“Real prayer is life creating and life changing” –Richard J. Foster
My first time experiencing God was when I was fifteen years old, through prayer. At that time I was in deep depression and I was reading some of my darkest poetry to God as a cry for help. For the first time in my life, I heard God speak to me. It was amazing. I’m not going to go into detail on that because it doesn’t really go along with the point I am trying to make. And then another instance was when I first started going to North Pointe Community Church at the age of 16. This was one of the first times I’d been to this church, and the youth pastor’s lesson was “prayer.” And he gave an example of an intense God moment/prayer experience. He was driving home from college and God suddenly put it on his heart to pray for 2 of his friends who were married. A couple months later, he found out that those friends were having problems in the marriage a couple months earlier. Coincidence? I think not! His prayer experience really opened me up, somehow. I can’t give credit to my youth pastor for that one, it was all the Father!!!
I learned a lot about prayer from this chapter, like I mentioned earlier. I am going to mention some things that impacted me, and some things that I think and hope will impact you as well!
Have you ever wondered what the point was in praying for something when you know that everything in the universe is already set and cannot be changed? Paul states in 1 Corinthians 3:9 that we are working with God to determine the outcome of events. We are co-laborers with God! That makes me really excited!!! The Bible talks about, and gives examples of, the openness of the universe and how God is constantly changing his mind in agreement with his unchanging love. Some examples of God changing his mind include Exodus 32:14 and Jonah 3:10. If we, as children of God, have the power to, through power, change God’s mind…why don’t we pray over everything? That is not implying that God is constantly out to get us or anything along those lines. I’m only saying that you don’t need to feel silly praying for silly things. Just a week ago, I prayed with my leader, Becks, about how I had been having trouble sleeping. We prayed for the bed bugs to go away, for me not to get too hot while I slept, to not have bad dreams, and for my hair to not get stuck in my fan I slept with. And I slept through the whole night and woke up with no bed bugs. God is our Father! Haven’t you ever ran to your Dad because their was a spider in the bathroom? We should not hesitate to bring the simplest requests to the Father with confidence!
Have you ever wondered why you can pray for something over and over, but your request is never granted? Here is an example from Celebration of Discipline, “If we turn on our television set and it does not work, we do not declare that there are no such things as electronic frequencies in the air or on the cable. We assume something is wrong, something we can find and correct. We check the plug, switch, circuitry until we discover what is blocking the flow of this mysterious energy that transmits pictures. We know the problem has been found and fixed by seeing whether or not the TV works. It is the same with prayer.” What that exerpt from the book is trying to say is, sometimes the reason prayers are not answered is because we are praying wrongly. Maybe something inside us needs to change, or we need to learn patience and persistence. The possibilities are endless. The Father is always trying to teach us something, even while we are talking to him! To fix this problem, we need to listen to the Father, make adjustments and apply what we learned, and try again. Then we can know that our prayers are being answered, since it will be as obvious as a TV set working.
Sometimes we pray and pray and pray to God for something, but nothing ever happens and we wonder where God is. God isn’t ignoring us, rather we are ignoring God. We are not “tuned” in to God. “Listening to the Lord is the first thing, the second thing, and the third thing necessary for successful intercession.” We need to begin praying for people after we quiet what is going on in our mind and listen to what the Spirit is telling us. I know that might seem nearly impossible at times if you don’t know what the Spirit sounds like…but if you know and love Jesus and are Saved by him, you already have this voice inside you and He is waiting to be heard.
So there are really many more things that I learned about prayer, but those are some that stuck out to me more than others. And the whole reason I am choosing this week’s blog entry to be related to prayer is because of something that happened this past Friday. We had this awesome guy, Camp Holder, staying with us at the Gateway all last week. He came from Chattanooga, Tennessee to teach us about organic gardening and composting, and things of that sort. He started an organic garden at his church a year ago, and it is striving. This garden used to be a softball field, but now it produces tons of crops that they give to the community for free. (Whenever I post a blog full of pictures, I will post pictures of him, what he taught us, what we did with him, and his garden back home.) He left us on Friday to go home. Before he left the Gateway, all of us Novas participants prayed for him. It was incredible. I could literally feel God moving through Us and through Camp. After each of us prayed, we could feel the intensity and feel the tremors as God moved through us, and through Camp as well. It’s almost like when you walk into a room where people have been worshiping, and you can feel the heaviness of God before you even start worshiping. It’s just simply amazing. And that is our God. Isn’t it great when he shows up like that, and blesses us with His presence?
So, I’ve got some details for all of you, loves! My team and I will be leaving on an outreach trip on November 14th and getting back on November 20th. We have the option of serving in the Harlingen, Texas area or the Matamoros, Mexico area. My team and I haven’t made any definite plans yet, but soon we will have this all planned out. This is sort of like practice, but the real deal, for our outreach in South Africa. Please be praying that God will guide our steps in the process of planning this outreach. Also, my team and I will be doing ATL’s (Ask The Lord) this week in Matamoros. Please be praying, as well, that God will be directing us to where He needs us, to where His children need us.
Ask and it will be given to you. Seek and you will find. Knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives. He who seeks finds. And to him who knocks, the door will be opened. -Matthew 7:7-8
