Saturday, May 10, 2008

You Say You Want a Servolution

Okay, so I said I was going to start blogging more often, and I haven't really done so. I wasn't lying; I meant well, but it didn't happen. Starting a new job and all that entails, and working on the prayer team for Servolution, there just wasn't much of me left. Trust me, I'm not complaining. I'm extremely thankful for both of those activities. Especially after today.

It's 3:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday, my house is a mess, and I haven't lifted a finger to alter that situation. Yet. But I'm so excited about today, I want to write about it while the high is still fresh. Servolution was awesome. I have never experienced prayer like I did today. I'm sure anyone reading this has (I'd say "everyone" but there's a good chance it's "no one," especially given my faithlessness of late, so I chose to say "anyone"), but I hadn't. Experienced prayer like today, I mean, in case you lost track of where that sentence was going. Like I did.

I'd have thought praying with a group of people over the course of four hours might have gotten tedious, but it DIDN'T, at least not for me. I had a sense of knowing beyond any doubt that God was honoring our prayers in specific concrete ways. It was as if the Lord was sitting in the room with us, smiling and nodding at our every request, no matter how haltingly or falteringly or presumptuously it might be made, then sending orders instantly to the troops on the front lines.

When people starting trickling back to the church and we began to hear some of the stories, I heard myself sounding like a broken record, saying "Wow, we prayed for (or about) that exact thing!"

For instance: When one member of our group starting praying for the dogs and cats that might be impacted by our doings, and how that might garner the notice of some humans, I thought "Hm. That's kind of different, but who knows?" Later I heard how one team ended up rescuing a litter of kittens that had been abandoned by the mamma cat, bought formula and kitty baby bottles to feed them (I didn't even know there were such things!), then found a worker at the pet store who was willing to take the babies under her care (when she gets off at 5:00). And those folks saw another one of our "yellow shirt" teams at the pet store doing whatever they were doing, obviously something to do with animals, as well.

I thought how odd it must have sounded when I said, "Oh my, we prayed about that!" Sure... People get together to pray for those going forth to show the love of Jesus and just... pray about dogs and cats! Happens all the time!

There were the folks who went to nursing homes to visit patients, and later told us the patients loved that, but that it was the nurses who seemed the most touched. "That's exactly what we prayed for!" And so on.

And I'm certain that as more of the stories come out, we'll be saying that over and over again. Hopefully I can and will update this blog with additional news from the prayer front as news from all the other fronts comes in.

Almost sounds like a battle, all this talk about fronts and troops. Well that's pretty much how it felt from the situation (prayer) room. But it ALSO felt like our Father's Kingdom made some huge inroads into many hearts and lives, including those of some very small creatures whose eyes aren't even open yet. Because of God's love, they soon will be...one thing, at least, that they will have in common with the tens, the hundreds, maybe (down the road) even hundreds of thousands of their human counterparts. All because of one day called Servolution and one mighty, awesome God who isn't bound by our imagination, even when we're at our most imaginative!

Never underestimate the power of prayer. MORE IMPORTANT, never underestimate the power of LOVE!! Jesus was in the house and He rocks!

Oh, and what about that first song the worship team did this morning??? More on that in the future!