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!

It Works!

I say it all the time about prayer. "It works!" Maybe you say it, too.

I don't know, something about that just bothers me. Like we're talking about some kind of kitchen appliance that's not on the fritz at the moment.

"Is your refrigerator running?"

"Do you have Prince Albert in a can?"

"Do you have your God in a box?"

Maybe from now on I'll try to say, "Prayer is amazing!"

Prayer IS a amazing. Because GOD is amazing.

So maybe by that line of reasoning, it's okay to say "prayer works." Because GOD works! "But Jesus replied, 'My Father never stops working, so why should I?" (See John 5:17)

What I know? It's that prayer "availeth much!!"

Unveiled Faces?

"When Moses came down the mountain carrying the stone tablets... he wasn't aware that his face glowed because he had spoken to the LORD face to face." (Exodus 34:29) Moses even had to veil his face before the people, because this glow kind of freaked them out. (See Exodus 34:29-35)

And what about us? But "all of us have had that veil removed so that we can be mirrors that brightly reflect the glory of the Lord. And as the Spirit of the Lord works within us, we become more and more like him and reflect his glory even more." (2 Corinthians 3:18)

So my question is, if we pray, spending time in God's presence, speaking with Him face to face, won't His glory be reflected in our lives before others? Maybe prayer is actually one of the most powerful ways we share the gospel with the world, even if we never say a word. Not that I'm advocating silence... I'm just wondering.

All I Can Do Is Pray?

Excerpt from Hope for Each Day: Prayer Releases God's Power

Pray without ceasing. 1 Thessalonians 5:17

How many times have you heard someone say, "All I can do is pray"?

All I can do is pray? You might as well say to a starving man, "All I can do is offer you food," or to a sick person, "All I can do is give you medicine that will make you well," or to a poor child, "All I can do is buy the toy you most want for your birthday."

Praying unlocks the doors of Heaven and releases the power of God. James 4:2 says, "You do not have because you do not ask." The Bible says, "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God" (Phil. 4:6).

This is true not only for our needs but the needs of others. So often our prayers focus only on ourselves. But God wants to use us, through our prayers, to touch the lives of other people as well. For whom should you be praying this day?

(Michele says) I really love this; I've thought about it often since last August 1st, the day it's from in the devotional. I do have one change and one addition, however. I know, this is Billy Graham we're talking about! Believe me, I have more respect for that man than I can possibly describe here and now. But for me, I would put that last question, "For whom could you be praying this day?" This opens up so many more possibilities, and sounds more like the joy I'm finding prayer to be rather just another item on my to-do list, which it certainly isn't!

The addition is just that I wanted to continue the thought of James 4:2. "You do not have because you do not ask. (v.3) You ask and do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives." So as not to think we can just ask God for anything and it's done!

As for whom I could be praying, there is a certain individual that keeps coming to mind in prayer. I'm not really sure if God's bringing her to my mind, or I'm "bringing" her to God's mind... or both! But that's a mere technicality. I love her and am concerned about her, though not for any particular reason I can put my finger on. I just am, and I'm telling the Lord about it, that's all.

Like a Child

The ladies I pray with have been talking and thinking and praying about childlike prayer. I think I'm going to be blogging about this idea a lot more in the future, but in the meantime, I would love to hear and share to the blog any stories you may have about prayers you prayed as a child, and how God answered them.

One word you never ever hear children use when they pray is "just." "Lord, 'just' do this and if You would 'just...'"

I'm not finding fault. I use that word in prayer all the time. I think we pretty much all do. It's become part of the lingo, a "Christianese" word we "just" use without really even thinking about it. But think about it. What are we saying? "Lord, I'm only asking for this much, because I don't really think You're big enough to do anything bigger than 'just' this." We pray for the possible. But our children pray amazing, "impossible" prayers. And God answers them!

By the way, this idea about the "just" word isn't mine. I read about it some time back in The Power of Simple Prayer by Joyce Meyer.

Yesterday I heard about a little boy named Clay who is seven. He is praying for his mommy to come back into his life. His buddy Wyatt is helping him with these prayers. His mother hasn't been a part of his life by her choice for pretty much as long as he can remember. He sees her maybe once a year, if that. How impossible a prayer is that? For him it's not a matter of "if," it's a matter of "when." I want to pray with Clay, too.

But more than that, I want to pray LIKE Clay.

The OTHER Other Mary

I don't really want to share this, but I think I'm supposed to. At church yesterday during worship I asked the Lord to make me more open to Him. I suddenly felt He showed me a place inside me that wasn't His. That I didn't even know was there. A place I created as a child where I would hide myself when things got crazy. Sort of like the garden in "Secret Garden," it helped me survive those years and on into the craziness of my young adult life, when the Lord could have helped me more, had I allowed it. But I wasn't ready to give it up, I guess, or to even let myself see it was there.

Then Pastor Jake spoke. For anyone who wasn't there, he talked about the "other Mary," the sister of Lazarus and Martha. I once wrote about becoming more of a Mary than a Martha. But when I hide myself away in my "safe" place, I'm a Martha all the way.

As Jake told us, now is the time for me to learn to "sit and be still in front of Jesus" (Luke 10:38-42). I need learn to "open up my heart to Jesus" (John 11:32-37). And to "worship in a radical/reckless/not safe new way" (John 12:1-8). It was like God was saying, "I gave Jake this message just for you. And I won't ask you to give something up without putting something way better in its place."

So this is what I had to share. It's scary. But I know, as Pastor Jake said, that God deals with us gently. That secret place had to go. It was safe for a while, but like an abscess, it had become walled off and unhealthy, and it just had to go.

Even if NO ONE reads this, it doesn't really matter. I had to share it is if to say, "Yes, Lord. I'm serious about this. I want to be completely Yours." So at the comfortable age of 52 (almost 53), I'm taking a new baby step again.

Thank God for "Youth Pastor Gets To Speak In Big Church Day"!