As you can probably guess, I am officially back. After many, many hours cramped on an airplane I have finally returned home. However, I am a changed person as the Lord continues to work in my life. As many of you know from my previous post, I left on a short-term mission trip to support the persecuted church. I was in an area that was so hostile to Jesus, that mentioning what I did here on this site, could potentially cause some to be imprisoned or executed. So with that in mind I won’t mention the details.
However, I asked for prayer support while I was gone. Friends, I am here to tell you that your prayers were answered. I may never get the opportunity to meet you this side of heaven, and I may not know the specifics or frequency in which you prayed, but I do know that you were praying for me. Never in my life have I felt such strong prayer coverage. While I was gone I saw many miracles happen. Now being more of the intellectual type, I’m not one to usually see a miracle “behind every tree.” However, I saw things over the past few weeks that could only have a supernatural cause; there is simply no human explanation for it. These miracles were a direct result of your prayers. I would like to thank you from the bottom of my heart as well as on behalf of the persecuted church for your prayers.
While on my trip I worked with people representing 5 different continents. Talk about international coordination. I was able to attend church service at an underground church. I heard firsthand accounts of people being beaten, jailed, and executed for no other reason than their faith in Jesus Christ. Folks, these aren’t stories from hundreds of years ago. Many of the events in these stories have taken place since Christmas (less than a month ago). I learned first hand the reality of spiritual warfare. That is Angels and Demons are engaged in battle right now as you read this. And possibly most importantly, I learned to pray, without ceasing, like you know that it will be answered. God continued to answer prayers one right after another. Friends, if you’ve ever struggled with whether or not your prayers get answered (as I used to really struggle with this) may I offer you a suggestion? Start a prayer journal. A prayer journal can be anything from a piece of paper to a memo pad. Divide it up into three columns. The first column is for the “Date the Prayer was Entered.” The second column is “The Specific Prayer.” The third column is “Date the Prayer was Answered.” Now remember, prayer isn’t some magical wish list that we present to God. The prayers must be prayed in accordance to his will (as he always knows what is better for us than we do) and sometimes he answers them with a firm “No.” Friends, I guarantee you in a very short period of time you will see just how quickly God will answer your prayers. In fact, I believe you will find that he answers all of them (He will always answer with either “yes” “no” or “wait”). I don’t mean to get off on a tangent but prayer is so critical to a Christian’s life. If you are like me and used to think your prayer life is boring, repetitive, or predictable, I challenge you to change how you are praying. Start a prayer journal, mix up your prayers with a time of worship, and pray as if God will answer them because he does.
I wish I could go into more details about my trip but since this site can be viewed anywhere in the world I simply cannot. If you have specific questions please feel free to email me (my email address can be found on the “view my complete profile page”) and I will do my best to answer them.
I look forward to getting back to answering your questions and showing you that there are serious intelligent reasons for being a follower of Jesus Christ, probably within the next day or two. Thank you for sticking with me and this site in my absence and may God bless you.
No comments:
Post a Comment