We were in Malaysia, our whole squad was together doing a mini de-brief. We had been doing prayer and worship every morning and evening. At one of our team meetings Clint mentioned that if he went home today he wouldn’t be satisfied with the change he has allowed God to do in his life, I agreed, neither would I. He said he wanted to have so much faith that he would be preaching, get a pain in his heart and say to the congregation, someone has heart problems, I want to pray for you, again I agreed – that would be cool.
So that night at prayer and worship I get this pain in my back, which is odd because I have no reason to have instant pain like that. I mean sure my matress that I slept on last night is only 1 inch thick and I just spent the whole of last month sleeping on wooden slats with minimal padding but until this moment I haven’t had any pain. So I pray about it and God brings my squad mate, Bridget to mind. Suddenly I think, Oh my goodness is this one of those moments like Clint was talking about earlier where I feel the pain of someone and now I’m supossed to go pray for them? Noooooo, it can’t be! Well maybe? I guess there’s nothing to lose, I’ll just casually ask Bridget if she has back pain.
K so it didn’t exactly come out smoothly it was more like a nervously, urgent, “I don’t know why I’m saying this” question of “Hey Bridget do you have back pain?” Much to my surprise and hers, she did! And even though we had spent the whole month together in Malaysia on the same all girls team, she had never really complained to anyone about it.She had been in pain since Cambodia but she didn’t want to sound like she was complaining so just never mentioned it. Soooo none the less she wanted to know how I knew, naturally I said “oh God told me” Uh WHAT!?
I asked to pray for her, she agreed, still kind of in shock. I called my other squad mate Ashley over (yip the same one from the mural miracle)because she had mentioned earlier that her hand was really warm. So we proceeded to pray for Bridget AND her back pain disappeared! She stood up, bent down, twisted back and forth, all movements that would have caused her pain before, and she had no pain. Uh WHAT? We were all just a little shocked and in awe at how great our God is but for whatever reason didn’t really say much to the rest of the squad. Perhaps we were still a little on the doubtful side that this could have actually just happened. But when Bridget woke up the next morning after sleeping the night on her thin sleeping pad on a hard concret floor, still pain free -there was no holding back, we were definatly telling people now. To God be the Glory AMEN, AMEN! Man our God is so so amazing, he just blows my mind, even in the midst of our doubt! You are the God who performs miracles; you display your power among the peoples. Psalm 77:14
It really seems like I have seen Gods hand in so many things this past month, some of which I mentioned in my previous blogs on Malaysia. God has shown and taught me so much this last month in Malaysia. God loves to WOW us. God loves to define us and mold us to be more like him, Does not the potter have the right out of the same lump of clay some potteryfor noble purposes and some for common use? Romans 9:21 God loves to use us and work through us. And at the end of each day God deserves all the Glory.
So I begun to wonder, why this month? what was different? Was it perhaps that I fasted from coffee the entire month, a substance that I found was consuming me. This may sound weird to you because you say “its just a cup of coffee.” But I realized that the amount of time I thought about coffee “when,where and how I was going to get my next coffee.” My mind and body was convinced my morning, afternoon, and evening needed coffee to function was consuming me. So perhaps it was because I tried to take this time that I would usually spend thinking about and consuming coffee and gave it to God? Was it that this month I had more downtime in between ministry and I used that time to spend with him? I truly believe so. Because its not like God wasn’t doing things like this before, or willing to use me for things like this before. I think I was just not paying enough attention, it was way to much about “me” and not about him. So I turned to the Lord God and pleaded with him in prayer and petition, in fasting and in sackcloth and ashes. Daniel 9:3
So I challenge you, take more time. Fast from something that is consuming time that you could be spending with God. Get to know God better, look for his hand at work in our day to day lives. Be amazed at this earth that he has created, give him the Glory and Praise he deserves.
