Bottom Feeders

While in the midst of worship I saw a number of sucker fish surfacing in the waters of a vision. All over the place these fish came to the top, breaking the water as they sought oxygen. Suckers roam the bottom of ponds and slow moving streams living off the bottom.

As I watched this I thought “jubilee.” It was a word that had been in my ears that day. And I was working hard to remember a word that Bob Jones had shared many years ago about jubilee, fish and water.

This morning I spent time in prayer and research. It took me a while to find the prophecy. It was from 2004. (He said a “Jubilee” -fish jump out of the ocean droves seeking oxygen- in a place called Mobile Bay- By the way, the original name of Mobile Bay was Bay of the Holy Spirit!) WOW!

History Of Mobile Bay Jubilee

“ …Hundreds of live sea crabs and fish… completely covered the beach at Point Clear and Zundels Sunday morning. A fisherman of experience in explaining the unusual occurrence stated that it was a “jubilee”… People who saw the wild scramble of fish and crabs on the sandy beach say they won’t soon forget the sight. ”

—Mobile Daily Register, July 29, 1912

This was not, however, the first time the newspaper had covered the phenomenon; in his research, oceanographer Edwin B. May found several dozen mentions of similar events, the earliest dated back to July 17, 1867 and alludes to the fact that the phenomenon was known to have happened earlier:

“ EXCITEMENT AMONG THE FISH—Yesterday all the fish in the bay seemed to be making for the Eastern shore. Large numbers of crabs, flounders and other fish were found at the water’s edge, and taken in out of the wet. They were counted by the bushel. Annually this phenomenon occurs with the fish along the Eastern shore. They all appear to forsake the deep water, and swim and cluster in immense numbers to the shore. ”

—Mobile Daily Register, July 17, 1867

In an oral account from 1960 a local fishing captain named Frank Phillips stated that he had observed jubilee events for the previous 60 years, indicating that “[N]either [the] frequency nor intensity… had changed”. He also stated that his father had also seen jubilee events “…during all his life.”

I continued to watch my vision. Hundreds, thousands and then it was uncountable for there were so many came to the surface. And they just hung there in water with their mouths to the air and theirs upwards.

A bottom feeder fish is one who goes and gets the scraps off the bottom of the water, often eating leftovers, algae(freeing oxygen) and more. They are used to living in the dark, moving through the mud.

And then it began to move on me. God never called His people to be bottom feeders, unaware of their surroundings in the darkness, eating what is left and called to a slow moving life with seemingly no where to go, nothing to see.  There is a new move on the earth of calling God’s people upwards and into the light. No longer called to live on a diet of “just so much and no more.” But a people called out of darkness, out of the miry clays and polluted waters, into a life of the living.

The Lord is calling His people up to their rightful positions, not “bottom feeders” but seated at the right hand of the throne of the Living God. Able to look around and see the millions that are with them.

And even as I meditated on the vision I saw a waterspout pulling these fish into the airs over the waters and flying them about the globe. No longer bottom feeders but flying fish. (I was reminded of my dreams of Zebedee.)

I see a harvest of His people as they come to understand who they are and what they are called to. This will not happen by calling out their sins(bottom feeding) but by revealing to them the Christ and in Him all grace and truth are found.  Our identity is not that of a sinner saved by grace, but a saint called out of sin. As His people see themselves through God’s eyes and His love it the change that is eternal. Out of our bellies shall flow rivers (waterspouts) of living water. Water that is “oxygenated” with a zoe life and gives life. There is a river of life found in us. It is a new day as a people turn their eyes to Him and see who they are in Him.

I see a people of His grace, flooded with His love. They are moving across the nations.

Deuteronomy 30:15 “Now listen! Today I am giving you a choice between life and death, between prosperity and disaster.

Do not settle for darkness. Do not settle for less. Declare the goodness of His love over your family, over your friends, over your communities.

There is a jubilee in us, about us. All debts have been paid. All debts forgiven. The weights that kept us on the bottom have been removed. The mindsets of this “could never happen” are His mind that “it is happening!”