Check out my previous blog to see what we’ve been up to during our first week in Puerto Barrios. If you’ve read it, you’ll notice we did a lot of praying this week. I’ve always believed that prayer is important and that God does hear us when we pray, but I think I’ve gained a new understanding of what prayer means this week. Ordinarily, I would have been a little frustrated by how much praying we did as opposed to the more tangible things like painting the church or hanging out at the orphanage. But God taught me a lot prayer this week.
Yes, praying is talking to God and that’s amazing. But it’s more than that. It’s powerful. Ephesians 6: 12 says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms”. Prayer is warring against this stuff. When you go into a place and speak truth, you bring God’s light there and the darkness has no choice but to flee, even if only a little.
It amazes me that God chooses to work through us like that. This past week I’ve thought a lot about the privilege of being in the middle of each situation with the power to speak life into these places just because God is good and allows me to and not because of anything I’ve done. The reality is that the God that created the universe doesn’t need me to bring His kingdom to this earth, but He chooses to use me anyway. And one of the ways He does that is when I pray. Prayer is a privilege. And things happen when you pray simply because of who God is.
One morning, we went into a poorer neighbourhood to pray for the families there and we met an older couple that lives there. The husband told us that he had asthma and couldn’t get any more medication. Just in the ten minutes we spent with this man, you could sense that he was a good man. You could tell that he really loved his wife and he just seemed so sweet. He was so friendly and welcoming to us even though we were just random strangers. Anyway, the point is that he was the kind of person that you can’t help but love. And when he said that he needed more medication and couldn’t get any, I felt angry. My asthma isn’t even that bad and I can get medication whenever I want. In fact, I had three inhalers sitting in my pack. It felt wrong that I had such easy access to them that I didn’t even think twice about it, and this man couldn’t afford any.
Honestly, I was annoyed that I had decided to leave my inhaler at home that morning because I really wanted to give it to him. But I think I was meant to leave it at home. It would have been easy to give him my inhaler and then to walk away as though the problem were solved. But it would have run out eventually. And then I realized (or rather, God showed me) that I had something way better than an inhaler that would soon run out to offer. I can pray for healing, I can pray for provision, I can pray for Jesus to show up in that man’s life. That is something that cannot fail. It can’t run out. It can’t be destroyed. I really believe that God is taking care of that man, I don’t know if He healed his lungs, or if He provided medication or what, but I believe that he is okay. And I don’t think it had anything to do with me, just that God choose me as the one to ask for those things in Jesus’ name. And that is a privilege I hope I am always willing to receive.
So, I’m at this bar, praying like I’ve never prayed before and God directed my attention to the top story of the bar. It just looked like a storage area along with some abandoned rooms. And I couldn’t stop looking at the window on the far right of the top story. I just felt like something really awful had happened there and I was supposed to pray over it. But I felt so silly praying over a random room that appeared abandoned and that I knew nothing about. Especially when there was so much happening right in front of me that I could be praying for. And then I felt God saying that He had called me to this place, at that moment, to pray for that room. So I did. I don’t know why I prayed over it and I don’t know what happened there and I don’t know what God’s purpose was in asking me to pray for it. But I do know that God is good and powerful and way bigger than anything I can understand and He gave me the privilege of being a part of whatever work He was doing that night in that bar. Amazing.
