I was grateful for it. Anyway, I went home that night and, you know, it was just like another man. "How was it?" "Oh, it was a great night. It was a good night." The following week, I'm getting ready to go out. I mean, I'm not even asking her, "Do you want to come to church anymore?" That Sunday morning, she looks at me. She says, "You going to that church again today?" And I said, "Yeah." She says, "Can I come with you?" I said, "Sure. Yeah, of course." I said, "I'm leaving at quarter to 11. I want to be there for 11:00. I want to get a seat and I don't want to be late. I don't want to be disrespectful." So, I said, "If you're ready at quarter to 11, let's go." So she went, got herself ready at quarter to 11:00. She and I went down to the car. We, we drove out and I'm not really saying anything. By now, I've learned enough. I, I had to have my own experiences with God. I'm going to let her have her own experience with God. I'm not going to try to bias her or influence her or push her. I'm just going to, I know that if anybody would have pushed this on me, I would have pushed back. You know, uh, Newton's, Newton's third law of relativity, right? Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. So if I try to push this on her, she's going to push it back against me. So, I'm just going to let this unfold naturally, unorganically. So, we're sitting in the car. We're about a mile from where this church is, and I'm stuck at a red light. And I just felt this unction in my spirit to ask her what made her change her mind. So, I'm sitting in the driver's seat, my hands on the wheel, and I just look at her. I say, "Can I ask you a question?" She says, "Sure." I said, "What made you change your mind that you wanted, that you wanted to come with me today?" And she didn't skip a beat. She just looked right back at me and she says, "I know a lot of things about you." I said, "Really? What do you know?" She goes, "I know you're way too smart to buy into a cult. So whatever it is, it can't be that." I said, "No, it's not a cult." She goes, "I also know you're a different man, the one that I married, and I want to find out what happened to you." Sitting there at the stoplight a mile away. Bunch of strangers prayed for her the week earlier, six days earlier. I said, "Well, no, it's not a cult. You'll find out. It's pretty cool. It's, it's actually pretty cool. It's, it's uplifting." So, anyway, we, we go in. I just let her have her experience. We sit down. So, she comes that one Sunday. Doesn't come the following Sunday. Comes the next Sunday. Doesn't come the one after. So, she's kind of alternating weekends. And after about a month of this, she starts coming every Sunday. That leads us up into December. This would have been December 2003. And I was going to go visit my mother. My mother lived in Fort Lauderdale. So, I was, we're going down to Florida to see my mom for Christmas, my mom and my sister. And we were in downtown Vancouver doing some Christmas shopping to bring some gifts down with us. And we're standing on Robson Street, which is our main shopping street. And I, I just, I just, I just felt this unction in my spirit. And I said, "Well, you know, I think we both kind of figured out by now that Christmas isn't about the gifts. It's all about, Christmas means Christ mass. It's what he did for us. That's really what we're celebrating and the manifestation is the gifts that we give to each other because the gift that he gave to us. I think I figured that out." I said, "So what?" And I, and I've learned to be non-religious. I don't want to use any religious jargon, religious language, like I, you know, just talk normal. So I said, "So, you know, this is what we figured out about Christmas. So what do you make of this whole Jesus thing?" And she looks at me, she goes, and she started crying. We're standing on the side of the street. She goes, "I know for sure he saved our marriage." And she began speaking in tongues. And I went, "Whoa." She began speaking in tongues, right there on the side of the street.

>> Tongues that she didn't already know?

>> Well, if she knew him, I didn't know that she knew him. She, she wasn't speaking German, let me tell you that. It wasn't, no, no, she was speaking Holy Spirit language.

>> Wow.

>> And I went, "Wow." She's been filled.

>> That's amazing.

>> Yeah. That. So that's, that's how our, this is kind of a long chat we've had here around this, but this is how our journey begins.

>> Yeah.

>> And over the years, he's just been knitting us tighter and tighter and tighter to, tighter, tighter into all kinds of adventures that have ensued from there. So then, yeah, then the question is, look at the fruit in Moses' life after his encounter at the burning bush.

>> Yeah.

>> The fruit in Paul's life after his encounter on the road to Damascus. The fruit in my life since my own experiences. Uh, what has fruit looked like in your life since then?

>> It's, uh, it's, it's, it's an almost like a non-stop stream of it. And I don't say that to self-aggrandize or anything. I just, I've given my, my life is yours. You can do whatever you want with it. In fact, I, I, I, I speak this to him. I pray this to him every morning. I've given you this life. I'm dead to this life. Whatever you want. In fact, one of my, one of my favorite sayings, I said, "Lord, I'll do whatever you want, anytime. What do you think I'm doing here?" I said to him, "Anytime, any place, any cost, anywhere. If you want me to do it, I say yes." And so, he's, he's given us all kinds of encounters. I mean, you start here and, and then, and then your adventures in faith, they grow from there, you know. So, I didn't start by raising the dead. I started with, you know, casting out fear, suicide, and depression out of people because I had, that's how my story began. He took it away from me and then gave me an authority over it. And whether I knew it or not, all of a sudden, people started crossing my path constantly that were either suicidal or so deeply depressed. And the word says, "Whatever you bind on earth is bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven." So, start binding those spirits. And so I just started binding spirits and watching literally hundreds if not thousands of people being set free from depression and suicidal tendency. It started there many, many years ago and it, it, it, it permeated into my business conferences. You know, I was in the, I was in the personal development and, uh, training business for a lot of years. In fact, that video you watched, that wasn't a sales training program. And that was me doing a leadership development program teaching Christian business leaders how to share their story of faith in the context of a business talk so that the audience would say, "Wow, that was vulnerable. Whatever that guy wants, whatever that guy's got, I want it." And, uh, so I've worked with a lot of CEOs and Fortune 500 type people, leaders of governments to help them be bold in the expression of their faith to a secular audience in a way that wouldn't offend that audience.

>> Yeah. So I've done all kind, there's been all, there's all kinds of things. So there, there's a multiplicity of ways that we could go off on that question you just asked.

>> Well, so here, here's where I want to go because people have experiences to varying degrees. Yours is quite profound. Not, and you're right. Lots of people want that kind of experience. And we could,

>> That may not be the conversation we had today.

>> Part of me wants to do that, right? It's like, okay, how? I want that. How? Yeah. But what you just described, and I think from my conversations with you since that video, is that you just described recognizing that you have authority and then acting as an agent with that authority to help set people free from depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts.

>> You even described it as thousands of people. Um, lots of people when they come to faith, confine that experience to their own experience with God. In other words, now I have a voracious appetite for scripture.

>> Now I'm a different. My wife sees a clearly different. I recognize a different person. I'm not who I used to be. I used to say these kinds of words, now I don't. I used to listen to this kind of music. Now I do this. I used to be filled with rage. Now I'm filled with peace. It's a transformation. That's, that's the fruit we normally talk about.

>> And it's confined to that. That is a version of faith. But I don't think that's the faith that Jesus is talking about so often in the New Testament. Faith is revealed when we use our faith in the world. And so for you to now say, "I recognize something going on in this person. I'm not going to pray for them. I'm going to pray with them." Mhm.

>> "I'm going to use the authority and in faith I'm going to risk my own potential humiliation here."

>> Yeah.

>> "To try to help set them free." It's, it's using faith.

>> Yeah. Well, it is. And so, let me, and I think that where this conversation is probably going to turn from here. And not that I have any agenda in this. I mean, you, we have an agreement between, we're just going to let this unfold. And we are letting this unfold. So, just as he, just as, just as I had a direct encounter with Holy Spirit and with God the very first time, he just start, whether I knew it or not, whether I realized it or not, he just started teaching me, training me, and mentoring me. And I'm at a point now, I can, you know, I've been on this journey almost 25 years and I can say, you know, this is the greatest f, shortcoming of the church that Jesus said, "If you love me, you'll do my commands." "Assuredly I say to you, these things that you've seen me do, you also will do." But churches by and large have not taught the body of Christ how to start walking in that level of authority or faith. They teach the people sitting on the pews how to come up to the front and rely on the pastor or the prayer team to pray over them when what the church should have been doing according to Jesus's own words is teaching them how to be the prayer team and sending them out. So, let me tell you how this started because I didn't realize that I was learning this. I didn't know that. I, I didn't know that I was learning this, but I was learning it. And it goes back to that first comment that I made. You know, "Faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God." Faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God. And I remember just scratching my head. So, what, what does that mean? Anyway, I'm still pretty early on this journey. So, all this, everything that I just explained to you happens from January to December of 2003. This is about 2005 now. And I was fairly well recognized as, as, as an authority in my genre of leadership and sales development and all this kind of thing from an ethical, from an ethical perspective. Anyway, the Vancouver Board of Trade in 2005, I think it was, kind of somewhere mid, it was, I remember it was summer because you, it was, it was warm. And anyway, summer of 2005, the Vancouver Board of Trade is hosting this cocktail event and they said, "Hey, listen. Would you, would you, would you be our keynote speaker for this? Just all we want is, can you, can you give us 20 minutes of insight and nuggets that can take the business community, infuse them with a bit of encouragement and teach them how to do one thing they didn't know how to do before?" Sure, I can come and do that. So, I, so they, there were about 500 people at that event that night and, um, I, I take the podium and I'm a pretty effective communicator. And, uh, so I, I, I, I give a, I give a pretty good talk that evening and every, oh, you know, round of applause, "Hey, that was great. Thank you so much." Anyway. So, I'm standing there. People always want to talk to the guy with the mic. So, I'm, you know, my, my part of the evening is over and I'm just in the crowd and I'll never forget it. This woman walks up to me, mid-20s, late 20s, I don't know. And she, she just, she, she just looks at me, she goes, "Man, that was great. I, thank you so much for coming and sharing everything that you shared." And, uh, she goes, "But can I, can I confide something in you?" I said, "Sure, anything." She goes, "I know everything you spoke was the truth, and I know the strategies that you shared will work, but I'm so afraid to try it." I said, "What did you say?" She said, "I'm afraid." And instantly in my spirit, I heard 2 Timothy 1:7, "For I have not given you a spirit of fear. I've given you a spirit of power, love, sound mind, and clear thinking." Now, I wasn't there in this, this was a completely secular event. And I wasn't premeditating any of this, but faith comes by hearing and hearing of the word of God. And the word says that if you resist the enemy, the enemy will go. Whether I knew it or not, these things were being deposited inside of me. And I didn't even know that they were there. And I'm standing now having given this blistering speech. And this woman walks up. She goes, "I know it's going to work. And I know what you said was the truth, but I'm afraid." And that word, she said, "I'm afraid." And it just triggered something inside of me. My spirit went, "You got to go nip that thing in the bud." So I looked at her. I said, I said, "Can I tell you what the Bible says about fear?" She goes, "Okay." I said, "God says, I have not given you a spirit of fear, but he's given you power, love, and sound mind." That if you know it's going to work, you can't operate in fear. She come here. And we're in the middle of this big crowd. So I just say, "Listen, do you trust me?" She says, "Yeah." I said, "Come with me." So I take her to the back of the room by where all the service people for the event are so that I'm out of the, I don't want to make a scene. I don't, and I've never, and I've never done anything like this before. It's just be, it just welled up inside of me. So I take her to the back of the room away from the crowd. I said, "I want to pray for you." I said, "I'm going to tell, I'm going to explain to you exactly what I'm going to do." And there's a scripture in the Bible, 2 Timothy 1:7. It says, it says, and what's your name? So I'm just going to make, I, I don't remember what her name is. So let's call her Lisa. So Lisa, this is what the Bible is saying to you. Lisa, I, God have not given you a spirit of fear, but I, God, I love you so much. I've given you a spirit of power. I've given you a spirit of love, and I've given you a spirit of sound mind and clear thinking. I said, "What do you think of all that?" She goes, "Well, I don't know what to think." I said, "I'm going to break this down for you. I want you to hear what God is saying to you right here, right now. And this is just coming up out of me. I, I've never premeditated any of this." I said, "Lisa, God says, I have not given you a spirit of fear. First of all, God says you've got it, but it's not from me. So, let's acknowledge it. You've got it. It's not from me. So, if it's not from God, who's it from?" She says, "I don't know, the devil, I guess." Bingo. I said, "And I want you to recognize something else. He didn't call it a feeling and he didn't call it an emotion. He specifically called it a spirit. And the reason why you're stuck with it, he said, because you cannot kick, you, you can't fix a spiritual problem with a chemical, emotional, or psychological solution. You can't drink it, think it, or peel it away. A shrink won't do it. You can only fix a spiritual problem with a spiritual solution. And the good news is here, God is saying this spirit of fear given to you by the devil is not from him. But he's given you three more powerful spirits. He's given you A SPIRIT OF POWER, which is more than sufficient to get rid of this. He's given you a spirit of love, which will kick that thing to the curb. And he's given you a spirit of sound mind and clear thinking. Obviously, you have that because you came to me and talked to me about it." He says, "And any one of them on their own is more than enough to get rid of that spirit of fear. But he's given you not just one, he's given you all three. You want to get rid of that thing?" She goes, "Yeah." I said, "All right, then I want to pray for you." I say, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command this spirit of fear to come out of you. You come out, you lying, disgusting fiend, out in the name of Jesus Christ. I BIND YOU. I rebuke you and I loose the spirit of power. I loose the spirit of love and I loose the spirit of sound mind and clear thinking. Come upon her now, Father God. As this spirit of fear comes down now, comes out of her, flood her with the power of sound mind, love, and clear thinking to fill the vacuum where that spirit is now left." And I, I pray that over her and she collapses on the ground in front of me. I'd never seen anything like this before. I mean, you, if you watch these televangelists at midnight, you know, you'll see, you know, these guys, they'll pray and people are falling out and you just think they're, "Oh, they're just pushing them over." I know for sure I didn't push her. I'm just praying for her. I pray this and she now falls on the ground right in front of me. She's lying on my feet and I'm like, "Whoa." So anyway, I don't know, 12 seconds, 15 seconds, she opens her eyes. She's got this smile on her face and I reach down, I grab her hand, I pick her up and she says, "What just happened?" I said, "You just got set free and you're never going to have to deal with that thing again." I said, "Do you know Jesus?" She goes, "Well, I heard of him." I said, "Well, Jesus just set you free." She goes, "I feel so light. I feel so free." I said, "There was a spirit of fear that you'd come into agreement with it. And we just told that thing to go." And that was my first encounter taking authority over a spirit or over a situation in the name of Jesus. And I literally watched it manifest right in front of my eyes. None of it was premeditated. And I was like, "Wow, I never seen anything like this before."

Well, that cascaded a whole series of events. He gave me the first one. I, I was obedient to it. I hadn't, you know, I wasn't looking for this. I was just there to have a cocktail with the rest of the guys at the Board of Trade, make my little speech, and go home. And this unfolds. I'm in, I'm in Bogota, Colombia. Three weeks later, I'm, I'm headlining a conference and they've got the radios hooked up. There's about 5,000 people in the audience. I, I do, I do my training session for the morning and at the end, I, and I'm always the guy. I don't, I don't come off the back of the st. I don't come in the back and I don't leave from the back. I come in the front door. I just want to hang out with people. I'm just, you know, I'm, I'm totally accessible. I'm just a guy. You know, you've got your gifts, I got mine. Let's, let's share them with each other. So, I'm standing there at the morning coffee break and there's a lineup of people trying to talk to me. Some can speak English, some are speaking only Spanish. And so, anyway, there's this one guy. He's, he, he's hammering me with questions and he's pretty good in English. And I say to him, I said, "Listen, I'll tell you what. There's a line of, there's a lot of people that want to talk to me. I'll make a deal with you." I said, "If you'll translate for the ones that can't speak English, I'll go for dinner with you tonight. I'll ask, I'll answer any question you want. I'll go spend the rest of the evening with you. No problem. I just need you to translate for the ones that can't speak English." He goes, "Deal." So, any one by one. So, anyone comes up, asks a question in Spanish. She translates it. I give the answer. Number three in line is a Colombian woman and she says, "I heard everything you said from that stage today. I absolutely know with everything inside of me that you just shared the truth, that it'll work because it's honest. It's integrous and I know it'll work, but I'm, I'm so afraid." I said, "What did you say?" "I'm afraid." Well, I said, I, so I said to this translator, I said, "You translate word for word now, everything I speak. You don't tr, you have, you do not, you don't change the word. You don't change the meaning of the word. You don't change the context of the word. You translate word for word what I'm about to speak now." And I began speaking that same prayer that I did over this one in Vancouver a couple of weeks earlier. I, freaking, she falls on the ground. I pick her back up and she's, "Oh, you know, gracias." She's completely set free. And I had a series of encounters like that for the course of the next 12 to 18 months where it was almost like a steady stream of people coming to me being set free from fear, anxiety, worry, doubt. Well, what I don't know is that people are starting to talk. I get a call one morning, one afternoon. I'm in my office, home office, and my phone rings and it's, it's a lady on the phone. I'd never met her before. She goes, "Are you that guy Howard Olsson speaking?" She goes, "Are you the Howard I heard about?" I said, "I don't know. What did you hear?" I mean, people say a lot of things about me. Some they, they either love me or they hate me. There's no middle ground here. What did you hear? "Well, we heard that you pray for people and, uh, their lives changed. We heard that you prayed for people with anxiety and depression and suicide and they're better." I said, "Yeah, you probably heard correctly." She goes, "My son is riddled with it. I'm, I'm seriously concerned that he's going to take his life. You're my last hope. Can we come and see you?" I said, "Sure." And so I gave her the address to the house. She says, "Can we come today?" I said, "Yeah, come now. I'm home." They come in. He's all bent up. He's all. And I just said, "Listen, I'm just a friend, man." I just, I told her, "Mother, you sit there. You don't say anything. Let me just, he and he have a little chat." So, I just said, "Here's what I'm going to do." I said, "I love you. God loves you way more than I ever could. I'm going to talk to you just like a friend." I just use very soft language with him. And I said, "But there's a spirit in there." And I explained the whole thing. God says, "I have not given you a spirit of fear. There's a spirit of fear in there that's that's done all this. I don't know how it got there. I don't know what you came into agreement with, but by the time we're done, we're going to kick that thing out and we're going to make it go and freedom is coming to you." So anyway, I did the same thing, prayed for this guy. Life comes into his body. She starts talking to me. He's vivacious and his mother's like, "I've never seen my son like this." And that set up, I don't know, for the next year, I just had a stream of mothers and fathers and kids coming up to our front door all being set free from this kind of stuff. And, and I just, it was, they, they were the beneficiaries of it, but what I was learning was how to walk in faith and he was getting ready to expand the assignments because I learned and mastered this one. I know the answer to this question and I think you do too. You're not suggesting that you have a special anointing for any of these things.

>> No.

>> Right. Mark 16 says, "But those who believe in my name, they will." Casting out demons is one, laying hands on the sick, another. There's, there's a list of them there.

>> The difference between you in this situation and what I see everywhere is that Christians know many know the verse, right? 2 Timothy 1:7, God has not given us a spirit of fear, right? Of love, sound mind. And, and what we will do is say that verse to people or maybe email it to them or something like that. It's like that's our encouragement for them. So, don't be afraid.

>> Yeah. I don't see people stopping in the grocery store and saying, "Let's do something about it."

>> Yeah.

>> Here is me in my faith. It's, we have this thing. It's like we have faith and so we're going to speak an encouraging scripture over someone or to them or whatever. Or, or sometimes not even that because we're afraid.

>> To step out and do that. Is it the spirit of fear that is gripping Christians that is preventing them from actually demonstrating their faith? What's the problem? What's the disconnect?

>> I, I think there, there's two. I think part of the problem is some are gripped by a spirit.

Of fear. And I'll tell you a story what happened yesterday on the way home out of the airport. It's a crazy story. It's a beautiful story. Some of it is fear.

I think it's even more basic than that. They read the scripture. They know the scripture and they see it as an encouraging word or an encouraging idea, but they've never learned the practical application of it. And the churches aren't teaching their congregations to walk in the authority of Christ. And so they read these scriptures and they say, "Well, that's a nice idea and I'm going to pray it and I hope it works."

God taught me something a couple of years ago. He said, "Listen, there's two there. If there's a fork in the road, if you know, you travel down a road and all of a sudden there's a fork in the road. You have a decision which way you're going to go, left or right down the fork of the road. He says, there's a fork in the in the in your prayer life. He said, listen, you ask me for the things that you cannot do for yourself, but you don't ask me to do the things that I've commanded you to do."

Now, Jesus said, "These are the signs that will follow after those who believe. These signs will follow after us. I said, go heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, and raise the dead. Go. I've told you to do that. Don't beg me to do the thing that I've given you all the authority to do. I've given it to you. I've I've I've anointed you for it."

And this is my message. Like I run a daily podcast of my own where I'm encouraging the body of Christ to start walking in their spiritual giftedness and the authority that they've been given. And after a couple of years of this, some of them were getting it. I said, "Lord, why is this so why why aren't why aren't more getting it?" He says, "Because what you're literally doing is deprogramming them from the shackles of religion that have kept them all bound up. They don't understand the practical application of it."

And fortunately for me, God got a hold of me several years ago and I just I just remember reading the word. I said, "If he Jesus is God, this is the word of God. In the beginning was the word. The word was God. The word was with God. The word by the word everything was created. And there's nothing that wasn't created that was created that wasn't created by him. And then the word became flesh amongst us." So I I just Jesus said it. So listen for anybody listening to me today. This is literally the idea that changed my entire life and has enabled me to help change the lives of everybody around me. Jesus said it is Jesus. God says I'm a man. I don't lie. I'm not human. I don't change my mind. If it's in the Bible, is it the truth? And everybody says, "Yeah, it's the truth." Did Jesus say it? Yeah, Jesus said it. Does Jesus say anything he doesn't mean? No. He means everything he says. Well, then if he says go and do these things, he said do it.

So here's my entire philosophy on all of this is if he said it, he meant it. And if he meant it, I'm going to believe it. And if I'm going to believe it, I'm going to do it in faith because the result is not my it's not my responsibility. My responsibility is to do what he asked me to do. His responsibility is to carry out the net result and the fruit of it. And so I got my head wrapped around that. I said, "If you said it, I'm just going to do it." Yes, Lord. Anywhere, anytime, any place, any cost. You ask me to do it, I'm going to do it. And this now has become the purpose of my life to help people understand how to take these scriptures and put them into a place of practical application so that you can live the greatest adventure that you were designed to create, that you can do these great exploits. Those who know their God will do their great exploits.

So, I think that there are some in the body of Christ who shy away from it because they're afraid. They're afraid of what somebody might think or they're afraid of of what if it doesn't work. But I think the even bigger problem is that most in the body of Christ have never been encouraged and exhorted to go out and do the words in red. Come to Sunday, get encouraged, go home on Monday and forget it all and go get a fresh dose of encouragement on Sunday, but never learn the practical application side of things. And so the whole purpose of my life now is not only to to understand these things and to also be a doer of the word, but having learned how to be a doer of the Lord, teach others how to be a doer of the word, putting practical application on it. That is the sole focus of my entire life.

And we see lots of delay and it comes out in lots of different ways. I mean, you know, I don't know if you're aware of this or not. I mean, the culmination of this was three years ago, my wife drops dead on the bathroom floor. This is not my covenant with you. And he likes us. He God loves it when we speak boldly and courageously upon his word and according to the covenant that he's made with us. You said, you said cleanse the sick, heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons, and raise the dead. This is my wife. This is not my covenant. You did not die on that cross for her to be lying here dead. In the name of Jesus Christ, you get up.

But you got to believe it because you there's nothing we can do to please God outside of faith and dipping our toe in the pool to see if it's going to work. That's not faith. That's that's playing with magic. God says, "You stand on my word and you believe that." And so we encourage, of course, you don't start with raising the dead. You start by praying praying for your sick neighbor. You start by praying for the lady that's hobbling across the parking lot because she's limping. Quite clearly, she's in pain. God said, "Go heal them." Do I have to ask permission? No. God says, "Listen, ask me for the things that you can't do for yourself." So, for example, I can't give myself grace. That flows straight from the throne every morning. Father God, this morning in the name of Jesus Christ, I ask you, I I decree and I declare that grace and favor follow me everywhere I go. God, today I'm asking you to give me more grace, more favor, more divine opportunities for those all come from you. I'm asking you to give me these things that I cannot give to myself. And as you give me this grace, as you give me this favor, as you give me these opportunities, I will do what you told me to do in the name of Jesus Christ. And these are my two forks on the on on on on the prayer road. I ask him for what I can't give to myself, and in the name of Jesus, I go out and do what he commanded me to do. Too many people don't do that.

>> Yeah, >> that's what I'm trying to get to. Okay. So, the reasons they don't do it from what I I've gathered from what you've mentioned, one, they've been taught that that's not a thing. Um, they have a spirit of fear. The thing that I think concerns me the most is that I think there are a lot of people that don't actually actually believe that that can happen.

>> It's true.

>> Yeah. It's a faith problem. So, so, so are we saying that? Because I you don't have to connect too many dots to have that spill into I'm not even sure God is real.

>> Mhm.

>> Right. Cuz you see where I'm going with that, right? It's like, okay, if God is real and if his word is true, then we should be doing these things.

>> Yeah.

>> So, why aren't we doing these things? There are people who try to do these things and it doesn't work.

>> The person doesn't get healed.

>> Y >> right. the demon. Well, I'm not really seeing any behavioral change. I mean, you're seeing behavioral change in these people that you're encountering. There's a disconnect. My belief is so strong and my faith is so strong that there's no room for it. Now, I'll pray if I'm just going to I'm I'll use a hypothetical number. I'll go pray for 100 people. Let's say 100 people need healing. I'll pray for a 100. It doesn't mean all 100 are going to get healed. I mean, my the the hit rate is pretty good now. I mean, I see the vast majority of people I pray for have a manifested result, but not 100%. But I don't beat myself up when it doesn't happen because the healing isn't my responsibility. I would tell on our podcast there's a particular gentleman. He says, "Well, I'm not I he actually said it, I'm not praying." He says, "Because I'm afraid of what they're going to think if it doesn't work." I said, "Okay, here's the thing. You're speaking faith, but you're trusting yourself and not God. You're not responsible for it. Let me ask you a question here. Who is the healer? Are you the healer or is Jesus the healer? Whenever you say intellectually, they all know, well, Jesus is the healer. Okay? So, if you're putting pressure on yourself that what happens if they don't get healed? Now, you've just put yourself above Jesus. It's his responsibility to do the healing. Your job is to do this in the fullness of belief and in faith. Assuredly I say to you that you will say to this mountain, you must therefore be removed and cast into the sea. And if you believe, nothing will be impossible for you. At its core is a fundamental belief that they've dipped their they don't they they're not doing this in fullon faith. They're doing it hoping it works and trying some sort of self-preservation in the event that it doesn't. That means they're not putting 100% of their faith in God, 100% of their faith in Jesus because they're still more concerned. They got a fear of man. They got a fear of how they're going to be.

>> What's the solution?

>> I think we This is and this I think this is one of the reasons why God gives you and me and others like us these incredible stories of testimonies that we can go and edify what actually happens when you abandon yourself to faith and let it happen and then use this to encourage them and then go back and re reaffirm those scriptures. This is what the word of God says. If Jesus said it, he meant it. And if he meant it, it's time to believe it. And if you believe it, just go out and do it. And you take you relieve the pressure off of yourself. And we just it's a constant teaching and training and a reminding to teach the body of Christ to start moving in these things. And as they begin to move in these things, putting their faith in God, not in their own abilities, then all of a sudden, we start to see things beginning to move.

And so, let me let me So, about a year and a half ago, the Lord says to me, I'm I'm sitting at my desk working on something. You know, I write these decrees and we pray for the nations and I teach others how to how to walk in signs, wonders, and miracles and all kinds of not because I'm I'm just teaching them the word of God. Fortify your faith and do the things that Jesus says. So, I'm sitting in my sitting in my office about 18 months ago or so, and the Lord says, "I want you to start teaching how to release healing." Like specifically doing that. I mean, I'm just doing it. He says, "No, I I want you to specifically focus. I want you to write a course on this and go teach people how to release healing." I said, "Okay." So, of course, I start cross referencing scriptures and I start putting it into a teaching and Holy Spirit starts talking to me. And anyway, what comes out of it is about an hour and a half teaching and so I start partnering with local churches and I've done a few of them online now. And so, we put it we so for example in Vancouver I call it the Vancouver healing summit. Come on out for a night of healing. If you need a healing, come and get your come and receive come and receive prayer. Come and receive healing. And if you know someone who needs healing, bring them. The scripture said, and this is exactly what our poster says, the scripture says, uh, go heal the sick. Well, tonight we're inviting you to bring the sick to us. So, of course, then the room fills up. They give the friends invite friends and you show up and then the room is full. And so, I open every one of these seminars like my of course in prayer and all the rest of that. I give them kind of an out an overview what the night's going to look like. And I ask him, "How many of you here tonight are here because you want to be prayed for and you want to receive a healing?" Pretty much every hand in the room goes up. I said, "All right, I'm going to make a deal with you." The greatest failing of the church is that it's caused the body of Christ to become reliant on the prayer team to do all of the praying and all of the healing when what the church should have been doing is teaching the body of Christ how to pray for each other from a place of faith so they can go out and do the things that Jesus said to do. So, I'm going to make a deal with you. Every single one of you that's here tonight, anyone here that wants to be prayed for, we won't leave this venue until every single one of you have been prayed for. Me and the prayer team that have assembled here tonight, we're not leaving until everyone who wants to receive prayer has received that prayer. Even if we got to stay here till 2:00 in the morning, I'm not going anywhere till you got what you came for. But I'm not praying for anyone because I'm going to teach you now for the next 90 minutes the words in red and how to do them and the mindsets attached to them. And I'm not praying for anyone until every single one of you have prayed for at least somebody else. We got a deal. And they and they reluctantly sure I said I'm going to teach you how to do this and then we're going to practice it and then I'm going to turn you loose on each other. So, every single one of you has to pray for somebody else before you come up here for prayer because if you won't practice it in this room where it's safe, you're never going to try this out in the world. Have we got a deal? And they go, "Okay, we have a deal."

So, I do this teaching and at the end of what, you know, I've done instructing what I'm instructing and how to think about it and, you know, getting rid of some anxieties and things that are attached to it. I say now every one of you go find a partner, someone you don't know. Every one of you go find hook yourself up with someone you don't know. Ask them what they want prayer for. And using the the using the the concepts that I've just shared with you, the biblical concepts, pray for them. And then after you've done that, switch sides. And the one that just got prayed for, you pray for the one who just prayed for you. And every one of you pray for each other. Well, I'll tell you what happens. I I the first time I did this, I figured, "Okay, I'll let this exercise run 5 10 minutes just, you know, let them warm their We got 10 minutes in. I said, "Okay, everybody done this?" No, no, no, no. We're still praying for They were still praying for each other. I remember this one little lady, she was her Anna. Her name was Anna. So, I won't I won't use her last name. Anna, Asian lady, mid50s, grew up in some kind of rigid construct. She says, "I got a testimony. I got a testimony." I said, "All right, give come." She goes, "See that guy over there?" The story unfolds. His wife wanted to come to this healing summit. He didn't want anything to do with it. It was a rainy night in Vancouver. So, he he drives up to this church where we're hosting this thing. Drops his wife off. While he's dropping his wife off, he sees another one pulling into the parking lot with a broken windshield wiper that the the metal the the metal wiper is going across. There's no blade. So, one side is working, the other side isn't working. And he sees this woman parking her car while he's dropping off his wife. Has no interest at all in this healing thing whatsoever. And decides while his wife is in at this healing seminar, he's going to go over to the bar across the street, have a couple of beers so that he's in the neighborhood when she's ready to go home so he can pick her up and take her home. While he's dropping his wife off, sees this lady parking the car with the metal the metal scraper going across the window. Has compassion for her. Says to her, he says, "Don't go anywhere." And he goes, he we have we have a store called Canadian Tire, which is kind of like Lordco or Auto Parts or whatever. Anyway, he goes to Canadian Tire to buy some windshield wiper blades for this woman. He He comes back with these windshield wiper blade. Of course, she's not in the car anymore. She's sitting inside. So, in order to find her, to give her the windshield wipers, he has to come in. He comes in the power of Holy Spirit. I mean, there's just you, the presence of God in that room that night was so strong. The guy comes in with these wiper blades and sits down. He sits down in the chair. He sits through the entire seminar. And at the end of the night, I released him to begin praying for each other. Little Anna somehow hooks up with this guy that he's never met before, a guy that didn't want to be there who's literally his plan for the night was to go sit in the bar across the street. He watches the whole thing. Anna walks up. She goes, "Well, I don't know you. Can I pray for you?" He says, and his own testimony, I don't even want to be here, but sure, go ahead and pray for me. So, what what's your need? He says, my my eye my eye doesn't work. I'm losing vision in this eye. It's constantly tearing. There's constantly water coming out of it, and my vision is I would I want my eye healed. So Anna who's never prayed for anybody by her own admission using what we just taught in the name of Jesus Christ I command health healing and wholeness into this eye or whatever she specifically spoke puts her hand on his eye prays for him he gets instantly and miraculously healed he gets up he says I didn't even want to be here but there was something so tangible in the environment I couldn't leave that woman I've never met just prayed for me and now my eye is healed and then one after another the testimony started coming so I just it's not that I have special and anointing. He says that nobody is challenging the body of Christ to rise up and do what Jesus said to do. And I think that's if there's anything that sets my ministry apart from many other ministries is that I challenge the body of Christ to go do the words in red. The worst thing that's going to happen if the if if they were sick before and they didn't get healed, nothing bad happened to you. Well, what what are they going to think? What are they going to think if it doesn't work? It doesn't matter what they think. Jesus said, "Go and do this." And if you read in the book of Acts, as they started praying, they had never evangelized, but signs, wonders, and miracles started following. And the word says, "The more they did it, the stronger it got. Just start."

Yeah. I I I I I think that is where we want to get to with this cuz a lot of people there are a lot of people listening to this that have stepped into faith in this way.

>> Mhm.

>> I would venture to say the majority have not and this is a very uncomfortable thing. So if I'm just sitting here personally looking at this, what would I say to people? I would say first of all, do you believe?

>> And if your answer, if you get to yes on that, I mean truly in your heart.

>> Yeah.

>> If the answer is no, then I would say pursue God.

>> Yeah.

>> And he will reveal himself to you. And you ask that question again. Do I believe? When that answer is yes, then I would say and you could step in if you think that's a misstep maybe there.

>> Then I would say then is there a spirit of fear? And if there is a spirit of fear and you understand that the Bible is God's word and there is authority there, you take that authority and cast that spirit of fear away from you.

>> Amen.

>> And then walk in the faith that that thing is gone. If it knocks on your door, just because it taps you on the shoulder again also doesn't mean it's back. That means it's just trying to get back. And so you just rebuke that, cast it off, and it doesn't come back. Then the next step I would say if I'm putting a process around this

>> is to actually go and do when someone has something, don't stop at putting them on the prayer list.

>> Yeah.

>> and praying for them over your morning coffee after your quiet time or in your quiet time.

>> Yeah.

>> But to literally go and lay hands on them and command the healing by the authority that scripture tells us that we have,

>> right?

>> And then believe in faith. It's not your performance. I think God loves it when we demonstrate our faith. Our faith, faith without works

>> is dead.

>> Is dead.

>> Yeah.

>> Just as a body without a spirit is dead, so is faith without works. So if you think you've got faith, but you are not demonstrating it in your in the world, and that's not just by having Bible verses on your phone. You demonstrate faith by doing the things Jesus told us to do.

>> Amen. That's it. That's what we're missing. That's exactly what we're missing. And so what would we say here? I think we would be in agreement where we would say, first of all, do you believe? Secondly, if you do believe, do you have a spirit of fear? Get rid of the spirit of fear cuz God didn't give you that. And then thirdly, go and do it.

>> Jesus said, "Go make disciples. Go lay hands."

>> And listen, listen to that language. He's, "Hey, think about taking No, go. It's a command. He's commanding you. Go and do this. If you love me, you'll do my commands."

But Howard, I get the prayer list on email from the church and and what I like to do is I like to sit in my chair and uh before I ever get on my phone, so there's some pretty righteousness there. And then um I read my Bible and then I look at my prayer list and I pray for complete healing for all these people. Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?

Well, yeah, but how how are you praying for these people? Oh God, I ask that you pray. God, I ask you that you heal Mary. Oh God, I'm asking you to send healing over to John. Father, I'm asking you. And what did we just say a moment ago? God says, "You ask me for the things that you can't do for yourself. Ask me for grace. Ask me for favor. Ask me for opportunity. But the things that I told you to do, you don't ask me for, you go and do them."

One of the analogies I use in these healing seminars is is the likeness. Okay? So Jesus is the Lord of Lords. He's the King of Kings. But if he was a sheriff, he'd be the sheriff of sheriffs. He says, "All this authority on heaven and earth have been given to me, and I've now given it to you. Therefore, go." In other words, if Jesus is the sheriff, he's just made you a deputy. You have been fully deputized to go and do the things that he's done. He said, "These things that you've seen me do, you also will do, and you have to let me go. Let me go. I'm ascending now back to the father, and I'm going to send you the spirit of the living God. It's even greater. I'm going to send you the anointing. I'm going to send you the mentorship. I'm going to send you everything you need to be my deputies here on this earth." Now, think about this in the natural. And then we'll put it back into the spiritual. I mean, if you've got the sheriff of So, we're here. We're sitting here in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. I'm pretty sure you got a sheriff for the county, and the sheriff has got a bunch of deputies. If the deputies running around and he sees somebody committing a crime, is the deputy going to pick up the phone and say, "Hey, sheriff, may I please go and arrest this nerdel?" No. Sheriff, YOU GOT THE AUTHORITY. PULL OUT pull out your badge, pull out your handcuffs, and take them under arrest.

>> Yeah.

>> Or worse yet,

>> you

>> sheriff, can you come down here and get him yourself?

>> And so this is exactly what Jesus has done for us. Don't you Well, do I have to ask permission? No. Jesus, you don't ask permission to go heal. He said, "Go and do these things. Don't sit in your chair in your living room with a nice hot cup of tea asking me to go and do the thing that I have specifically told you to go and do." And this is what's missing in the body of Christ. This level of instruction. And I say it kind of forcefully, but I do it out of a place of love. Listen, I want you to live the best life that you're capable of living. And there is no greater life than living in these signs, wonders, and miracles. And the minute you actually will start to believe it and start to do it, now you may not see instant fruit and instant success. But if you'll start moving in these things, God cannot help but begin to answer and move on these things because he is a covenant-keeping God. And he says, "According to my covenant, by my broken body and by my shed blood, I have given all this back to you. I have restored all of the authority that was given up in the garden. Now go and take this authority and do what I've asked you to do." Sickness is an onslaught of the enemy. Go and arrest him. How do you arrest him? I command this sickness out of your body. I bind it in the name of Jesus Christ and I release health, healing, and wholeness. How do I have the authority to do that? some how can I do that? How can I do that? Because Jesus said do it. You are now his hands and his feet in this earth. He went back to the father sent you holy spirit and he says now go and do these things that you've seen me do. And this is where we need to move to that people start walking in this level of belief otherwise known as faith. Okay? He said it he meant it. He's going to back us. Listen, we we serve a victorious God. The King of Kings, the Lord of Lords, the creator of heaven and earth. He's setting us up for victories, not for failures. He's never going to set you up for an embarrassment. He just wants your whole heart. And if you'll say, "Lord, if you want me to go and heal that person, if you want me to go and release healing, he does the healing." I've never healed anyone, but because I've walked in obedience, I've seen lots of healing. Listen, let me let me be very Let me say that again. I have never healed anyone, but because I walk in obedience to the authority he says he's given me, I've seen lots of healings.

So, the person The person says, "Not so what happens if they're not healed, but they ask the question," Howard, so what do I do if they are not healed when I pray for them and just bless them? I thank you, Lord, for the time here today. Now, first of all, make sure that you you did this scripturally. In the name of Jesus, I command health, healing, and wholeness to come into your body. You can use whatever words. It's not using my words. Use words that are natural to you. But Jesus gave you the authority to cast out sickness and to release healing. That doesn't mean you're going to instantly see it. But you know, the word of God also says, "As long as the earth remains, there will be seed time and harvest." And every prayer of faith is a seed that's going in. But just like the tomato seeds that my wife puts into the ground every year in spring, I don't see the plants come up. If she puts those seeds down in in a in, you know, April or May, I don't see this the the tomato plants growing until June and we don't pull out the harvest till August. My my wife went through a season where she was really sick. I mean, the devil come after us. He came he came after us every which way. As I began rising up, the devil tried to shut this whole thing down. I mean, she got struck with f the doctors tell us not less than five major strokes that wiped out threequarters of her brain. We have we have MRIs of her of her brain showing 75% of of her of the gray space missing. Doctor said, "You see all that white space?" "Yeah, that's all brain damage. Your wife is missing 3/4 of her brain." And I doctor said, "She's essentially brain dead." I said, "I understand that you're trying to deliver to me the truth and I believe that you're a good doctor, but excuse me that I will not stand on. That's not my covenant promise." And I just began praying, Lord, if you can give her a brand new brain in the womb, you can give her a brand new brain right here in this room. And he she walked out of that hospital 10 days later. Now, it wasn't pretty. She still we still had 2 years. She had to relearn how to walk and relearn how to talk. But in the midst of all of that, he was growing her a new brain. And I said, "Lord, why is this taking so long?" He answered me. He said, "It took me 9 months to wire the first one together inside the womb. Give me some time. I'm working it. I'm regrowing her. I'm retraining her. So, I was praying in faith and the first day I didn't see any net result. She didn't look any stronger or any healthier. I prayed for her. Day two, I didn't see any net result. She didn't look stronger. She didn't look healthier. Day three, day four. And then suddenly on day 10, she where she couldn't hold a fork or feed herself or even talk. Word started coming out of her mouth. And all of a sudden, we started seeing progress. It wasn't instant. And so, not all healings are instant. And you pray for someone in faith and you leave the healing up to God. And just because you didn't get a receipt doesn't mean you didn't make a deposit.

Nah, that's that's that's where I think I'm going with this. A couple of things that should be said about the prayer of healing specifically that I I I think the casting out of demons is an authority thing that that they have to you're walking in. You you you don't just have the credit card of the king, right? If if King Charles were, you know, we were in England and I walked in with to buy something with the king's credit card, I have authority, but I also have the king standing beside me, right? So, uh that has to happen pretty much instantly. But from a healing perspective, a few things that are scriptural that I would I would point out that I think you're highlighting here. one there is um persistence in prayer is a thing that is scriptural. What happens a lot of times that I see it's like, oh yeah, I tried that. It didn't work. I prayed one time for him and it's like, oh, you know, it didn't work. And um Jesus Jesus prayed twice or he didn't pray for twice. He put mud on the guy's eyes twice. First time he saw trees. And so there was a even Jesus did a had a had a second take on a on a guy. And of course there's the persistent prayer and and the you know sort of the the pesky uh neighbor and that sort of thing in scripture. And so there's that and then there's another thing that says you will lay hands on the sick and they will recover. There's nothing in there that says it's going to happen in 5 minutes.

>> That's true. Yeah.

>> What just what your the answer to that is exactly what you just said. They will recover. Recovery is a process and sometimes we're fortunate to see instant result and that's the problem in today's society. I mean, we got we got instant Google answer, instant AI answer, instant instant instant instant oatmeal, instant soup, instant dinner, and go Jesus isn't saying it's going to be an instant. Now, sometimes you'll actually get an instant healing. And I've seen it. I've seen lots of it, but not all of it goes that way. And in the case of my own wife, it was progressive and it took years. And I tell people to not if they don't see uh ch a change in symptoms right away to to not come back into agreement with the the ailment or disease like walk in the healing. Amen. That you have been given and and you will recover.

>> Yeah.

>> Well, life and death is in the power of the tongue and who those who love it will eat the fruit of it. And so when we start speak when you come back into well I did they didn't get what what Job 22:28 thou shalt decree a thing and it will be established unto you. It doesn't say you'll you'll you'll decree a healing thing and see it. If you decree sickness you're going to get sickness. If you decree healing you're going to get healing. Whatever you life and death is in the power of the tongue and those who love it will eat the fruit of whatever they speak. You every word that comes out of our mouth. Listen, if I put tomato seeds into the ground, I'm not pulling up pumpkins. Every seed that comes out, every word I speak is a seed. It's a seed of faith. Now, that doesn't mean it's on the right. I'm I'm If I'm speaking negative words, if I'm speaking words contrary to the word of God, there's still seeds that will produce a harvest. And so, we have to be so careful and so cognizant and so conscious of the words that are coming out of our mouth. I decree and I declare that you are healed whether I see it today or not.

Yeah. I think another piece of this that's really important and um and I think we've taken scripture into a different place with this teaching. Jesus says, "If you had faith the size of a mustard seed, you would say to this mountain, be moved and it would be thrown into the sea." And and so I think our conclusion is that we have no faith because even the faith of the size of a mustard seed would cause that thing to happen. But here's the thing about a mustard seed. It starts very very tiny. If it stays out of the ground and isn't activated,

>> it remains very tiny and of no use to anybody whatsoever. What has to happen is it has to get into the soil.

>> Yep. It has to receive water. It has to be activated.

>> Activated. And once it is activated and I think this is why he said the parable of the not the parable but the uh the mustard seed is because a mustard seed it doesn't do anything right away and even when it sprouts up it's really really tender but there's a stage that it hits that the taproot gets really deep in the ground

>> and it grows up and it shoots and it and it begins to see rapid growth pretty quick.

>> Yep. So that little mustard seed didn't stay a mustard seed. So when we don't activate our faith, when we don't put it in the soil, when we don't water it, when we don't use it, when we don't develop the root,

>> it remains worthless.

>> Yeah.

>> And that's what we do.

>> And you're actually feeding doubt,

>> right?

>> You're actually you're actually you're self-prophesying doubt. I'm not going to activate this because what if it doesn't work? And then by not activating it, you're just creating a self- sustaining uh cycle of of doubt and disbelief. And then that's not a place of faith.

>> You're keeping the mustard seed on the table.

>> Amen. Yeah, that's right.

>> Rather than putting it in the soil.

>> Yeah.

>> So, what are we talking about here? We're talking about get your backside out in the world and lay your hands on that person or or Mary that's on the prayer list.

>> Yeah. Hey Mary, this is going to sound really strange probably to you, but would it be okay if I came over to your house and visited with you and I want to just pray over you for healing and man, your heart's going to beat and man are you going to be a little nervous and man are you going to have doubts and you're going to get into the driveway over there and you're going to say, "What are you doing?" And the enemy is going to continue to pound you with doubt and pound you with doubt and hit you with fear. It's like, is it too late? you go and do you just do it in faith.

>> But I would say and I would I would like to hear some story. I'd like to hear how you went from never praying healing over someone to it sounds like and I'm don't want to put words in your mouth that you're seeing things healings take place with frequency. You're even suggesting that you've seen the dead raised.

>> Yeah.

>> Through prayer.

>> I'm not suggesting it. I'm coming right out and saying it.

>> Well, so there you go. So, did you just go one day and do it the first time and then how did it unfold from there?

>> And that's why I started with that story about the woman at the at the at the board of trade conference. I had never done it before, but something inside of me, he said, "Just pray. You you know this scripture. Pray that. Take authority over the fear. Tell it to go and replace it with power, love, and sound mind." I had never done it before, but it was just a faith came upon me having that word inside of me. And and it's the same thing with releasing healing and everything because at the end of the day getting rid of anxiety and fear and and all that that is just a sickness in the spirit whether it's a physical ailment and I just see these things. So I approach life like this now. I don't I don't go out looking for these things but I'm always open and if I see something in front of me. So let me I'll give you two tangible examples. So, and this is relative. This is recent. Uh, a couple months ago, my wife and I were walking. We live we live in a nice little village and there's a shopping area over there, so we can walk we can walk everywhere from where we live unless, you know, we want to go downtown or whatever, but we can walk literally everywhere. We're out one afternoon doing some grocery shopping. And it's a it's a fairly goodsized supermarket. And I see this woman walking ac hobbling across the parking lot clearly in a lot of distress and pain. The way she's walking, it's I mean, I don't know her. She's, you know, 500 ft off, 400 ft off. But it's it's just obvious she's in distress and in a lot of pain. So, I didn't go out today. Say I'm going to go looking for somebody with a shopping cart who's hobbling around. I didn't I didn't I'm going out to get some I don't know whatever I'm going out to get. I see her walking across the parking lot and I look at my I look at Michaela. I go I think I I I need to go I need to go pray for her. She's like, "Here?" I said, "Why not?" So, I I just I walk over to her. I said, "Hey, I can't help but notice." And it the easiest way to start a conversation is by looking at the most obvious thing. I I can't help but notice you seem to be in a lot of pain. What's going on? Ah, my knee. I'm I've been I've been waiting for this knee surgery and it's terrible. And I said, "Well, would you be would you be cool if I prayed for you?" And she said, "Right here in the parking lot." I said, "Why not?" She goes, "All right, I guess so." So, I just said, "All right." I said, "May I touch you? May I May I touch your knee?" She, "Yeah, go ahead. Touch my knee." I said, "I'm not going to I'm not going to hurt you. I'm not going to squeeze it." I just laid my hands gently on her knee. I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command the pain, the inflammation, anything that's not right. God, you said that we should pray that it be done on earth as it is in heaven. There is no knee pain in heaven, I command the knee pain to go. I command the meniscus to be healed. I command the kneecap to be healed. Anything that's not according to the blueprint by which you made this woman, I command it now be healed in Jesus' name." And that's all I prayed. She starts moving. She like you can't see my leg under the table. And she starts moving her leg. She goes, "I'll be damned. It's gone." I said, "No, lady, you didn't get damned. You just got blessed." SHE'S LIKE, "WOW. WOW." AND IT WAS LIKE INSTANT right there in the heart. So anyway, I'm not making a big deal out of this. I've done what he's asked me to do. I'm just moving on. I'm not looking for any accolades or any I don't want nothing. I just Thank you, Lord. We go into the supermarket. Well, apparently she's now walking under her own steam. She comes in. She's following us up and down every aisle telling everybody in that store, "Jesus just this guy just prayed for me and Jesus healed me." She's saying it so much it's almost embarrassing. So, we leave and go to the other store. They're the dollar store. So, let's go. Let's get into the I want to get away from She follows us in there and tells everybody in the dollar store, "Jesus just healed my knee. I was hobbling across. He prayed for me. Jesus healed me." We have So, you got Walgreens. We got a thing called London Dr. We go over to London. She chases us into London drugs and tells everybody in there the same thing. And this is typical. We see stuff like this all the time now because I've seen and this is this is the essence of it. I've seen so much of it that my faith is rock solid.

>> There it is. Right.

>> If

>> But it didn't start there.

>> I know. But when you when the first woman at that conference Yeah. fell onto the ground when you said this crazy thing and all of a sudden she comes up testifying that she's light and free. It's like, "Oh crap, this works."

>> Yeah.

>> Right. And so the next time it comes back up again, it's like, I'm going to do this again.

>> I've been here before.

>> Yeah.

>> Let's do it again. And but this is how you start the same muscle memory, right?

>> Yeah. And and this is how it starts. This is how it starts.

>> But you can't get to one. Can't get to

two without getting to one.

Yeah. What just you know, so when I was, when I used to do these, uh, these the these these seminars, these leadership seminars and trainings and things like this, and everybody would be sitting in the room a little like, I, I'd be dealing with Fortune Fortune 500 CEOs at some of my, some of my, some of my programs, and these are all powerful men of industry. They don't want to be told what to do. Now, but I'm, but I'm, but you paid me to teach you this. I'm not going to leave here unless you've been taught this. So they're sitting there and I come up with the first assignment. I put them into a role play or something, and they, they're all looking at me like a, like a dog at a brand new bull. And listen, guys, you hired me to teach you this stuff because you want something to change. Is that true? And they all go, "Yeah." I said, "Well, the only way to start is to start. I've just given you the instruction and I've just given you the exercise. Start." And they just look at me. "Thank you. Somebody needed to talk to me like that." And then they start. And all of a sudden, now you can carry this into your organizations. Now you know how to do it. Now you have experiential knowledge of it, which is exactly how this conversation began. How do you know that God is real? Because I've had experiential knowledge and no one can steal it.

What, what we want to happen here is for this to be a bridge for the person watching this to actually begin to step out in faith and experience God themselves. And we want to help you remove the, the obstacles that have been in your way your whole life. So that you can live this way. So you can know him. So you can experience him. Hey, this life, this Christian life, I promise you, it is not just about being a subscriber and and and believing something. It's about living it. Yeah. And that's, and that's where the fulfillment, that's where the, the unfolding of purpose. Listen, there is nothing more satisfying than knowing that God has just used you as an instrument to bring a deliverance. And and your purpose begins to grow and you don't even realize that's what's happening. And as you release this stuff into the world around you, I'm telling you, there is nothing more satisfying, nothing more exciting.

Listen, I did, I, I grew most of my life up not knowing anything about God. I was in, in my corporate days, I was, you know, I, I had a fairly high position in a very big company. I was like a college kid with an oversized paycheck and I did a lot of crazy stuff in the name of fun that was dangerous. God woke me up one morning. He, he played for me a reel of all the crazy stuff that I had done. And I woke up, I literally woke up in a cold sweat looking at all the things where I could have seriously hurt myself or maybe somebody else in the name of quote unquote fun. And I, I sprung up out of bed and I'm going, "Whoa." And then he was, the spirit of God was right there. He says, "I played that movie for you because I wanted you to know that the only reason you're still here is that I had my finger on you long before you ever knew me. I told you, I want to bring you into the fullness of your purpose." And now that I, I'm not living that kind of life anymore. I mean, I, I'm just, I'm just out doing what he asked me to do every day. I'm having more fun than hundreds of thousands of dollars could ever have bought me before.

You see the joy in someone's eye when they get kissed by the Holy Spirit and they didn't, I didn't know that I was about to meet this person. So I, I, I had no idea. I'm just open and receptive to it to do the words in red. And because I said, "Yes, Lord, if you want me to do it, I'll do it." He honors that and just continues to to give me opportunities to meet people that need to be touched by Holy Spirit. Some know him, some have never heard of him, but they can't deny that they just got touched by God by the time they finished being prayed for. And maybe they saw healing, maybe they didn't, but they sure did feel the supernatural presence of God.

Yeah. And that is true. And and so I guess another thing that we may have mentioned, but I want to make sure that we highlight. If you go to Mary's house and lay hands on her and pray for her and you do not see a healing, do not let that be your "I tried it." Continue to step out in faith. Keep going. Keep going. Yeah. You are going to see things. You are going to experience things that are going to be incredible. And you're going to have your own testimony. And you're going to begin to build muscle memory in deliverance, in healing, in the things that are outlined in scripture. Mhm. That's kind of how it's happened with me. I, I haven't seen a lot of healings, but I've seen a few. Yeah. Um, that, that I was the, the vessel of prayer. That's the right way to say it. You were just the, you were the carrier, the vehicle. Yeah. And and and I think God is saying, "No, I told you to do it. Go and do it. Yes, it's my power going through you, but you were the person. I told you to do it." And and um, and so I think that's really important. Tell me some things that you've experienced and seen that from a healing. I, I, I'm super interested in the healing. I, I get the deliverance thing and and that's a, that's a, there's a whole different set of conversations that can go around that, which is also a, it's a type of healing. It's, it is, it is, it's just, it's a different manifestation of a healing. That's right. Casting that thing out, telling it to go. There's a lot of physical maladies that have left upon the casting out of a demon, a demonic spirit, an unclean spirit that was associated with other things. Yeah. Right. I mean, some spirit of mockery comes out and and next thing you know, that back pain that you've had for years is also gone. Right. How many times have you seen that happen? But I really want to just a few. I know we're, we could probably go for hours and hours and I wish we could do that, but a few specific um, as it relates to healing. Yeah.

Well, the one that comes when you put that on the table, the first thing that comes to mind, this is also fairly recent. Where we live, I live about a block from the Pacific Ocean and the Fraser. So, the Fraser River is a big, like the Columbia River. They were actually kind of connected at one point. Big, mighty river. Where I live a block from the Pacific and a block from the from the from the mouth of the Fraser River. And so there's a great walking trail there called on the the dyke. So we like my male and I like to go walk the dyke. We're out there one afternoon and we see this guy walking up on the horizon. He's smoking a joint. He's got Rastaparian beads coming down the back and he's got this, I don't know, colorful beret on his head and clearly, I mean, you can just smell in the air that he, he's probably high. Anyway, I don't care. We're walking faster than him. So, at some eventuality, we, we, we not only catch up to him, but we pass him. All right. Yeah. No, no, it's a, it's a visual, right? It's so anyway, we pass this guy. You're probably doing a lot of things faster than him. Anyway, sorry. Go ahead. So, anyway, we, we pass him and I look back and but I've been, I'm friendly with everyone. So, "Hey, man, how you doing?" And you know, that's just my natural speech. "Hey, man, how are you?" And as I, as I look at him, I go, "Hey, man. How you doing?" I notice he's got a cast on his arm and his hand, and I'm not exaggerating a word of this. I, God is my witness here. I'm not exaggerating any of this. His hand is blown up like a watermelon sticking out of this. So the, the arm is fully casted and the visible part of his hand sticking out is blown up like this, like a, like a, like a watermelon, like a balloon, a cantaloupe. It's huge. And I go, "Man, what's going on here? That looks pretty uncomfortable." He goes, "Yeah, I broke my, I broke, I broke my wrist." I said, "Well, how'd that happen?" He goes, "You know those pickle bar courts over there?" And so, you know, a couple blocks over there's a park with some pickle ball and tennis and stuff in it. I go, "I know." Yeah, I know those pickle ball courts. He goes, he goes, "I was over there one afternoon and there were a couple guys playing pickle ball and I'd never played pickle ball and Shiva told me to ask the guy if I could play pickle ball with his with his bat." I said, "Shiva." He goes, "You know the Hindu god." I said, "Shiva." He goes, "Yeah, Shiva." I said, "Okay." And what did Shiva say? Shiva said, "Go play pickle ball." So, I started playing pickle ball. So, one, the guy with the, the guy stood out and I started playing his partner and I went to make it and I tripped and I fell and I fell down and I broke my arm and it's been in a cast now for two months. I said, "Well, man, that looks brutal." I said, "Would you be cool if I prayed for you?" He said, "Sure. I got nothing to lose." So, I just, I said, "Can I touch you?" I said, "I promise I'm not going to squeeze your hand. I'm not going to hurt you. May I touch you?" He said, "Yep." And my wife is watching this while she's standing right there. You know, she's, she's not unfamiliar with this. So, I just laid my hands on his hand and on the one hand on the cast and one hand on his hand. And I said, "In the name of Jesus Christ, I command health, healing, and wholeness come into this body. I command the swelling to go. I command the b the bones to renit themselves, any damaged cartilage to reattach. I command it. I command it now. Be made whole. And I command the swelling to go in the name of Jesus Christ." Now, for those of you who are listening, listen to the language that I'm using. Jesus said, "Go heal the sick." So, I'm telling the sickness to go. I'm speaking it exactly the way Jesus spoke it. So, I said, "I command it to go." And I'm not embellishing a word of this. Over, over the next 20 seconds, we watched his hand totally shrink down to complete normal size. We w it was instant. His hand shrunk right there inside the cast. He goes, "Whoa, what happened?" I said, "Well, let me tell you what just happened. Your God broke your arm. My God just healed it. You ready to know him?" And we prayed for him right there in the name of Jesus Christ.

I, you know, I get to see some stuff like this. I think it's unmistakable the boldness with which you go and do. I mean, the way you're speaking here is full of life and energy. And I would suspect that it's just because that's what you do wherever you go. It's authentically me, right? Well, I think there's a, there's a boldness that God honors as well. I know when Peter and John were in the decaps after Jesus' ascension, they were being persecuted by the very people who killed Jesus. And they were told not to do this anymore, not to speak of the this name of Jesus anymore or whatever. And they came back and went into prayer and didn't say, "God, you know, um, you help us to not get persecuted." Or they said the only thing they prayed for was boldness. To go and do. And they did. And they did incredible signs and wonders from that. And so maybe there's a, a message, a hint of something in there around um, things that please God when we step out in faith. Yeah. And it's not to necessarily uh approach it with timidity, but maybe a, a flavor of boldness and maybe that's a takeaway that we kind of see in the way you're approaching it. Yeah.

Well, I've heard that, you know, and the thing is because a lot of people see what I'm doing and they come to my and I, and I teach them and I instruct them. They say, "Well, I can't be you." I said, "I don't want you to be me. You're not supposed to be me. You are fearfully and wonderfully made in the image and the likeness of God, and he's the one that knit you together in your own mother's womb. He gave me this personality, and he gave you that personality." What I want you to get from the what I'm teaching you is to take these constructs. Go be bold. Now, I tend to be animated and a little loud. Come on, man. I can't. Our producers are like, "No, Howard." I'm animated and loud, but it's not animated and loud that's producing the result. Right? It's faith that's producing. It's faith and it's confidence. Confidence and faith, right? You can hear it. That's what I'm saying. If your voice is softer and you are less animated, it doesn't mean you're less effective. You just need to start fortifying that faith and start doing the things and read that Jesus instructed us to do with the authority that he said that he gave to you. I mean, we've already established Jesus doesn't lie. I'm not man. I don't change my mind. I'm not a human. I will never take back a word that I have spoken. The minute you begin to accept that he's given us this authority to go off and do this, just like, I mean, I could walk, I could go around the streets of Tuscaloosa here and maybe meet four different sheriffs today or four different deputies. One sheriff and four deputies. Every, I guarantee you, every one of those deputies would have a different personality, right? A different tone of voice. All of them carry the same authority, right? And they know they've got the authority, right? They got the authority. It's not someone who's uh an aspiring deputy that's like, "I don't really have the authority yet, so I'll, I'll I'll give it a try." No, you have the authority, right? And I think that's kind of uh what, what we need to step into. Uh, lots of times, uh, in my house, I, I can get loud if I need to in certain situations, but I think my kids respond with equal respect when I get quiet. There's a, you can be confident and bold in your, sure, in that version of yourself too. So no, I'm not saying, uh, speak loudly like Howard does. I'm, I'm saying you have an assurance of the authority that you carry and it is reflected in the way you deliver the prayer. Exactly. And that is at the end of the day the message. Just like that example with my new friend Anna from that healing seminar we did, very, very, very soft-spoken, very small stature, never prayed for anybody before, but she came wanting a healing and I said, "I'm not praying for you until you pray for somebody else." And because she did what she had just been taught, all scriptural, in her much softer voice than mine, in her greatly downplayed animation in contrast to mine, watched a miracle manifest in front of her eyes and she couldn't, and she couldn't believe it because I finally was able to get her to move to the place Jesus said, "It, he meant it. All you got to do is believe it and do it."

There's going to be a lot of people who watch this and say, "I've got to get in touch with Howard." And and your website's in our episode description. So, so that's how you get Howard. But they're going to say, "My husband needs healing or I have a child who's in this situation. I really need Howard to to pray over them." And that sort of thing. And okay, and we have prayer partners on our website and deliverance ministers that that help do those things. But if your takeaway from this is that I've got to get in touch with Howard for him to do this, then you've missed the point all together here. Yeah. Would you agree with that? Yeah. And let me, so if they do call me, I'll tell you, I'll tell, I'll tell them right now exactly what I'll do with it. I will answer the phone and I will pray for you. But I will also say, you have the authority. You start to pray. You pray. You release. I'll listen to how you're doing it. I'll bring some correction if you need to take a more of an an assertive stance on it where I command that sickness to go and then I'll come in behind you and I'll pray with you. I'm not going to leave you to your own devices. I'm not going to throw you to the wolves, but I won't pray for your husband or for your daughter or for you. Well, if it's you, I mean, I'll pray for you, but if it's for your husband, I'm not praying for your husband until you first prayed for your husband. And I'll use it as instruction and I'll use it as a place of edification and I'm going to get you comfortable doing the things that you've been commanded to do. I'll backstop it. And the word of God says where two or three will agree upon anything. Okay? It doesn't say where Howard prays. It gets a result. It says where two or three will agree on anything. So, you know your husband better than I do. You start praying for the things that you know need to happen and I'll come in underneath and agreement on it and I'll use it as an opportunity to exhort you to instruct you and to help you on your journey to greater faith. Yeah, I'm thinking about that two or three. That is, uh, another thing certainly that is scriptural where bringing a person of faith and understanding of healing along in some situations is also a very scriptural approach to healing. But yeah, I think what we're saying is stop just looking to get a fish and start looking to learn how to fish. Yeah. The Lord was very clear with me. He said, "I want you to teach my people who they are, the authority they carry, and have them going out and doing the great exploits that I've commanded them to do. I want you to teach my people who they are and the authority that they carry. Do this. This is what I'm commanding you." And those are my instructions. And that's I spend every day of my life doing exactly that in a multiplicity of different ways. Yeah.

And you've experienced it. It's so cool to hear how you went from from nothing into knowing God, which, you know, what an experience that was. And and we, God did not call us today, I don't believe, to go down the road of how do you get a thing like that. Um, no, no. God's speaking to you, whoever you are, in ways right now that you either aren't listening to or you're looking for him to come through a specific door. And you, you know, I, I don't know how, how would you address that? Well, I, you know, I, I, I think I think for anybody listening to this today, it, it's what we prayed. It's what I even now in my spirit, I'm praying that there be an impartation of boldness and courageousness. You know, God came and said to Moses, "Moses, I will be with you wherever you go." Moses passed. The mantle was handed over to Joshua and Caleb. And he says, he says to Joshua and Caleb, "Be bold and courageous. Yes, be very courageous, for I will be with you wherever you go." And now he's saying to everybody listening to this today, "As I was with Moses, as I was with Joshua, so too I will be with you." I think the whole point of my story and how I came to salvation, God is saying, listen, and he's actually said this to me, "I didn't need to deprogram you from what religion had done to you. I have personally trained you and mentored you so that you can go and release this into the body of Christ. I didn't need to remove the shackles of religion from upon you." And this is what I'm doing in my own ministry now. I see people moving into these things and they're beginning to see the manifestations of the promises made because they're moving in faith. But it took a lot of time moving. When I kept asking the Lord, "Why, why is this so hard? Why do they seem so intrigent? Why are they so, why are they seemingly so immovable? Why has this been so hard?" He says, "You're literally deprogramming them from years of shackles of religion." That's it. In so many things. And you know, the thing that we do, we have conversations with people who are experiencing God here. And deep in my spirit, it's because I've come from a place of churches that I have been in involved in or know or have visited or observed, many of which are could be um, described as organized unbelief. Yeah. Belief that Jesus is the son of God and he died for our sins and that he is the way, the truth, and the life, but unbelief as it relates to experiencing God. Well, and many, and many of them aren't even aware that that's what they're doing, right? But, you know, the book of, uh, the book of James very clearly talks about this. It's the spirit of religion. Looks like God, sounds like God, smells like God, but denies the power of God. And they don't even know what they're doing. Organized religion has done this. You know, we talk about denominations, you know, and I'm, I'm not taking a swipe, but people say to me, you know, so, well, people, I got very, like, even I was out for dinner last night and the lady sitting next to me was, because I, you know, I'm a kind of a social critic. I don't want to sit at a table by myself. So I go sit, I sit at the bar so that there's some life around me, you know, "What are, what are you doing here? What are you doing?" "I, well, you know, there's this guy here in town named Stacy. He runs this podcast called A Stronger Faith." "A stronger faith? Oh, so you're a religious guy." This is how it starts. "So you're religious?" Like, "No, man. I hate religion, but I sure do love the supernatural power of God." And she says to me, "How can you hate religion and love God?" I said, I said, I said, "I, I, I understand your question. It all depends on your definition of religion." I said, "Give me yours and I'll give you mine." She goes, "Well, I don't really have a definition of religion because I avoid it." I said, "Okay, can I give you mine?" She said, "Sure." I said, "Religion, a set of man-made rules and constructs made by men, used to control men for no other purpose than to control the lives of people, which does nothing but make God look bad so people like you never find him." What'd she say to that? She goes, "Wow, yeah, I totally agree with that." She goes, "I'm totally against that." Because in God's kingdom, there is no religion. Religion is a bunch of man-made constructs. Jesus never said, "I'm a Christian." Jesus said, "I'm God." He said, "I'm the one that the Father sent. I am, I am him." Listen, here's what, and this is, and I would, I, I emphasize this over and over and over again. That's the thing with religion. Think about denominations. I mean, the one thing the devil is terrified of. So, you can call him the enemy or you can call him the devil or you can call him Satan. You can call him Lucifer. You can give him any one of the Levia. You can, we can use any one of those names. What's the one thing that he's terrified of? Faith? Nope. I go to heaven? Nope. He cares. He doesn't care about any of that because he has no jurisdiction in heaven, which is the place that we're all going back to. The kingdom is advancing. Jesus Christ said, "I am the one true living God. If you've seen me, you've seen the Father, and now I'm going back to the Father. And all this authority I'm given to you." We have authority over the devil. We have all authority over. We have authority over snakes and scorpions and all power of the enemy. What Satan is terrified of is that the body of Christ finally wakes up and understands their authority so he'll do everything in his power that you not discover the authority that you have. Because the minute we understand our authority is the minute he and his shenanigans are over. He's terrified of it. So he uses religious structures. So, you know, go back to grade 10 math, okay? Remember, remember learning about the common denominator? Okay, maybe it was so long ago you don't even remember what the common denominator, but I'm going to tell you what the common denominator is. The one number that divides every other number. Yeah. Yeah. Does that make sense? Yep. Makes sense. Okay. Isn't it interesting that they're called denominations? So, the Catholics don't believe what the Baptists believe. Don't believe the Episcopalians on a different page than the Anglicans. No, that's religion. Man-made religious constructs meant to keep us all divided at each other's throat says the world walks on and say, "Man, that's hypocrisy. I don't want anything to do with it." That's religion. A bunch of man-made precepts coming at it from a bunch of different angles so that the world looking and says, "Man, I don't want anything to do with that." So they never discover one true God and never walk into the authority that crushes the prince of this world.

Yeah, that's absolutely the the case. I mean, you can see it. It, it's in, and even in denominations, they're dividing and dividing and dividing and and and interesting what you said on the authority and the power that Christians have. I was in a conversation with a person, I'm not, I wasn't in direct conversation with this other guy, but the guy I know tells me this story when he was in a conversation with this other guy. The other guy was um, actively involved in the church of Satan, an active Satanist. And they are communicating like through playing a video game together. They're not talking religion or whatever. It's a whole thing. Anyway, um, in that conversation, the Satanist tells the Christian, and they're just playing the video game, he's like, "You know, you guys have way more power than you think you do." And and like left it at that. I'm sure he wasn't necessarily supposed to reveal that to him, but anybody that you talk to that has been in Satanism and other things like that, they are only able to do things to certain levels. Like when they describe even when someone is being prayed over, there's from our perspective, this dome that covers them that makes them I've heard exactly. It's like a blue dome. Unbreakable. Yeah. And and and so I think you make a great point. I think the thing that the enemy wants to make sure that Christians never do is to recognize and use the authority that they've been given. Yeah. Yeah. That's a really, that's really good.

Well, we, we, we live in a religious society. Yeah. And um, you know, these surveys that would go out for decades, you know, um, what religious affiliation? And for the last several decades, um, the checkbox of "none" was increasing in the numbers that said "none." And of course, Christians like, "Oh my gosh, you know, Christianity's falling apart or whatever." I don't know that that was necessarily a bad thing. Um, for the very reasons we're talking about. What I'm seeing now is revival. Yeah. In a way. And I, I, I hate to even use that word sometimes because it sounds like a little bit of a churchy word, but what's happening now is I call it the awakening. Yeah. People are becoming awakened to the truth of the presence and power of God and are are moving away from religious tradition. Yeah.

Well, you know, that we are in a season of of convergence now that all the words that the prophets have spoken. So Joel, Amos, Haggi, once again, "And in those days, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." I don't think we're going to see another revival. We've already had Brownsville. We've already had Isuza. What we're watching right now, in my opinion, is a full reformation. He is reforming this earth. And in this, in this, he is actually pouring out his spirit. I mean, five years ago, I couldn't walk into a bar downtown Tuscaloosa. Not, not that I wasn't there to drink. I was there to have a meal, but I wanted to sit in a social place and all of a sudden start having a spiritual conversation about the supernatural power of God and people being receptive to it. Five years ago, I couldn't walk up to a stranger in a parking lot and say, "Hey, listen. You look like you're in a lot of discomfort. May I pray for you?" We, they was no, there was no acceptance of it. People would have pushed it off. What I'm, what I'm discovering, what I'm telling everybody, God says that in those days, "I will pour out my spirit on all flesh." There is a hunger in the streets and there's a, but because they haven't gone to church, because all they've ever seen is religion, they don't know how to call it. They don't know how to identify it and they can't put their finger on it. But when a guy like you or me or a woman like you who's watching walks up to say, "Man, you look like you're in a lot of pain. Would you be cool if I prayed for you?" And so that's natural, using your natural language, your natural personality and say, "Hey, listen, man, you, you look really uncomfortable. Can I pray for you?" People don't say no anymore. There's a hunger inside of them. They just don't know what to call it. And then somebody like you come and intersects their lives and releases this and all of a sudden the truth. And what we're watching is a full-on reformation where God is reforming society. But we are his hands, we are his feet, we are his mouths. And if we're not out doing the stuff, it stays contained inside the church that taught you to ask the pastor to pray for you when what the church should have been doing all along is teaching you how to go do that stuff in parking lots and libraries and grocery stores and hospital rooms. Yeah. But the church, but, but you couldn't go to the church and get prayer for healing in most places. There is not a place to go in most of the denominational churches I've ever participated in that says in the bulletin, "Hey, if, if you know someone that needs deliverance or healing, this is when we're doing this as an organized thing." Typically what it is is like, "Hey, that's not something we do, but there's this guy named Fred Johnson that sits back there and, you know, I'm saying? And and and you know, I'd catch him after service. I think he does some stuff like that, but it's not done in the church." I think we're increasingly seeing that. I think that's a really good word because I, I, we've talked about revival and I talk about, I'm seeing it happen and so many of us are seeing it happen across the world. And I, I, I get a little cringey with the word revival and I think that's a better description. We're being reformed. It's a reformation. We are being reformed, you know, and I think that I think that's the message that's, if there's, if there's a, I mean, from from this entire discussion here, I interview and you're going to draw your own conclusions and I'm, and I'm grateful for that. But I think I think one of the high-level messages that's coming out of this discussion today, and this none of this is premeditated. I mean, for those that are watching, we, we made an agreement with each other. We didn't even want to meet each other before today so that we couldn't bias what came out of each other's mouths. This is, this is just a naturally flowing conversation. But what I'm hoping is being imparted to all of you that are watching right now is that you just go out there unafraid of what somebody else might think and just do. When you feel that thing in your spirit, man, I really should pray for her or I should go pray for that guy or or what, or however it shows up, just go and do it. Because I'm telling you, the lens through which we looked at the world five years ago, we cannot look at the world through that lens anymore because God has changed the lens. He's already begun pouring out his spirit. The level of receptiveness today is different than it was two years ago, three years ago. But if you're responding to everybody around you by the way that it was three years ago, you're denying yourself opportunities to live the greatest adventure you can and to release freedom to another human being because God has prepared the ground. He just needs you to go and do what he asked you to do. And he will backstop you the whole way. Yeah, that's that's what's going on here. I, I got pulled into this. This was never an idea. I truly feel like I had a bag thrown over my head. Yeah. And and had a and got pulled into this thing and that has turned into what we do now. And and as I look at it now objectively, um, we are having conversations with people who have been the recipient of the outpouring of his spirit into their lives. That's what everyday people experiencing God is. And there's just there's a lot of people still in trapped in religion. Yeah. That are comfortable with that, are familiar with that and don't want to leave that. And don't even realize it. And don't realize it. They're they're Christians. They're going to heaven, most of them, a lot of them. I, I can't say all of. Maybe you don't know God and maybe you just subscribe to that lifestyle because it's the morally sound thing to do. And if that's you, I would certainly encourage you to go pursue God. And and where, whatever you are in right now, I think the encouragement is to go and pursue God and let him pursue you the way he's going to pursue you. He's going to reveal some things to you for sure. Um, but what we do is reveal how God is actually moving and pouring himself out into the world. And I think that's why people are drawn to to these things cuz it's it's everyday people saying, "I didn't think, but I can only tell you what happened and how here's." And it's amazing. And I go back and watch our episodes too and I'm like, "Oh my gosh, this is unbelievable." And and it's just person after person after person. And we have people sending in videos and we can't air them all, which is a great problem to have. And we want them to go and share in the other ways. It's just, it's building the faith of the planet and it's amazing. Um, I think you've given us your message right and what I think I want to do something different here if it's okay with you. Yeah. As as we kind of park this, this has been about helping people to awaken to a life walking with God that's different from the restrictive life of religion that has confined them to a very routine, non-experiential walk with God. Yeah. Could you pray here now? Yes. In a way that helps or is an agent for unlocking, Yeah. or or or destroying the things that have blocked people and escorts people into awakening and encountering God. Amen.

Well, I, and I, I didn't know you were going to ask me to do that. I didn't know I was going to ask you if I could. I didn't know until about two minutes ago. And that's when it came to me. Yeah. You know, listen, God says, "I'm no respecter of persons. What I do for one, I'll do for another. What you've heard at this table and in other episodes that have come at this table, I did it for them, and I'll do the same for you," says the Lord. "I just need you to trust me and believe me enough to do that." Many things may have held you back. God, I pray this over every single one under the sound of my voice here today. Oh, Holy Spirit, right where they're sitting now, I ask you to fall and descend upon that mighty man, that mighty woman. Yes. Even as you said to Gideon, you say, "I call you a mighty man of God, a mighty man of valor." Father God, I'm asking by your spirit that an infusion of boldness and confidence that comes straight from your throne room come upon every single one under the sound of my voice here now that they no longer move in a spirit of trepidation and a spirit of unbelief or maybe even a spirit of fear. Or what they're thinking or what, what, what will they think if I begin to pray? Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ, I break the spirit of fear. Boom. I break the spirit of unbelief. Boom. I break that spirit of resistance now in the name of Jesus Christ. And God, I release over every single one under that are listening to the sound of my voice now in the name and the power and the authority of Jesus Christ. I release a new level of boldness, a new level of courageousness to go off and do the bold, audacious things of faith that you said, "If you love me, you will do my commands." That God, that now I release a boldness and a confidence in you to go and do the things that you've asked them to do that have maybe been holding them back. God, I thank you now that they begin to move. Yes. That they begin to move. That they begin to see divine opportunities. Yes. Whether they're walking across a parking lot having just parked their car and seeing somebody limping or maybe seeing a sick neighbor that they now go, "Oh, they, they don't beg you to go into a healing." But Lord, that they come out now and they begin to pray with bold faith, commanding healing come upon the one that they have just laid hands on. And I thank you, Lord, that you're no respecter of persons. And Father God, that you will show them the victory. Yes. To edify them, to bolden them, to embolden them, to strengthen their faith. So I release this upon them now in the name of Jesus Christ that they be awoken and activated into bold faith for Jesus Christ. For he says, "Your ascension to heaven." Yes, you're going to heaven. That's a given. But that's the cherry on top. Oh, the real adventure begins when you begin to do the things that I've asked you to do. So God, by your spirit, Holy Spirit, fall now and cause them to walk in bold exploits and in a great adventure driven by you, Holy Spirit. We bind the resistance and we loose their cooperation with you now, Holy Spirit, in the name of Jesus Christ. Hey, come on with it, Howard. Woo! I love it. And I, I'm just going to say, uh, I know things just happened right there in so many places. You, you go and do as God has is going to shape you to do. You know, I would love to hear about it. You know, our team would love to hear about it. You can go to a strongerfaith.org/cont. There's a form there. And if, if you've encountered or experienced something, or better yet, don't just share that with us, put it in the comments section of the video so that everybody else in this can see it as well. It is us sharing the experiences of God has such an impact on the lives of others and there are so many people that enter those comments section, just go there and share it. So anyway, man, uh, that is awesome. This is, uh, I told you, I don't know if I said this on camera or if I said it beforehand when we were just chatting, but prep for this was different. I just, sometimes I sit down and I'll, I'll, I'll have an iPad here and and I'll have 15, 20 questions on there and it'll be a couple of pages and I'll scroll here and there and what's grabbing me? What do I need to pull out? What do I need to do? And on this one, I had about four. Wow. And um, I think I asked two and it was the ones at the beginning and um, and you think, okay, am I unprepared? It's like I had such peace. It was about two, two minutes of this. It's like God was like, "That's it." And so, yeah, that's what that looked like. And, uh, if you just know how things operate here, it, it was a different one. And that's good. And we ask God to speak through us every time we sit at this table with people. And today was absolutely no exception. Our prayer time was wonderful and powerful. And, uh, we trust that that's exactly what has happened here today. And, um, the two of us getting together like this is, uh, I think is a powerful thing. And, uh, is so cool and it's fun for me. This is an honor for me to be able to do this here. And, and I just, uh, I really value the time and the insights that God delivered through you today and your experiences. And we've prayed blessings and we'll continue to pray blessings over you. I know you got a lot of people praying for you as well. And for you. They're praying. They're praying for us. They're praying for this right now. Yeah. Yeah. And that's just amazing. And, uh, I, I feel that. I've known it. um, since before, um, your arrival today. I, it's just been different. And so I just, we just want to encourage the boldness of faith. Yeah. That that that people take faith from the confines of adhering to religious traditions and and basic belief into activation into the way you live into the world. And, um, I think there's extraordinary adventure to say the least. If, if my life and your life over these last few years is any indicator of what's in store for people, just get ready cuz it, it's just amazing.

Well, I feel in my spirit I need to say one more thing to the listening audience. Job 22:28 says, "Thou shalt decree a thing and it be established unto you." We do the decreeing, he does the establishing. "Thou shalt decree a thing and it'll be established unto you and the light of my favor will shine upon your ways and bring you into the fullness of success." So I decree and I declare for every single one of you who've been listening to this interview today that the greatest adventure you've ever known unfolds before you now that you come into the fullness of your destiny and your calling. I decree this over you in the name of Jesus Christ. I decree and I declare that the fullness of your destiny, the fullness of your calling, the fullness of your gifting, it begin to manifest before you now. That the greatest days before are in front of you and not behind you. That the greatest adventure you've ever known, it unfolds now. I decree this upon you in the name of Jesus Christ. Howard Olsen, thank you. Yeah. Thank you for coming and for pouring the Holy Spirit through you into the people that have just watched what is an extraordinary episode. I loved every second of it. Thank you, Howard. Yeah, I loved it too. God bless you, Stacy. All right. That was so good. We don't want these conversations to simply be interesting for you. Our prayer is that they move you to grow in your faith by taking action. Faith grows when it is exercised and authority becomes real when it's used. If God stirred something in you today, as you listen to Howard, hunger, conviction, courage, even questions, respond to that. Pray, listen, step out. Ask God where he's calling you to trust him more. To speak when you've been silent, to act when you've hesitated before. And if you've already seen God move in your life through healing or provision, freedom, or or just his voice, share that in the comments. Your testimony may be the very thing that strengthens someone else's faith. And if someone came to mind as you were listening, don't keep this to yourself, share this episode with them. Stories like Howard's don't just inspire belief. They invite us into the more of God that is available to all of us. Thank you for joining us today on a stronger faith. You can find ways to connect with Howard in the episode description. You know, we're just going to keep publishing conversations like this, stories of everyday people actually experiencing God. And if this is building your faith and helping you to grow, I encourage you to subscribe if you haven't so that you can stay connected to more stories just like this one. And if you want the same kind of faith and encouragement reaching others, share these things. Share these episodes with people that God brings to mind for you. That's probably why he's doing it. When you do that, you are participating in building the kingdom of heaven. Until next time, we pray that your faith becomes works and that God builds a stronger faith in you and in those you love.