Moving at the Speed of Faith

As a young SWAT cop, I was assigned to the case of the Symbionese Liberation Army – the SLA. The SLA was the premier domestic terror unit in operation in the United States during the early 1970’s. They kidnapped heiress Patty Hearst and went on a spree of bank robberies eventually ending their reign of crime and terror in a shootout with LAPD in May of 1974.  

Two founder members of the SLA, Joseph Remiro and Russell Little, were housed in the Santa Clara County Jail in San Jose, California on murder charges. They assassinated the Oakland School Superintendent in the fall of 1973 with a cyanide-laced bullet.  They were housed in our jail because they had attempted a violent escape from the Alameda County Jail and because we had a facility designed for high-risk prisoners. My SWAT partner and I were assigned to close security detail any time these two moved. Some of our days were spent viewing the two prisoners through the scopes of our rifles as they were transported between court facilities. The threat level for a potential escape attempt was high.

When the murder case was finally over in the spring of 1975, Remiro was sent to San Quentin and Little to Folsom.  We had briefings that other terrorist units wanted to free these two as a statement of solidarity. The transport was planned with a heightened level of security and coordination with each jurisdiction through which we would travel.  The transport team consisted of five vehicles.  Our entire SWAT unit – all three teams - was positioned evenly throughout all five vehicles. Each suspect was placed in a separate vehicle and surrounded by SWAT officers. In front and back of these two prisoner transport vehicles were two other units. I was in the fifth vehicle assigned to orbit the four other vehicles as we moved.  Our assignment was to not be stationary in the convoy and to remain unpredictable to any approaching threat.

As we made the trip to San Quentin and Folsom, we were running at speeds between 80-100 miles an hour to keep ourselves moving faster than the normal flow of traffic. This would help us see an approaching ambush.  The CHP was seen in passing blocking freeway on ramps as we flew by. On one leg of the transport the Richmond- San Rafael Bridge that spans San Francisco Bay was blocked at both ends as we moved across. The detail looked like something out of an action movie.

I laid out this story to illustrate a point.  Things are moving fast. Culture is morphing at hyper-speed before our eyes. God never intended His Church to fall behind, but move ahead of culture in the power of the Spirit at the speed of prophetic revelation. Moving with the Spirit will enable us to detect an approaching lie like our transport detail was prepared to do had we detected a threat with plans to hit our transport convoy.

A slow moving and reluctant faith will put your spiritual life in jeopardy. God is releasing words for this moment in our history that will require an immediate and spiritually well-armed response. Find a group of believers who are willing to move with you at the speed of faith.  Moving at the speed of faith will give you the ability to detect any threat that comes against the peace and order God has intended for you, your family and your community. A target moving at the speed of faith is hard to hit.