Due to the extensive amount of time that the work on this picture covers, I am going to post here only the different journal entries I noted while working on the piece. Read through them and be amazed and encouraged by what God has in mind for The Treasure State.
January 15, 2010
Encounter Young Adults Meeting, The River
We were singing the song “Dry Bones.” I saw a picture like
what is on a standard Montana license plate with the bison skull in the lower
left corner. I heard God say,
“You have taken the picture of a death and have made
it a symbol for your state. But I am not going to allow it to remain.
I am going to take what is dead, what died many years ago, and I am going
to give it new life. No longer will you be likened with the skull of the
past.”
I saw water come rushing over the land and rocks on
which the skull was sitting, a gentle but deep flow that picked up the skull
and washed it away.
July 23, 2010
Encounter Young Adults Meeting, Woodland Park
During spontaneous worship that led to praying things over the
State of Montana I heard God say the following statement:
“I have let them be hungry.”
I knew He was referring to the people of Montana.
Even as I wondered if I had heard correctly, He continued.
“In My mercy, I have let them be hungry. For it
is hard to tempt a satisfied person with even the finest foods. It is
difficult to entice people toward light when they have grey. Light
exposes. Grey is comfortable. In My mercy, I have let the ready
availability be stifled. I have let them hunger so they might run to Me
for what I am longing to give them.
“It is time for a new revolution.”
Then He drew me to this scripture. Here it is
in the entirety and I will highlight certain portions afterward.
Psalm 110:1-7 AMP
1 The Lord (God) says to my Lord (the Messiah),
Sit at My right hand, until I make Your adversaries Your footstool.
2 The Lord will send forth from Zion the
scepter of Your strength; Rule, then, in the midst of Your foes.
3 Your people
will offer themselves willingly in the day of Your power, in the beauty of
holiness and in holy array out of the womb of the morning; to You [will
spring forth] Your young men, who are as the dew.
4 The Lord has sworn and will not revoke or
change it; You are a priest forever, after the manner and order of
Melchizedek.
5 The Lord at Your right hand will shatter
kings in the day of His indignation.
6 He will execute judgement [in overwhelming
punishment] upon the nations; He will fill the valleys with the dead
bodies, He will crush the [chief] heas over lands many and far extended.
7 He will drink of the brook by the way;
therefore will He lift up His head [triumphantly].
“Out of the womb of the morning...”
Before the morning there is a darkness. There
is night prior to morning. The womb. Something conceived in the
darkness. In the darkness God has planted a seed in the hungry ones.
God says, “I hear the cry of life!”
It is time for the morning. It is time for a
new thing to be born and brought forth. It has been a dark night.
God says, “I have let them be hungry. They are
ready and waiting for the morning. They are weary of the darkness and
will be eager for light.”
August, 2010, Home
I was home alone and I went into our living room. My latest
prophetic picture “Holding Back Destiny” hangs in there. I sat down in
the only chair that faces that picture on the wall. As I looked at it I
suddenly saw another picture. It was like my current vision was blanked
out and I was looking at another picture that was just as clear and real.
I saw a bison skull done in graphite pencil in high
detail. The left half of the skull was dry, cracked and obviously sun
bleached. But as the picture moved to the right side, it changed to
colored pencil in reds, golds, yellow, and blue. The skull transformed
into a living bison. It was like the living flesh was crawling over the
bone from the right, gradually bringing the animal life. Bits of pink
flesh reached out across the bone at the center of the picture.
The colors and style of the picture had a distinct
Native American flavor to it. Definitely not something I would just
imagine in my own artistic mind, as I do not particularly have a fondness for
such art.
Under the picture I saw these printed words:
“Montana...can these bones live?”
At the time, I had completely forgotten the above
words that God had spoken through the year. I was simply stunned by the
picture and knew it was the next one I was supposed to do.
I began working on the picture within the next
week. It was then that God brought me back to the words He had spoken
earlier and I realized that He had been speaking of this picture to me for some
time. So cool!
August 24, 2010, Home
God drew me to this scripture while working on the bison. Read
through this with the image that God gave me in your mind. See the State
of Montana, Kalispell and the Flathead Valley. Perceive and recognize
what God is saying to us!
Ezekiel 37:1-14 AMP
1 The hand of the Lord was upon me, and He
brought me out in the Spirit of the Lord and set me down in the midst of the
valley; and it was full of bones.
2 And He caused me to pass round about among
them, and behold, there were very many [human bones] in the open valley or
plain, and behold, they were very dry.
3 And He said to me, Son of man, can
these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, You know!
4Again He said to me, Prophesy to these bones
and say to them, O you dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
5 Thus says the Lord God to these bones:
Behold, I will cause breath and spirit to enter you, and you shall live;
6 And I will lay sinews upon you and bring up
flesh upon you and cover you with skin, and I will put breath and spirit
in you. and you [dry bones] shall live; and you shall know, understand, and
realize that I am the Lord [the Sovereign Ruler, Who calls forth loyalty and
obedient service].
7 So I prophesied as I was commanded; and as I
prophesied, there was a [thundering] noise and behold, a shaking and trembling
and a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone.
8 And I looked and behold, there were sinews
upon [the bones] and flesh came upon them and skin covered them over, but there
was no breath or spirit in them.
9 Then said He to me, Prophesy to the breath and
spirit, son of man, and say to the breath and spirit, Thus says the
Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath and spirit, and breathe
upon these slain that they may live.
10 So I prophesied as He commanded me, and the
breath and spirit came into [the bones], and they lived and stood up
upon their feet, an exceedingly great host.
11 Then He said to me, Son of man, these bones
are the whole house of Israel. Behold, they say, Our bones are dried up
and our hope is lost; we are completely cut off.
12 Therefore prophesy and say to them, Thus
says the Lord God: Behold, I will open your graves and cause you to come up out
of your graves, O My people; and I will bring you [back home] to the land of
Israel.
13 And you shall know that I am the Lord [your
sovereign Ruler], when I have opened your graves and caused you to come up out
of your graves, O My people.
14 And I shall put My Spirit in you and you
shall live, and I shall place you in your own land. Then you shall know,
understand, and realize that I the Lord have spoken it and performed it,
says the Lord.
God spoke to me while working on the picture on this
day and showed me the following things.
“…behold, they were very dry…” What do church people typically say of Montana? That the church here is so dry.
“…there was a thundering noise and behold, a shaking and trembling and a rattling…” There is a shaking as things come into order with what God has in mind to bring to pass. Have you noticed the shaking happening lately in our State and the nation?
“come and breathe upon these slain…” They were slain. The army described here did not die of natural causes. They were violently slaughtered, their limbs torn from them and scattered round about the valley. Life was taken from them. Blood is crying out. God is come to bring justice to the slain.
Kim Walker’s spontaneous song, “Let Your Glory Rain
Down/ Cover us! Cover us!” was prayed out over the valley, calling for
God’s glory to come and revive the dry bones.