Open Vision of West Virginia, The Heart of the Nation

Dr Gary Kisner -   1948-2008 Fairmont, West Virginia

Fifteen years ago, I got up one morning. I was pastoring a church here in West Virginia at that time. I went to the bathroom to shave, and I put shaving cream on my face, picked up the razor, and my mirror went away, and the bathroom went away. I don’t know how to explain that to you because I am not a person that has been given to vision in the past or even now. The Lord will give me a mind’s eye picture or flash of a thing, but my bathroom went away, and I saw a map of the United States, and all the states were outlined so I could tell the individual boundaries of each state. It was up close to me in the for ground of my vision. It began to move away from me, and when it did, the state of West Virginia came off the map and began to move toward me as the map of the United States moved away. Well as that progressed, of course, finally all I could see was West Virginia. I couldn’t see the United States. When it got to that point, the state began to change. It began to pulsate, and it was almost like a sign. The Holy Spirit was speaking to my mind several things. The first one was ...

“West Virginia is a heart, and I have a heart for West Virginia.” And He said. “I’m going to use this state to touch the nation.” It continued to pulsate. And then all of a sudden in the central part of the state, a red dot appeared, it began to grow and filled the entire state of West Virginia until it filled it up to the top. And then the northern and eastern panhandle turned into arteries and opened  up at the ends, and the heart began to pump, and every time there was a beat, it pumped this red out of the two panhandles. The northern and the eastern panhandles. As it began to do that, it began to move away from me. I could see the map of the United States coming back, and …. I wish I could do this one time without getting emotional about it. It has been 15 years. But the map came back, and West Virginia took its place again in the map of the United States. The panhandles were starting to pump this red. And it pumped it into the country. And the Holy Spirit said. “I want to touch the United States through the state of West Virginia.”

Since that time, the Lord has told me a lot of things about it. He chose us for the same reason he chose Israel. When it happens, we are not going to be able to take credit for it because we are the least. He uses the… you know the base things of the world to confound the wise. He is about to do that. Well, I was just thrilled about it. I went out to tell everybody I could fine. I even went to the Christian radio station, and the host and I sat down, and I told him- and I always say this when I tell this – I made one mistake. It didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen. And it didn’t happen, and I forgot to ask the Lord when He might like to do that.

And so, a lot of things took place, and the Lord took us a lot of different places on our ministry journey. We ended up in Atlanta, Georgia, from 1992 to 1998. The Lord spoke to me and my wife separately and said, “resign your pastorate here in Atlanta, and go home.” I didn’t want to go home because I knew there was no ministry for me here. And the Lord kept saying, “Go Home.” (WV) And I said, Lord but there is nothing: there is no reason. There is no reason for me to go back there. What’s more, I don’t want to go. And the Lord brought that vision back again like a flash to my brain, and then I heard the Holy Spirit say. “This is the appointed time.”

So, we moved back here in 1998, and the Lord has just been pulling it all together. I mean He is raising up leadership around the state. And He is unifying the pastors and the churches who are networking the cities together now. And the foundation is being laid for a tremendous move of God. But I want to share something else. When we were praying back here a while ago, the Lord gave me a word like a flash, a mind’s eye picture to give to you folks tonight before we leave. It is just another way of saying what I’ve already said. At one point when we were praying, the Lord showed me this and these are the words that I heard. He said, “As a man lifts his arm from his side to extend his hand to hold forth a light in the darkness, so I have made this panhandle to be,” the Lord said. A lot of people think that men in government sets boundaries. And when he set the boundaries, when the Scripture is pretty clear about the fact that the Lord is the One who sets boundaries. And when He set out the boundaries of this most strangely shaped state, he had these lines in His heart that West Virginia was a heart and that this panhandle, just like a man lifting his arm with extended hand, the Lord said to me. “This is the time: this is the appointed time. I’m going to put a light in that hand, and it will dispel the darkness on the east coast and reach the portals of the national government” I don’t know more of the definition of it, but this is a very special place here in the panhandle, and I believe God has got tremendous things ahead.