I just wanted to let you guys all know that your prayers are
powerful, and much appreciated. Please know that they are making a huge
difference.
This one day we were out for house visits and my teammate Casey, who was supposed to preach
that night, got a blinding headache and had to go home to rest. I was
left to preach the message to the church that night. Out of nowhere
God gave me a word about his perfect love casting out fear. About how
we live in fear in our identities, in our circumstances, and we fear
God won’t answer our prayers.We are afraid to ask him for big things because we don’t want to be let down by the most important person in our lives. We fear that He won’t be as Good as He says He is, because we are so
not good. So we walk around unfulfilled, living a life a half strength.
I preached that word
that night- and I have to say
that it was quite possibly the most powerful thing I have taught on to
date. Dozens of the people in the church came up to me to say that it
cut right to the heart for them. I know it cut right to mine.
The next day I got to check my email. I had received, at the exact
hour that the Lord gave me the word the day before, an email with a
prayer in it. My friend was praying that I would walk in freedom and
love of the Lord, fearing God but nothing else. That I would feel His
perfect love that fights the fear out of us.
It was just a documented prayer that I could point to. That I could
tangibly know that my friend’s prayer right in that moment moved God
to give me a specific word. A specific love. And it just got me
started on thinking about how so much of what God is doing in my
heart, in my team, in our ministry has to do with the specific prayers
of people back home. That maybe anything good that is happening, any
strength that I do have to get up and combat darkness, is coming
from the Lord, but often via someone moving the heart of the Lord to act on
my behalf, through prayer.
So again. Thank you all. I am sure there are hundreds of
moments where God has shown up here, through incredible, undocumented, prayers
from you guys. He hears them, and I feel them.
So please. Keep it up. We need it.
(Which, btw, we head into Tanzania tomorrow. Please practice
by throwing up some for traveling mercies).
