“Let it be so now”
Jesus’s first recorded words in the New Testament, the book of Matthew, pertaining to Jesus’s baptism. John was explaining to Jesus that He should be the one to baptize John since Jesus was the son of God and didn’t need to be baptized, having never sinned. But Jesus understood that He had to do it to fulfill the will of God, to stay obedient in fulfilling His role on this earth and confessing sin on behalf of the nation.
Jesus’s role on earth was to fulfill the will of God. And we are no different.
This past week was Gap C squad’s very first world race debrief! We were blessed with the incredible opportunity to go to La Playa de Monterrico which is a beautiful black sand beach in Guatemala. Our whole squad got together to relax, play in the waves, get eaten alive by bugs, share testimonies about what God is doing, meet with our coaches and leaders from the states (Chris, Darla and Hope ROCK!), and enjoy God’s beautiful creation.
Regardless of the fact that we had a break from ministry, when you put 47 world racers that are on fire for God in one location, ministry will often find you. And oh did it find us.
Our very last night at the beach we all got together to worship and have session. After session ended, one of our squad mates informed us that she struck up a conversation with a local woman who happens to be christian. The women was informing my friends that her and her husband suffer from extreme physical pain and asked if all 47 of us would come into her home and pray over them. This Guatemalan beloved child of God had faith that if we together came to God in prayer and provided a space for Him to come and fill, God would show up. Her and her husband had the faith, and so did we.
Walking into her home, I was beyond excited. I felt God’s spirit and had faith that His will would be done tonight. Our squad had no idea we would be going into a local home to pray over a suffering family that night, but God did. The woman had an accident that left constant pain in her back and shoulders, and her husband has experienced two strokes leaving the left side of his body completely immobile. Witnessing the pain that was harboring in the home and feeling a darker presence at work, 47 prayer warriors went to work.
We prayed over their hearts, over their home, over their physical bodies, and over their spiritual needs. Praying that they would know who was healing them and that God would use us to reveal more of Him to them, we stayed in constant prayer throughout the night. Being in constant prayer, we didn’t even notice as the hours started to fly by. Over the course of the night, the man that once laid in bed was sitting up and beginning to slowly move parts of the left side of his body. I can’t even describe the joy that was written all over this man’s face when he opened up his left hand for the first time in a while. God was at work, slowly but surely. As the man became more mobile, our joy and faith increased and so did his.
We walked into that home at 9 pm that night and left around 12:30. Even though the man became more mobile over the course of the night, he still can’t move the left side of his body, talk, or eat any food. It was not in God’s plan for that man to be fully healed that night. God did not want to use us in that way. Ultimately though, God’s will is perfect and comes with time.
I think this is a lesson many racers struggle with. So many blogs are written testimonies about miracles, healings, people being saved, lives being changed, and God using racers to do extraordinary things. All of this being very real and completely the work of the Holy Spirit living inside each of them, these events only occurred because it was the will of God.
As a racer, and a disciple of Jesus Christ, you must humble yourself for whatever God has for you. He may use you to heal the sick and feed the poor, or He may use you to speak into still and small moments. It might be in your plan to reap the harvest, but it could also be in your plan to plant the seeds. As disciples we do have the power that rose Jesus from the dead and we too can do incredible things, but only on God’s time and not our own.
I do believe that more important things took place that one night spent in prayer in a Guatemalan home on the beach then we will ever get to see. I believe that spiritual healing took place more so than physical healing which is far greater. Whatever happened in that home and in that family’s spiritual walk, I will never get to see. And I’m okay with that. The only reason I’m okay with that is because I believe in a God that shows up on His own time and will which is far greater than anything I could have prayed for or wished for that night.
I have no control over when or how people get healed both physically and spiritually, because I am just person, but I serve a God who is perfect. A God who I will obediently follow into any home, to any place, or any person and do as He leads me to do. Not looking for any harvest or any reward. All I want is exactly what He has for me, which is exactly what happened that night.
