Prayer Ministry

Prayer has been amazing this last week.

After I had that revelation of prayer being my ministry, it seems to have erupted even more.

The next day after accepting that as my min, I had people walking into my room asking me to pray for this or that before they went out and I had people texting me throughout their day with all sorts of requests. It was incredible! I was consistently in prayer before the Throne that entire day (and the next few).

And, as a result, I have seen an even greater glimpse of the power of prayer and watched it re-shape my life and worldview. It has expanded my view of God (one of my own prayer requests/goals for this summer).

A few examples of how God has shown up:

-       Last Sunday I couldn’t go out to my friend-appointment. I had talked to this girl before though, so I knew where she was at. She was closed to the idea of God and was very firm in believing the big bang theory. I prayed that as my other teammates met with her that her walls would come down and God would give her an intrigue in learning who He was, that she would thirst for Him. When my teammates came back, they explained to me that she had expressed how interested she is in Christianity and how much she wants to read the Bible – in fact, she has it on her kindle already!! What!? Okay!

-       Another time last week, my teammate asked if I could pray for his ministry that day, that he would surrender control and let God move. He also asked if I would pray for his health (he felt pretty poor). I talked to Dad about it and later my friend came back and explained how amazing min had been that day and that he felt completely fine the entire day!!

-       My girl Abby here (a teammate) texted me while out at Starbucks one afternoon. She recognized a couple who had been there before, and the man was abusing the girl. Abby texted me to pray for them, though there wasn’t really anyway she could intervene. I spent time praying for them, and then prayed that somehow God would create an opportunity for Abby to be able to speak to the girl. (Though to be honest I definitely had doubt, and admitted that to the Lord, because when do you actually get to interact with those random people? The world just isn’t like that, usually.) In an amazing turn of events, the girl looked at Abby (Abby had prayed for that specific sign) 3 minutes before Abby had to leave. And she got to speak to the girl alone and express how she shouldn’t be treated like that, etc. It was amazing!

-       Friday my team was extremely discouraged by the fruitless ministry. People were irritated and upset. So as they went out that day, I prayed earnestly for the power of the H.S. to fill them and go before them. At one point I was standing on my bed, brandishing my water bottle, and intensely asking the Lord to change something – be it our attitudes, our perspective, or the reality of our min. I prayed that people would be able to share the entire package of the goods as and that one person would even PRC (pray to receive Christ) that day. After people came home, almost every single person got to share the goods, and one teammate talked to one man who didn’t PRC with him, but said he was going home to seriously consider all of this. For all I know, that man went home and had his life changed forever. (I’ll claim that one. Haha)

There have been more answered requests, but those are a few of my favorite ones throughout this week. It’s been incredible for me to see and experience this here.

I’ve never been SO prayer oriented, ever. I’ve had a heart for it, but never has it been my FOCUS in ministry. It’s changing everything! I woke up the other day and thought about going out that day. Immediately my heart was like, “Wait no!! You cannot go out without praying and spending your time with the Lord! Your ministry will be fruitless!” The fact that I had that intense of a reaction is evidence of how my view of life and God and min. is changing. 

In Colossians 3 it says to set your minds and hearts on things above. Whenever I’ve read that before, I’ve always thought about desires and hopes, and how we should always have our greatest desires be God and things that are eternal. But when I read that this week, I thought of how I need to set my mind and heart on God’s power.

I realized that usually when I pray, I expect God to always work within the rules and limits of this world. There are natural patterns and laws set in place here. I know these and I pray with regard to these. I pray with my mind and heart submitted to the powers of this world, not the powers of the world above. I’ve had to repeat to myself this past week that my God has power over death, my God raises from the dead, my God is above this world and this life. For some reason, it takes a lot for me to really see this. But in the way and the frequency with which He’s been answering my prayers this week, it has become way more clear to me who He is, and who I am.