I fully believe in the power of prayer. It's our words, to God's ears. He hears our hearts cry and He responds by showing us His goodness and His glory.
At least I thought I did.
Yesterday began the heat wave here in Gaborone, Botswana. I thought South East Asia was hot. Well yes it was, but here is dry heat up to 100+ degrees Fahrenheit.
We resorted to pouring water over ourselves and sticking our heads in the freezer when we desperately needed to get just a few seconds of feeling cool.
On Thursday evening, (530pm, remember the time, its important) a bunch of the church members and friends gathered for a bible study just like any other Thursday. It was a cloudless sky, hot even though we were all seated in the shade and we began to pray for the nation, for each other.
As I sat in the circle and looked around my eyes kept going up to the sky. Not something that was entirely unusual, but I kept hearing "Pray." And then "Rain."
Rain in a desert country is something so foreign. For the past four months the main hospital has not been able to do major surgeries simply becuase of the lack of rain.
Rain. Something so simple back home that there is so much of it it's flooding areas.
Rain.
I began to pray that God would send the rain. It would pour. It would fill up buckets, wells, dams. The dust would turn to mud. It would rain.
As I glanced around at the prayer circle, many of my teammates had their heads pointed skyward. I knew even though no one said it that they were praying for rain too. Our host even began praying for God to send the rain down on the earth here and to revive us spiritually and the ground physically.
As she spoke these words and we mumbled out prayers in agreement.
Though the wind had blow some during these prayers, it was like all creation ceased for one moment. It was an eerie calm that settled over us. A few seconds later, the wind began to blow gusts, leaves scattered around, dust barrels blew through the streets, dark water filled storm clouds billowed in. (Imagine the storm scene in The Wizard of Oz and that is what it was like.)
We all sat in still silence and awe for a few seconds until one of the strongest gusts blew around us. We all raced up out of our chairs and scurried onto the covered porch. We didn't know what was happening.
As the wind died down, we went back out onto the driveway to continue praying. We knew God was good and faithful. That having the rain come down, so much more glory would go to Him in this spiritually dry land.
Now, its getting close to 7pm and some people are a little restless to continue praying for rain that has yet to show up and need to head home. As we continued in fellowship and snacks, my team and I stayed outdoors praying and praising for the rain to come.
We even took our dinner outside to continue proclaiming God's name and His glory over this land.
God provided! I started as a sprinkle, then drizzle then a few steady drops. Then stop. This went on and off for a good hour, during which, many of us had used social media to update friends and family and ask them to join us in praying for rain here.
We knew that God would provide. We came before Him humbly. We had faith that He would bring bucket fulls of rain down.
So why wasn't He bringing down enough rain to change the dust into mud?
Finally, after many bug bites, sore bodies from laying on the concrete, I felt Jesus saying, "In my time." So I got up, brushed myself off and went to bed at 11pm. That's 5 1/2 hours of praying for rain.
As I lay on bed last night and the first thoughts when I awoke was "Jesus , why didn't you provide?
You always provide when we need it. Whether it's food, shelter, anything, you provide it. So why not when we ask such bold prayers for you go show your glory you don't?"
I felt discouraged. I was angry. I was hurt.
My God, the King of Kings didn't fulfill what my deepest hearts desire was, rain.
That was, I didn't think so.
Have you ever prayed a prayer expecting one result and getting something completely different?
Tonight during fellowship with many churches member and my team we found out it did in fact rain.
It rained for hours across town near the hospital.
It rained for hours just a few miles away at the University campus.
It rained.
God did hear us even though I thought He didn't since He didn't respond the way I was expecting.
God is faithful and good and wants to hear our hearts cry.
God loves us and delights in us. He loves to hear us on your knees praying for Him to bring His presence into an area.
God loves us and hears us no matter how quiet or loud our prayers are.
God is here, always.
When we pray those bold prayers, our faith grows; even when the results aren't what we expected.
