An Olive Press Moment

When I was a kid, every gallon of milk we brought home from the store had a stamp somewhere on the jug: "Expires by [date]." It wasn't until I was in college or a few years after that I noticed the stamp had changed. It was no longer: "Expires by [date];" it had become "Sell by [date]." 

It wasn't a major change, but it was significant to me, because it denoted a grace period somewhere in there. I was no longer focusing on the END of the milk's life, but rather the APPROACHING end. I was focusing on the time it had left, the time it was still able to be used, the time it could still fulfill its purpose.

Metaphor? I think so!

Our prayers don't have a shelf life. We don't have a moment when our petitions expire, when the prayers sit void on the shelf, needing to be thrown out and disposed of. 

There IS, however, a call for increased prayer, effective prayer, long-term prayer, especially in response to need. When we hit the sell-by date, the urgency ramps up. 

Y'all sense anything urgent these days?

Mark Driskill really hit the nail on the head when he talked the other day about how it was no accident that Jesus chose the Garden of Gethsemane (meaning: oil press) as the setting in which to pray before He was betrayed (and if you haven't had a chance to listen to Mark's weekday devotional videos, I've found them to be on point, on fire, super encouraging, and timely).

The pressing of the olives brings the oil, and I found this to be extremely interesting, given the fairly prominent visions and dreams of at least three modern-day pastors who have prophesied an olive press moment for the church specifically from September through November of this year... (I'm not saying that this is anything to read into; I just found this interesting): "Most olives are ready to harvest when the juice turns cloudy, at the “green ripe” stage in late September. They ripen to an uneven reddish-brown through November, finally darkening to the “naturally black ripe” stage by early December. Olives in this stage have a high oil content and are easily bruised. If harvested for eating they need to be handled with care; handpicking is essential as damaged fruit will usually not survive the curing process." (From Benicia Magazine: Harvesting and Processing Backyard Olives).

My Revelation reading today was in chapter 14, and no surprise, the section labeled "The Harvest of the Earth" mentions a press, although in this case, it features a winepress. An angel swings his sickle over the earth and harvests it of grapes, throwing them into the great winepress of God's wrath, and the blood that flows from the press is as high as horses' bridles for a distance of 180 miles (which... if you like analogies involving math, is exactly half of a full circle. Again, read into that whatever you like).

So, this whole "expiration date" thing came to me as I was praying and thinking over the things God has shown me over the last months. Daniel 2:21b-23a says: "He gives wisdom to the wise and knowledge to the discerning. He reveals deep and hidden things; He knows what lies in darkness, and light dwells with Him. I thank and praise You, oh God of my fathers; You have given me wisdom and power, You have made known to me what we asked of You."

I've prayed constantly for wisdom and discernment so that I could a.) know and understand what is on the heart of God, and b.) so that I could pray effectively for it, and though I am not Daniel or John and haven't been given great revelations, I do think God has shown me some serious things to pray for.

None of them have "expired" in my mind, but especially the ones about a harvest stand out. I have seen picture after picture of a dividing line between the harvest field and the storehouses, the remaining chaff and stubble in the fields and the fruit brought inside. The picture I had the other day was so very clear that I'll reiterate it here, first in video (I'm not a great speaker; it's why I hesitated to do a video, but I felt led to document it in video form), and also in writing, because there is still that sense of warning inside me. The picture I saw was split into three separate parts:

Part 1: I saw a large field where the ground was furrowed like it had once been turned for planting, and the dirt had once been loose and fertile... but the crop was gone now, only stubble and dry grass and weeds grew out of the hard, packed, and unyielding soil. In the distance, the sun was setting and night was coming soon. 

Part 2: There was a water bottle in front of me, turned upside-down. The lid was open, and there was a single drop of water hanging from the rim. 

Part 3: Nearby, there was an enormous cistern as big as a missile silo, which I somehow knew had been used to store water. When I stood on the edge and looked in, a man at the very bottom was measuring the centimeter or so of water remaining in the bottom.

The Lord confirmed the interpretation of this to me over the last few days. This is what I think this means: America is on the last reserve of her prosperity and influence. What was once fertile and open is now hard and unyielding. She has hardened her heart against the Lord. The dregs are at the bottom of the cistern, the well is almost dry, the last drop is preparing to fall. Unless there is a turnaround, night is coming, and we are in for a "pressing."

Y'all... I don't know how to pray for this, honestly. My natural preservation instinct wants to pray for deliverance from the press... but my knowledge that God wants the long-term best for us (which includes refinement, coring out the bad apples, burning away the dross, scrubbing away the rust) makes me think I maybe should rather be praying (as Jesus told us): "Let Your kingdom come, let Your will be done."

So, I do. I also pray with specificity, as the Lord shows me (another message without an expiration date). Given the fact that our battle is not against flesh and blood... I've been praying specifically for the angels who carry out the battle against the forces of evil.

Frank Peretti's This Present Darkness and Piercing the Darkness were some of my favorite books as a teenager. I know they are a fictionalized account of spiritual warfare and its impact on the physical world, and that Peretti himself once said he wished he'd never written them because of how literally people began to take them...

But I think there is some seed of truth to the idea that there are angels walking with us as we go about our business, as we begin work, or school, or whatever we've got going. 

When I was over in Daniel, I read chapters 10-12. I have always been, and am still, fascinated by the account of the angel who came to Daniel, saying, essentially, "Sorry I'm late; I got held up fighting the demon in charge of Persia. It took 23 days, and then Michael, the angel in charge of Israel, came to give me a break. So now I'm here with the message I was originally supposed to give you, but I gotta get back, because Michael and I are the only ones fighting the Persian demon. After I leave, the demon in charge of Greece is gonna come."

Just... what??! I mean, I know Peretti's accounts were fictional, but good grief, this Scripture in Daniel is really amazing. And then...

Daniel said: "And in the first year of Darius the Mede, I took my stand to support and protect him." Here's an idea, and I may be way off on this, but it's worth offering:

It's likely that the pronoun "him" meant Darius the Mede, and Daniel is supporting and protecting him. But I wonder... given the whole context of the foregoing conversation and the fact that the words of the angel were still ringing in the air when Daniel said this... if "him" could simultaneously have meant... the angel. Hmm...

Whether that's the case or not, I thought it was still a powerful incentive to pray for strength not just for the church, not just for the pastors and intercessors and watchmen and people who are fighting the good fight... but for the angels, as well, who need it to be able to continue to fight the "princes" of various cities and countries.

Today, I pray, as Jesus taught, for "Your kingdom to come and Your will to be done." Amen.