11/15/2023
“The tent peg will become the lightening rod.” It’s a word that I received on Sunday, April 30, 2023 while sitting in Morningstar Ministries’ Sunday morning service. I was sitting in the second service that was a rehash of the first service. I decided since I had already heard the sermon, I’d sit and revisit my notes and revelations I had received over the course of the trip. As I was reviewing my notes, I heard the word above. I then sketched out a diagram of what the Lord was showing me.
I’ve sat on that word since April, not feeling like the Lord was ready for me to release the word. As I was praying about what to share today…God highlighted this word. I’m thankful that it’s finally time to share this word.
Since Fall 2022 God’s been telling me I’m a tent peg. Do you ever feel like you are stationed somewhere important. You are fighting for the Lord to claim that territory, and the winds are blowing all around you and chaos is hitting from every side? Do you ever feel like forces of evil are trying to get you to just quit and leave….well then this is for you.
As I was praying about this word, God was telling me that many of you are tent pegs in different locations:
- Tent peg in the home-fighting for those family members to come to Christ.
- Tent peg against addiction-trying to help that loved one break free,
- Tent peg in that office you work in-Praying that others around you would stop their foolish antics and come to Christ.
- Tent peg in your church-praying the Lord would come bring revival into your congregation and awaken the church.
- Tent peg in a governmental office-trying to bring righteousness and justice into the jurisdiction where you work.
- Tent peg in a school-praying and fighting for the agendas of God to be taught over the agendas of evil.
- Tent peg in a medical facility-praying for healing over the patients and ministering to families and patients.
- Or lastly, maybe you’re a tent peg over a farm-where the devil has tried to steal your land and inheritance in multiple ways including breaking up the family relationships, sudden deaths of family members, financial hurdles, and severe weather events.
When you think about a tent…the tent pegs seem quite inconsequentional. It’s never the thing you notice about the tent. When driving by the tent you notice the size, the color, the shape, but no one ever looks to see what type of tent pegs are there. However, it’s the most important part of the tent. It is the stability that the tent needs to remain standing against any gust of wind.
So let’s go to our Bible to discover what tent pegs were in the Bible. In Exodus 38:20 tent pegs are listed amongst the equipment that was needed for the tabernacle. “All the pegs of the tabernacle, and of the court all around, were bronze.” So while reading this….I heard that God uses tent pegs when He wants to build a place to house the presence of the Lord. If God’s building a place to house something Holy, then no wonder there is so much warfare where you are.
Let’s go to a more well-known tent peg story. If you turn to Judges 4:17 you can read about Jael and how the Lord used a very unexpected person to drive that tent peg into the temple of the enemy. Another thing to notice about this story is that tent pegs can look very innocent and non-threatening. People often don’t even notice they are there at first. The Lord is using people you wouldn’t expect in ways you wouldn’t expect. Another thing to note here is that spiritual tent pegs are used in the spiritual realm. The prayers, decrees, praise, and faith of intercessors and other Holy Spirit-filled Christians are used in our prayer closets and send God’s angel armies to go do the battle for us. We need to stand against the enemy in the natural realm as well by engaging in our spheres of influence, but we battle from a place of victory. The battle has already been won by the blood of Jesus at the cross.
So back to the importance of the tent peg. The most important thing about the tent peg is that it stays in the ground and doesn’t come out. When we were preparing for our first revival on our farm last May…I was very excited about the tent going up. The tent rental company came out the day before the event to drive the tent pegs into the soil and erect the tent. At lunch Don came and told me that they had to move the location of the tent because the ground was too soft and the tent pegs wouldn’t stay. Christina and I prayed at lunch for a solution. Meanwhile the tent company employees left and got longer tent pegs that would go deeper into the ground for a better hold. After many issues, the tent went up and it held the entire week for our event. You might be in a place where the conditions aren’t good. You may feel like it’s impossible to hold your ground. In the naturaly it may appear like all is hopeless and lost. However, God is creating you to be one of those extra large tent pegs that goes down deep to hold onto your foundation. An important note here is that God is with us in the field. There’s a whole Holy month called Elul on the Hebrew calendar to repent and meditate on the fact that you are not alone while staked in the field. God is with you. So an important reminder here is that the strength of the tent peg is not our own strength, but that of digging down deep into our faith and leaning not on our own understanding.
Now let’s cover the lightening rod part. We had been to see Charlie Shamp while visiting his church in Moravian Falls, NC. We watched him receive a gift of a custom pulpit. There was a beautiful ceremony and the woman who built the pulpit explained every aspect of the pulpit. She said it was made of wood from prayer mountain where the Moravians had lived and prayed for over 100 years 24/7 hours a day. At the base of the pulpit was a metal stake, or a lightening rod. It was surrounded by wool because pastoring a flock can be smelly work sometimes. There was a verse written in sharpie because his work is going to be a humble work.
When I was sitting a few days later in Morningstar Ministries I definitely heard the phrase “The tent peg will become the lightening rod.” I immediately sketched out that pulpit and I thought of the tent peg being a conduit of Holy Spirit power wherever that tent peg is stationed. None of us realized it at the time, but the word that the pulpit builder gave to Charlie was a word for each one of us placed in different areas. We are to be the conduit for the Holy Spirit to connect to.
I looked up the function of the lightning rod and this is what the purpose of the lightning rod is. “A lightning rod and it’s associated grounding conductors provide protection because they divert the current from nonconducting parts of the structure, allowing it to follow the path of least resistance and pass harmlessly through the rod and its cables. It is the high resistance of the nonconducting materials that causes them to be heated by the passage of electric current, leading to fire and other damage.” So spiritually I hear that to say: As tent pegs for the Lord, we are to be a target for the Holy Spirit to use as a conductor of least resistance…because we are very willing to partner with the Holy Spirit, to channel that power into our location…meanwhile saving our fellow people from fiery destruction. Wow. What is key here? Intercessory prayer and partnering with the Holy Spirit.
Now let’s talk about the Holy Spirit because without the lightning…nothing is going to happen. We can stand around and be tent pegs all day long…but if we don’t partner with the power of Holy Spirit…crickets. If we are saved and born again…The Spirit of God lives in us. As it says in 1 Corinthians 3:16 “Do you not know that you are the temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” In John 14:26 it says, “But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, who the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you. I’ve been learning how spirit connects with spirit. So think about us…the lightning rods where Holy Spirit dwells being the conductor to reach God the spirit in Heaven. Go to verse John 4:23-24 “But the hour is coming, and now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth; for the Father is seeking such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.” God has to connect to the Holy Spirit in us, because He is spirit in Heaven. You need to be filled with the Holy Spirit to be able to connect with everything God has for you, and in order to engage your territory in all the ways He wishes to use you.
So I’m going to finish with my testimony…because truly being born again and subsequently receiving the Baptism of the Holy Spirit is the most incredible and activating thing that’s ever happened to me. I want readers to understand that any power that I
So this is how I came to seek God more deeply, and then how I was filled with the Holy Spirit and fire. In 2019 I was at my very lowest. I was 1 year into a new role in our business after about 5 years of tense operations. Our farm had split several times as people had left over the years, but this last split in 2018 was incredibly hard for me. It divided our family in half…from some of the family members I had worked with for years and I really felt left behind and blindsided. It also divided the land I grew up on and loved sharply in half. Over the next year I worked very hard to learn how to do the jobs that would be left vacant: accounting, payroll…things I had never done before. 2019 had been a year of financial hardship for our farm. The crops were beautiful, but they just weren’t selling. Then in October of 2019, right after the Mountain State Apple Harvest Festival our farm market office was burglarized. Shockingly, I realized we had been robbed by a group of employees. My fear and mistrust was skyrocketing. I really needed those funds that year, and I was so devastated that my staff would do this to me. It felt very personal. By December, I wasn’t sure how I was going to pay my next payroll. I started having trouble sleeping during these months. I never have had trouble sleeping! I always sleep like a log! But I was waking up around 3:30 every morning and I would lie in bed, riddled with anxiety about money and business. I can’t remember the exact date, but one night I know I gave it all to the Lord because my heart was finally ready to 100% turn it over to God. Doing things Katy’s way was finally surrendered at the cross. I remember that I was too exhausted and anxious to even know what to pray, so instead I just said, “I’m here God. I’m here. Do whatever you want with me. I’m done doing it my way. ANYTHING would be easier than this.” In the past I had always tried to do things in my own strength. I now realize that disobedience is so hurtful to our Lord and that I was engaging in witchcraft by using my power over the power of God.
Just to give you a brief background…I had grown up in a Lutheran church, where I had learned about God and Jesus, and knew all the Bible stories. I had memorized the books of the Bible, the disciple’s names, and memorized scriptures. I had attended Catechism training and taken Communion. I loved God, and always felt like He loved me, but something was missing. I always had a hard time feeling close to Jesus. I knew about Jesus, but I didn’t know him. The only thing I remember about the Holy Spirit from my younger years was reciting a song every Sunday where we sang, “Take not your Holy Spirit from me.” I never witnessed any spiritual gifts or ever was able to hear the voice of the Lord. I think my story is very common amongst people sitting in denominational churches all across America. They don’t even realize that they are missing the power of the Holy Spirit.
So fast forward to early 2020. I noticed immediate changes after being born again and turning over my life fully to God’s will. I noticed that I really had lost all interest in watching t.v. or reading novels. I replaced these activities with listening to Christian books on Audible and watching preachers on You Tube. One morning shortly after, I was watching Christian television one day and came across “It’s Supernatural, With Sid Roth”. I remember that Sid’s guest was describing how she was caught up into Heaven and met angels. Another guest was speaking about getting healed from a sickness. I sat down and watched this show intently. I remembered thinking, “is this ok to watch?” I laugh and laugh about that now, but it’s not really funny. The church is so far removed from the miracles of the Bible that we act surprised or suspicious when God answers a prayer or moves in miracles and dreams. The more I read my Bible I see how religion has robbed us of the joy and celebration in how the Holy Spirit moves. Jesus said, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father.” So many people in the church don’t even expect to see a healing, let alone any “greater things”.
Shortly after starting to watch Sid Roth and other pastors on You Tube over the next few months, I decided I wanted to receive the baptism of the Holy Spirit. Sid Roth’s guests often pray at the end of their shows for guests to have an impartation. I prayed with Sid Roth multiple times to receive the Holy Ghost. A few days later, I noticed that I was covered in a burning fire that lasted and lasted for months. I believe the Lord was burning off anything in my life that had to go. I was instantly set free of some nagging sins that had been hard to kick. But now that I’m full of the Holy Spirit, it’s easy to walk away from sins that used to be hard to avoid. I still feel that fire daily and I now know how to stir it up when I start feeling it dwindling at times.
Lastly, the most important thing I’ve found through being born again and baptized in the Holy Spirit is the ability to hear the Lord. I used to be frustrated by my inability to hear the Lord. I was always wondering what is God’s will for my life? Or what should I do about this issue? Well-meaning people would say, “Have you prayed about it?” I never felt like I could hear the Lord’s answers to my questions up to that point. And no one ever really explained to me HOW to hear the Lord. Once I could hear from the Lord, I started asking Him what to do about different situations. I also found that strategies for my life were coming into focus. Holy Spirit would lead me in a direction and multiple confirmations would come to light. God was speaking to me in different ways. The reason I’m going into all this detail is that I believe there are so many people who are stuck where I was. What is the purpose for hearing God’s will for your life? Then you can align your mind with what God wants for you. When you start praying God’s will for your life…that’s when things will start happening quickly. Your life, and your family’s life will start coming into alignment with what God has destined you to be. Then, you can start reaching out to others and sharing the salvation of Jesus with everyone you meet.
So go be a tent peg and conduct that Holy Spirit fire to everyone you come into contact with! God bless.