Did you know that
praise is a form of prayer and prayer is a form of praise? And when you do both
of those, God pours out His provision? I have seen that evidence so much over
the past two months, but especially the past month. I thought this month was
going to be extremely difficult with some of the challenges that had been
presented to me by my team and leaders, especially with the way my personality
is. But God filled me with joy and love and gave me so much grace that this month
was even better than the last! So let me tell you a little more about what He’s
been teaching me about these three things.
Prayer is important
because it’s a conversation with God. Do you get that? It’s not just closing
your eyes and talking AT God, asking Him for things. It also involves being
still and listening to His voice, hearing His reply. And when you do, boy, does
He speak! Not in a huge, booming God-like voice like most people would imagine.
But it’s usually a quiet voice, filled with love and gentleness. Or it just
appears in your head as words, or sometimes pictures like movie scenes flashing
before your mind’s eye. I never, ever thought I’d be able to pray for more than
a few minutes at a time. But this past week, I spent almost two hours in prayer
on top of a mountain in Uganda, communing with God, and I wasn’t even close to
being bored. When you tell God that you want to hunger and thirst for Him, He
will honor that and give you that desire. And the more you pray and talk to
Him, the more you’ll want to. He’s way better than anyone else at answering and
giving you advice, too. The things He shows you? Pretty freakin’ awesome! I’ve
seen things about the future, about myself, about the Bible, about others… some
of it’s crazy, some is freaky, some is horrific, and some of it is glorious.
Basically, prayer opens the floodgate for God to drown you with His words.
Praise… we all love
to be praised, to be acknowledged for the things we say or do, to receive accolades. Don’t you think God
deserves them even more because of how much He’s done for us? For real! He’s
blessed most of you more than you think. I mean, you got up out of bed this
morning, you probably had plenty of food for breakfast, and since you’re
reading this, that means you can read and you have internet. God is a freakin’
awesome God! And we should praise Him because He is. When I praise Him, I’m
also filled to overflowing with some sort of radical joy that makes me laugh
out loud (I admit; it’s made people look at me like I’m a bit crazy… but who
cares?! I’ve already come to the conclusion, along with my team, that I’m the
weird and crazy one who likes to do things nobody else does and God has told me
I’m going to stand out and be different even more than I already do so I’m
going to embrace it!). It makes me want to sing and dance and laugh and bask in
the presence of my awesome God.
Ahh, the provision.
Many of us aren’t always thankful or don’t notice how God provides for us. But
He’s been teaching me to search for and find the ways in which He provides in
every situation. And when I notice the smaller things and have more faith, He
is faithful in larger things. Here are some stories from the past two months
where I’ve seen God work in small ways.
I prayed to see elephants
even though Solomon said we had already passed the area where the elephants
were and wouldn’t see them anymore. But I asked God and had faith that we would
see them. Ten minutes later, we saw them really but they were really far away.
As we were out taking pictures, I told God, “When I asked to see elephants, I
kind of meant right next to the road so we could see them up close and get good
pictures of them.� He laughed at me and told me I was being picky and that I
should be happy I had seen them but He was smiling knowingly. A few minutes
down the road, we saw two more elephants who were literally, right on the side
of the road. I got to walk within twenty feet of a wild elephant and take its
picture. – Safari in Uganda
We cooked dinner on
Wednesday, September 28, 2011. We made spaghetti and garlic bread and after we
had cooked everything, we realized there wasn’t going to be enough for the
seventeen of us (it wasn’t much food for 17 people, nevermind that eleven of
them were Africans with massive appetites!). We all prayed and as Emily Rae and
I served it, I asked You to do a miracle of loaves and fish and told You that I
now expected to have plenty of food. Low and behold, we had leftovers and a few
people had seconds. God, You rock! – Mbarara, Uganda
So you see? God really does provide, and He
will bring that provision if we are faithful to pray and praise Him. Amen!
