This an excerpt from a journal entry I wrote on Februrary 17. Simply a look into what I have been processing through the past week or so.
This past week has probably been the most draining week spiritually, physically, and emotionally, for me since I began this journey. I let the craziness of the schedule become an excuse to not prefer others before myself, I let being tired be an excuse for not communicating well, and I let my pride get the best of me.
Sometimes life gets busy, sometimes you don't have a chance to eat dinner until after 11pm after a long day of driving, praying, praying, driving, and then praying some more. Prayer is not something I often think of as tiring, but I let it become tiring this week, this week our main ministry has been going from house, to house, to house, to house…praying for people. Praying for families that are struggling financially, praying for the sick and the injured, praying for families who come from Hindu backgrounds and are now being persecuted by family members(to the point they have gathered family from Kuala Lumpur which is a 3 hour drive away to come confront them and tell them to turn away from Christ), praying for families who are Hindus but have seen that praying in that name of Jesus has brought something different to their lives. I found myself often not knowing how to pray or what to pray, sometimes instead singing songs of praise and worship over the lives of those we are visiting, and other times simply asking God to come, come down and bring hope, love, change, life, and then something happened, God showed up. (Though I suppose to say that God showed up, assumes he was not there all along in the first place, so maybe my eyes were opened to see how God was working in very obvious ways that night.)
That night I witnessed, people released from something that was holding them down, something that was rooted deep in their minds and souls, some may call it demons, others spirits, still others call it mental illness, whatever it is or was, the man inflicted with the pain in his leg and in his mind told us by his words and by his reaction, that something was different. I don't claim to understand what happened, and am still in many ways processing that night, so the details are hard to explain or put into words.
Physical Healings, demons/evil spirits/mental illness being released, and being overwhelmed by the mere presence of the Spirit of God…that is something that one hears about in stories, reads about in scripture, and watches footage of these things happening to someone else, in some far off place. Nothing is simple about it, my human mind can't explain it away, but there it is right in front of me, the Holy Spirit moving in ways that cannot be denied or explained away. Though I suppose I should be strengthen in faith, to see God work these miracles and to hear how the community has heard of the change that was brought that night, I am finding that I am still unsure of how God works or does not work, why some prayers seem to be answered in ways that are far beyond anything I could expect, yet other prayers seem to bring no change at all, at least not obvious instant change. When some people are healed, and others are not, when some lives are saved and some are lost, too early, too young, too unexplainable. Maybe that is the point, God works in His own way, how, when, and why is something that only He can know, and that takes faith on my part to trust that His way, though not usually the way I envision them to be, it is the better way. The way that shows that when I am weak and don't think I can go on, He is strong and carries me further than I thought possible.
