I feel like if I did not post this blog I would have in a sense failed on this race. Not that the work I was a part of would become meaningless, or the prayers I prayed would be void, or that conversations I had wouldn’t matter, but that I would have missed the point. The point of the urgency of the gospel and needing to tell people of the love of Jesus especially those I love. Back in the beginning of September I posted a blog about PVT and mentioned that I was asked to share a personal testimony about prayer in my life. I would like to share that with you now.
I am blessed to have been raised by a mother who fully believes in the power of prayer and encourages me to be anxious for nothing but in everything with prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let my requests be made known to God. My biggest prayer has been for my fathers salvation, it’s something that I have been praying for for 24years. I didn’t have a great relationship with my dad so I would always pray that God would put someone in his life who can pour into him and that God would pursue him and soften his heart. While in Australia during some listening prayer I got a picture of a bird by a stream of water. I didn’t understand what that meant and I was frustrated that I wasn’t hearing God accurately. Some of my teammates shared that for them a stream usually meant peace and maybe I was supposed to share that peace with someone… great someone who? A bird? I’m supposed to share peace with a bird?!?! Later that night at worship I cried out to God saying, I don’t understand, and He very quickly and clearly (probably the most clear I have ever heard Him) made it known that the “bird” was my dad (he owns a bird shop). He said to me, you prayed that I would put someone in his life to pour into him… that someone is you, I want it to be you! The tears flowed out uncontrollably!!! But for the first time in my life I feel like I am at a place where it could be me, where I want it to be me. I walked through forgiveness and releasing that hurt and now just want to see and be a part of what God has for him. For the first time I am hopeful and excited to see God move in my dads life. God hears our prayers and I am a FIRM believer that he answers them it’s just not always in the way we think! Sometimes the answer is no, sometimes it’s yes, sometimes it’s later, sometimes it’s I have something way better, and sometimes it’s I want you to do it. So I continue to pray with high hopes and expectations and want to do my part!!!
Dear dad, I want you to know that first and foremost I love you. But my love is nothing in comparison to Gods love for you. I believe that He loves you so much that He sent your daughter halfway around the world to make her realize she needs to tell you about Him and His love. He has put you on my heart and mind so many times this year. I believe that you were “my mission” on this missions trip. He is pursuing you, will you answer? The past does not matter, nothing is unforgivable, because of what Jesus did on the cross. John 3:16-18 “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.” That sacrifice is why I do what I do, what gives me hope, joy, and faith, and it was done for you as well if you choose it. If you cry out to Him He will answer, if you ask Him to reveal Himself to you He will!! Matthew 7:7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
My continued prayer is that you will come to know Him, that you would confess with your mouth that “Jesus is Lord” and believe in your heart that that God raised him from the dead so that you will be saved! That I would get to spend eternity in heaven praising God with you by my side.
