Last blog I started discussing how God’s moving in me, growing me and revealing Himself to me as this trip goes on. Last blog was about the gift of His peace that transcends understanding. Today I talk about how He’s educating me and blessing me in prayer.
Prayer
Another huge praise I have from this trip is my prayer life. More specifically,
my prayer life results. God has answered so many of my prayers since this trip
started. Prayers that I’d be in trouble if they weren’t answered, but they
always have been. Prayers that have been a true test of faith I couldn’t experience back home. I believe there’s two big reasons for this.
One is because I’m nearly certain I’ve never received as much prayer as I am
right now. Thank you to everyone who covers me with prayer. I can feel your
prayers. Knowing I’m being prayed for every day is definitely an awesome
feeling that helps me in times of trial.
The second reason is from the Philippians verse I referenced last blog. Here’s
a quick refresher: “Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything,
by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.
And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your
hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. I read through it several times
thinking about how awesome peace that transcends understanding is before I
caught two important words I had been skimming over: with thanksgiving.
That’s how I am to present my requests to God. I realized I don’t always do
that, and I decided what better time to start than now.
The story from last blog about me having to find travel for 13 World Racers
from Odessa to Bucharest is an awesome example of these powers of prayer. That
morning we had team prayer and prayed over the day including our travel. I
posted on my Facebook that I was off to find tickets and could use prayer and
had several people comment on that. This doesn’t even include the people I know
that pray for me each and every day. While I was taking the tram in to
town awestruck over my peace I decided to pray some more over the situation. I
started off by thanking Him for the peace He had given me. Then I thanked Him
for all the other times this trip He had put English speakers in front of us
seemingly out of nowhere. Finally after I had come with thanksgiving I gave my
prayer and petition for some help with the day.
Long story short, Jonathan and I met our squad leader Jacob at the train
station and within literally 30 seconds a guy came up to us and said he liked
to talk to Americans to practice his English. 90 minutes later he had led us
through the absurdly complicated process of buying 13 train tickets to Kiev,
which we likely would have never accomplished on our own. One last note on
this, I added this to my list of thanksgiving when I was praying for the Lord
to get us our tickets from Kiev to Bucharest and sure enough when I got into
the Kiev train station the team that had arrived an hour before us had already
met a guy willing to translate for us throughout the entire ticket buying
process. It’s awesome how God gives me so much more to be thankful for
each time I express my thanks.
This has led me to being more willing to pray for the big things. God wants to
give us gifts. He wants to bless us. So why not ask? It can’t hurt. We won’t
have all our prayers answered, but when we make our prayers with thanksgiving
and they match God’s will won’t it be awesome to see what all He can do. Let’s
not cheat Him by thinking something is too big (or too small) to ask. He is God
after all. And for that I am thankful.
