This is an entry from my journal that I kept while we were out on tour. As I was praying tonight I decided I wanted to share this experience. This is what caused the change in my life.

Background: 

Before the tour I had really been praying about my future with the band and my heavily growing desire to become a worship leader. I decided to use this time out and away from everything I found comfort in to focus on God and let Him reveal to me what He wants for my life. About a month before I left I understood that this tour would answer all kinds of prayers that I had for my future.

Wednesday night April 20th
It turns out that our show in New Orleans for Thursday the 21st gets cancelled and so we have a free day. This excited me because my father months before had talked to me about spiritual warfare and principalities. One of those places he stressed to me was New Orleans, he told me to be prepared because I was going to be attacked. So I had thought maybe God moved this out of our way but the guys wanted to go visit the city so we went ahead anyway.

We went downtown and walked down Burbon street which was overwhelmingly riddled with lust and perversion. A heavy weight fell upon me that I felt I needed to pray over that street as we walked, so I did. Soon we made it to the end of the street and eventually got back to the van. Everything went as normal, we met up with the people we were staying with and spent the night there. 

Thursday April 21st
We all get up in the morning pack the van and head on our way. The van cuts off after about 50 feet. It wont start back up but luckily we have triple A. Taylor and Brendan start on a walking journey to get a new battery while the rest of us wait on triple A. Thirty minutes later Triple A brings a new battery and we hook it up and still the van won’t start. At this point I’m the only one in the van and I’m just finishing up my daily reading, which all that week had been going through the power and importance of the Holy Spirit in Romans Chapter 8. I decided to get out of the van and start praying over it and for God to provide the way for us to keep moving. I finish the prayer and on this attempt it started. We all breathe a sigh of relief get back in the van thank the triple a fellas and start on down the road. We begin to pray and thank God for providing a solution and we get another 100 ft and it dies again. At least this time we are in rolling distance to a gas station so we slowly pull in. The van wont start so we flag down the triple A guys again and they stop over for more inspection. The van is now to a point that it needs to be towed to a Firestone about half a mile down the road. So Zach, Jason and I start the walk down the highway shoulder while Brendan and Taylor wait with the van for the tow truck. While walking and feeling stressed from all that is happening I look out into a giant blue sky and I think, “God even though this all sucks You are still here and you are still providing us with helping hands, thank You and praise You." 

  4 Hours and a new fuel pump later our van is ready to go. We finally get off back roads and onto the highway and the van starts to sputter. That sinking feeling comes to my chest and I start to pray. I close my eyes and I get this vision of one giant angel above our van and two smaller ones on each side fighting these dark demons swirling around our van. I immediately start praying for the angels strength and the van starts to smooth out and I continue to pray until I fall asleep.

Around 9 o'clock we stop for dinner and on the way back to the van Jason asks me to ride co-pilot and I oblige. We get back on the highway and everything is going great. Taylor begins to apologize for being snappy because he felt so stressed and all of a sudden the van cuts off again but this time in the middle of the highway. We pull off onto a very dangerous shoulder and at this point we are all defeated. Again we can’t get the van to start and after about 10 minutes I decided to get out and walk to the front of the van place my hands on the front grill and ask God to make this van work. "It is a machine and God you are bigger than a machine let Your Spirit give us power to keep going,” and Taylor turns the key and as I’m standing there the lights come on and it starts again and with uneasy spirits we continue along.

At around 10 o clock a strange heavy weight starts to fall on me. I feel a tightness on my throat, like hands grabbing at my neck pushing my head up against the head rest. I realize what is happening and close my eyes to pray under my breath. I get another vision of the demons swirling around our van and the angels fighting them. The choking feeling gets harder and I start to pray against the demons and after a bit my language as I pray starts to change. My tongue starts going out of control I start to awkwardly shake, feeling the intensity of whats going on and I am all confused and dont know what I’m saying. 15 minutes goes by it doesn’t stop, 30 minutes and its still going. I start to feel extremely tired and just hang my head in exhaustion but my tongue keeps going. I look up and realize we are still in Louisiana and I think this isn’t stopping anytime soon. I begin reflecting on the trip to New Orleans and how I felt while we were there and that feeling was the same as now. I figured we escaped the expected spiritual warfare because nothing happened while we were there but the devil doesn’t work that way he’s a deceiver and waits for the moments we aren’t expecting for him to attack. Sitting in the front seat I begin to understand I’m at the frontline of this vehicle and this battle, I’m under attack, but God is using His Spirit to fight off these demons through me and this prayer language. 

     By this time, about an hour in I dont feel like me. I feel like im just a body because I’m extremely worn out but my tongue doesn’t stop. I thought about how just a day before I was talking to a friend on how God was really hammering home this Romans 8 Spirit lesson and I told her some days I feel like I’m a weak man but the truth is I am incredibly strong, I’m not me, I’m just a body but with the Spirit of Christ in me; and that is power, that is strength. Well this is what I felt like, praying in a tongue I never heard nor understood, trying to keep our van moving. I was just a body, a housing to the Holy Spirit.

We cross into Texas and I feel the heavy weight off my chest leave and I feel calm, but my tongue is still going. Under my breath words I dont understand or know how to create still flow out of my mouth. Then all of these names jump into my head. Names from high school, middle school, and people I haven’t talked to in years. I would think a name and then my tongue would go, this process repeating itself over and over.  The names became more and more familiar and I probably went through 50 to 75 people. I began to understand I was praying for people through the Spirit and in ways I don’t even know and I just began to embrace it.

My eyes have been closed for pretty much this whole time and then all of a sudden my tongue stops. I open my eyes, lift my head and see this giant lit up sign in front of a church and all it says in bright white letters is “Worship Leader” nothing else. Just worship leader.

I immediately knew I needed to take a time of fasting and prayer over one, the victory of the spiritual warfare, and two what everything that just happened meant. So I turned my phone off, stayed away from tv, internet, all distractions and just prayed for the next two days. I decided that this will be my last run with SF and I will be putting forth all my efforts to become a worship leader. What I believe undoubtedly to be my calling from God.


Romans 8v22 We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time. 23 Not only so, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for our adoption to sonship, the redemption of our bodies. 24 For in this hope we were saved. But hope that is seen is no hope at all. Who hopes for what they already have? 25 But if we hope for what we do not yet have, we wait for it patiently. 
 

26 In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. 27 And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. 28 And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.