[/FONT]We have a pre-service prayer meeting on Friday nights. Many meet in the church dining room to pray for the meeting. One night I got there a bit early to pray alone. Soon after my arrival, a roadrunner with a lizard in its mouth, came up to the wall of windows facing the west. He started to dance and jump at the window as though he were trying to get inside. I live in Redding, California, and have spent quite a bit of time outdoors. I had never seen a roadrunner in my life and never even heard of one in northern California. I got within 3 feet of him and thought, “This is too strange to not be prophetic.” Minutes later he left. The time came for others to come to pray, and the room began to fill up. Then the roadrunner returned. One of my staff members said, “Oh, the roadrunner’s back.” I asked him what he meant. He said, “Yeah. He was here last week.” I responded, “You’re kidding!” He obviously wasn’t. For the next several months the roadrunner came to most every prayer meeting, usually with a lizard in its mouth. Some of our youth leaders began to meet in the dining room to pray before their main meeting on Wednesday nights. The roadrunner started to come to that prayer meeting as well, usually with a lizard in its mouth. I used to have a Signs and Wonders class on Sunday morning. One morning I talked about the signs that make you wonder, and used the roadrunner as an illustration. Almost on cue he came up to the window as before. The people pointed and said, “You mean him!” I was shocked. He came almost “on cue.” News began to spread about this strange recurring event. Many tried to help by doing research to find the meaning. I was told that in the natural the roadrunner is related to the eagle. They’re one of the few animals that will kill and eat a rattlesnake, which we do have in our area. (I was happy about that.) I already knew that eagles represent the prophetic and snakes usually speak of the devil. Knowing that the enemy would be trampled down through the increase of the prophetic brought great joy. During this time we starting building our 24-hour prayer chapel called The Alabaster House. The roadrunner started to shift his focus from our prayer meetings to that building. He would actually perch himself on a rock which many of our folks had taken to calling the Eagle Rock, because of its unusual resemblance to the head of an eagle. It was as though the roadrunner, who loved prayer meetings, was overseeing the prayer house building project. One day he got inside the church facility, right above the original prayer room. One of our custodians, Jason (an extremely prophetic student in our school of ministry), found the bird in a large second story meeting room. Jason turned on some worship music and sat in the middle of the room on the floor and worshiped the Lord. The roadrunner came over right in front of him and seemed to join him. He would occasionally leave Jason and go to the window as though he wanted outside, but then he came back and stood right in front of Jason as he worshiped. Jason started to feel bad for taking so much time for worship while he was supposed to be cleaning that he turned the music off and went downstairs to clean other rooms. The roadrunner went with him. Suddenly someone opened the door in the long hallway and startled the bird. He flew to the end of the hall, hit our plate glass window, and died instantly. This bird had become like a beloved mascot to us, reminding us of the importance of prayer. He loved prayer meetings and had become a prophetic symbol of God’s promised increase for us as a church family. He came during a time when many members had already left or were leaving, and the finances were extremely tight. The lizard in his mouth spoke to us of God bringing all that was needed for this move of God. As eagles represent the prophets, it was obvious that the prophetic was actually getting stronger and stronger within our church body. Jason found me to tell me this horrible news. I asked him to show me where he had put the bird so we could go and raise it from the dead. With a sense of purpose and confidence we walked around back where the roadrunner was laying. It made perfect sense to me that God would want the roadrunner alive. Why should He want our living prophetic message dead? Strangely, I actually felt the anointing lift when I got around 5 to 6 feet away from the bird. It was puzzling to me. God’s presence was upon me in a strong way until I got close. It was like He was saying my resolve was good, but my application and timing was not. The roadrunner was not raised from the dead. We were quite sad. Then the Lord spoke, “What I am bringing into the house has to have a way of being released from the house, or it will die in the house.” That word applied to the money we desperately needed, the manifest gifts of the Spirit we were crying out for, the specific anointings we were growing in, and the people who were being saved. The word was costly and clear; we only get to keep what we give away. [FONT=montserrat, sans-serif]