Inheritance

October 18, 2005

Eulogy for LaJean Williams Our Beloved Leader

Delivered by Penny Burns  

Tonight is a night of remembrance and a night to take hold of the heritage of this house.  It’s a night to remember a spiritual mother and a spiritual father in the spirit. Tonight I want to remember LaJean and I hope to speak the heart of the Lord about an inheritance that belongs to this little IHOP. 

“By faith Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau concerning things to come. By faith Jacob when he was dying blessed each of the sons of Joseph and worshipped leaning on top of his staff.  And by faith when he was dying made mention of the departure of the children of Israel and gave instruction concerning his bones.”  Hebrews 11: 20-23

When LaJean was here with us on this side of eternity she blessed us and helped to prepare us for things to come.  LaJean was a Forerunner.  She lived her life to promote what the Lord is doing in this hour.  It was her dream to see every believer walk in fullness.  She dedicated her last few years, if not her entire earthly walk, to see that many were equipped to run fully with the Lord.

She leaned on her staff in the authority that God gave her and instead of using her staff to promote herself she blessed the generation behind her.  In doing so she leaves an inheritance to those in this house.  Even on the day she died she talked with me at length about the future of this little IHOP family, the vision of purity in this house of prayer and the faithfulness needed to move forward in what God wants to do in this city. 

I believe LaJean had the same kind of tenacity that the Hebrew writer wrote about in Verse 27 of the same chapter, “Moses forsook Egypt , not fearing the wrath of the king for he endured as seeing Him who is invisible.”  LaJean saw something in the invisible that was worth leaving the comfortable acceptance of the world. 

I am reminded of a time when we were at the Kansas City IHOP and a young woman prophesied over LaJean.  She said “You are one that when others sat down, you stood up.”  Even to a stranger who had the word of the Lord, LaJean’s authority and burden was evident. It is not easy to stand when all around you are sitting. LaJean endured it all because she saw the invisible.  She could see her King.

The writer of Hebrews wrote that those in faith often bear trials and reproaches.  In verse 37 it says that those in faith were “stoned, they were sawn in two, were tempted, were slain with the sword.  They wandered about in sheepskins and goatskin, being destitute, afflicted and tormented.”  Like many women of faith before her LaJean sometimes boar the reproach for her uncompromising faith.  Her feisty spirit and zeal for the house of the Lord sometimes brought her into conflict, but her love for God and her love for the body of Christ would not compromise. 

And yet she did not see the fulfillment of the promise in this house and in the body of Christ in this city.  Just like those described in verse 21 “who having obtained a good testimony through faith did not receive the promise.”

But, you see, there is a reason why some do not receive on this side. Listen as the writer continues “For God having prepared something better for us, that they should not be made perfect apart from us.”  Our perfection and those going before us are tied to each other.  We build together to the perfecting of the saints from generation to generation; one building on the faith of the other. 

Our promise is that LaJean and those who came in faith before her have paved our way and that they are still at work for us.  I believe that LaJean is still at work for us.  In Hebrews, Chapter 12:1 it says that we are surrounded by a great cloud of witnesses. 

It was no accident that we felt lead to watch the Forerunner Conference tape from Mike Bickle last week.  Mike compared our life here on earth to an internship.  He said that when we complete our training here we move to a higher job by joining the great cloud of witnesses.  Think of it, a great cloud who have the mind of Christ in perfect wisdom of revelation!

This week while I was in the prayer room in Kansas City my heart was grieving.  But, I believe the Lord pulled back the veil for a moment and I heard this as though LaJean herself was speaking to my spirit:

“Don’t grieve for me; grieve for those who cannot see;

For I see clearly now and I run free; 

I have gone into the North country for you.”

Our inheritance in this house is layed out before us.  It is not an easy path to follow.  The  Hebrew writer exhorts us to “lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us.”  LaJean, along with many who came before her, have layed out a way for us.  Our way is not effortless, but it has been made less difficult because LaJean is a forerunner and she has run ahead to prepare a better way for us. My prayer is that we build on the ceiling that LaJean left to us.