A. 

During previous revivals people referred to it as "waiting on the Lord" or "tarrying" as they lingered expecting God's revival blessings. Although "soaking" includes waiting on the Lord, in this present move of the Spirit it means much more than that. To "soak" in God's presence is to rest in His love rather than to "strive" in prayer. As the person receiving a touch from God begins to connect with the reality of the Holy Spirit's presence, he might respond by falling or simply lying on the floor. As he rests expectantly in God's presence, often the Holy Spirit hovers over the person to reveal more of God's love and to renew and repair areas of a person's life. As the believer soaks in God's presence, the Lord takes control and begins to draw his attention to God's word either in the scriptures or through internal audible impressions or pictures he sees in his mind's eye.

One person likes to compare soaking to making pickles. In a classical Greek word study on the Greek words bapto, meaning to dip, and baptidzo, meaning to immerse was an article using the illustration of making pickles. The recipe called for the raw fruit to be dipped in boiling water to blanch or sterilize the cucumber, using the word bapto, which means "to dip in and out quickly." Then it called for the cucumber to be immersed, using the word baptidzo, and soaked in the brine and the pickling solution for several weeks. What happens during this soaking time is that the marinade or the pickling solution soaks deep into the flesh of the cucumber until it takes on the flavor of the pickling solution so that it no longer tastes like a raw cucumber. This is what we mean by soaking. May you be so marinated in the presence of the Holy Spirit, soaking in the River of God, that you no longer "taste" like your old, raw nature any longer, but you have taken on the flavor of the Holy Spirit. "Pickle us, Lord, in the marinade of the Holy Spirit. Soak us in your wonderful presence until we become more and more like you."