Tag Archives: Prayer

You Are The Witness He Left

Mark 5:17-19

Then the people began to plead with Jesus to leave their region. As Jesus was getting into the boat, the man who had been demon-possessed begged to go with him.  Jesus did not let him, but said, “Go home to your own people and tell them how much the Lord has done for you, and how he has had mercy on you.

Go. Tell people.

The woman at the well. She went. She told people. “Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people,  “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did.” John 4:28-29) 

When Jesus left this earth He gave His last command to His disciples – “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.” (Matthew 28:19)

Go. Tell people.

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be My witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” (Acts 1:8)

Jesus leaves witnesses, and those witnesses have a story to tell.

“As for us, we cannot help speaking about what we have seen and heard.” (Peter and John – Acts 4:20)

This is what I know: we are the witnesses of our generation, our time on this earth. We are the ones who are to go, to tell someone. I also know that when I do that, it’s like a B12 shot to my soul. Gratitude and joy come rushing in at the retelling of God’s goodness in my life, whether it was many years ago, or yesterday. It stirs the waters of faith that have become stagnant – in me, and in those who are hearing my witness.

This is what I don’t know: Are we the Peters and the Johns of our time, who are compelled to speak of what we’ve seen and what we’ve heard? Are we stirring faith and tapping wells of gratitude because we are witnesses of the goodness, the power, and the faithfulness of God? Are we going and are we telling anyone at all what God has done right in front of us and in us?

Or have we found a comfortable spot in our religion that allows us to curl up and be theologically sound, but not theologically active? Are we observers more than we are witnesses? Do we see the joy in others and wonder why we can’t find it in us? Do we summon up the acceptable gratitude of “thank You for this food”, but we have lost that thing in us that weeps at the knowledge that God rescued us from eternal death and gave us abundent life? Or that He healed our heart in ways we didn’t even know it needed to be healed? There’s been financial provision, healing, doors opened and doors closed, prophetic words given, relationships restored, sin overcome, strength when there was none, comfort when it was needed, and the small, still voice of God even when we weren’t listening for it. So many ways that God has been with us and for us – years ago and yesterday.

We are the witnesses that He has left for our day, in our generation. Where are we going and what are we telling?

If you’d like a place to start, start here! Leave a comment and witness to something God has done or spoken in your life.

I’ll go first. Over the past year I have sensed a fire in me growing stronger, and an increased desire to join God in whatever He is doing around me. Little by little He has been showing me doors that He is opening for me to walk through. At work, a small group of us are now meeting every week(ish) to talk through the Word of God, and grow in unity and compassion for one another. He also opened the door for me to volunteer as part of the Discipleship Training School staff at my church. As I have prayed for God to stir in me, to move in my life, to lead me to where He wants me, I have watched Him answer that prayer, and as I recall it and speak of it, joy is welling up! I serve a God who speaks, who hears, and who moves in me, through me, and for me!

Go. Tell someone.

The Servants Knew and So Did I

The man in charge tasted the water; it had now turned into wine! He did not know where it had come from, but the servants who had drawn the water knew. 

John 2:9

The words are in here. Waiting for me to set them free in the form of coherent sentences. The words, though, are swirling around like dust in a shaft of light, mixed with the emotions of what I see in this story. And not just this one, but every where in the gospels that I look at Him. *Sigh.* I’ll do my best to herd the words into a story of sorts.

This man, the one in charge at the wedding, he thought he was just tasting good wine provided by the bridegroom. (yeah…I caught that. Did you? Jesus. Our bridegroom. New wine.) Anyway.

The servants knew all about that wine that used to be water. They had seen it, participated in it. These were the hired help. Waiters. Seen, but perhaps unnoticed by the people eating and drinking and being merry. But they saw what Jesus did and I wonder what they thought of it all. Did they want to just fall down at His feet and never get back up?

I remember when it happened to me. My daughter was a teenager. That sweet girl is now, well, edging close to 40, but let’s not get sidetracked. Back then she was young and she was running wild from her pain with people that were not good for her. That sounds kind of generic, so let me see if I can put it another way. Her friend group was not just not good for her, they were actively bad for her, destructive in so many ways. As her mother, I was wringing my little hands half to death with worry and prayers that felt like they were hitting my ceiling and bouncing off the walls. And then Jesus told me how to fill the waters jars, so to speak. But instead of water jars, I would be filling bowls.

When he took the scroll, the four living beings and the twenty-four elders fell down in front of the Lamb. Each one held a harp and gold bowls filled with pieces of incense, which are the prayers of God’s people…

Revelation 5:8

“Ask Me to remove them from her life.” (this generated not a small discussion on – a. is that legal, you know, spiritually speaking, and b. what exactly did He mean by “remove”. We worked it out.)

So right there, in that two story house, I began to fill the bowls. And two weeks later the first friend left her life. And then another, and another, until they were all gone for various reasons. But here’s the thing. My daughter didn’t know, and those friends didn’t know that there was glory all over this thing. But I knew. In that house, where I often felt like the servant that wasn’t seen, I knew where the wine had come from, and it put me at His feet never wanting to get up. As one by one He removed the danger from my daughter’s life, I knew I was seeing glory. I knew He was there and it undid me in ways I can’t describe. He knows and I know that I will never be able to thank Him enough. We both know the glory He has spilled into my life and the lives of my family and how it has all become a fire in my bones that I pray will never burn out.

Words and thoughts like dust particles, but I want to capture them for you. To say to you that there is glory all around you. Bowls being filled as you pray for something that seems too big to be answered. Ordinary water being turned into not just something better, but into the best thing. Glory that may go unnoticed by others, but you will know, because you have done what He asked of you, so you’re in on it. You’re a witness to the miracles of what He’s done, and what He’s doing. You are filling bowls with what looks like unglorious water, but oh, just wait. He will bring forth wine. The very best wine. And you will know.

Let it be a fire in your bones. Let it bring you to His feet and may you never want to get back up.

Genesis 48—When the Prayer Changes

“Jacob said to Joseph, “God Almighty appeared to me at Luz in the land of Canaan and blessed me. He said to me, ‘I will make you fruitful and numerous; I will make many nations come from you, and I will give this land as a permanent possession to your future descendants.'” (Genesis 48:3)

This is so similar to what God said to Abraham, and then to Isaac.

“And to you [Abraham] and your future offspring I will give the land where you are residing—all the land of Canaan—as a permanent possession, and I will be their God.” (Genesis 17:8)

“For I will give all these lands to you [Isaac] and your offspring, and I will confirm the oath that I swore to your father Abraham.” (Genesis 26:3)

It was right here, in the book of Genesis, that I learned that God is generational. That in the same way He has been faithful to me, He will be faithful to my children and to their children. I understood, on a much deeper level, that those coming after me could know God, know His goodness and His mercy and His love, just as I had come to know them.

“I will be with you, just as I was with Moses. I will not leave you or abandon you.” (Joshua 1:5)

The revelation of this part of God’s character changed how I prayed for my family. There is a boldness, borne out of confidence in the truth of His Word, that begins to rest on your prayer life when you know that He desires for your children and their children the same thing He desired to do in you.

I believe that if you stopped random people on the street and asked them what they wanted most for their children, the majority of them would say “I want them to be happy.” We all want good things for our children – happiness, good health, good education, financial security, good job, good friends – all the things that will benefit and help them in life.

But most of the things we want for them will not follow them into eternity.

The greatest desire that I have for my children and their children is that they would know God the way I have known Him, and even more. That they would know His faithfulness to them, His goodness toward them, His mercy, grace, love, and the incredible peace that comes from trusting in Him above any other, including themselves. That desire becomes my prayer life for them, because of the revelation that it is the same desire that dwells in His heart.

But, as we pray, we also must obey…

“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children’s children—” (Dueteronomy 4:9)

We cannot just let our Sundays at church, our kindness to others, or our prayers over our food be the extent of our children’s vision of God. Those are things they see us do, but unless we tell them, they will not know the things God has done. We must testify to our children so that they can know that He is faithful, even before they have seen it in their own lives.

Tell them that His covenant with you is also for them.

When the Process is Painful

Because it isn’t if the process is painful. It will always be when, and that should change how we pray.

When we pray make me holy. Make my spouse holy. Make my children holy – then we must be willing to go through the pain of how God puts holy into us. But the hard part isn’t our pain, it’s watching those we love go through the painful process of God answering our prayers for His will be done in our family as it is in heaven.

Because for God’s will to be done, ours can’t be, and a human will in the process of dying is hard to watch.

Asking God to bring a prodigal to their senses.

Praying that those we love would walk free from fear and anxiety.

Asking God for more of His presence.

We know it isn’t a magic wand that brings the answers to our prayers. It is a powerful God and a good Father, who is committed to the process of forming Christ in us.

Which means unholy things get confronted.

Prodigals land at the end of themselves and the end of self is a painful place.

Fear and anxiety aren’t vanquished, they are faced, because trust is a choice we make in the face of something that feels more familiar.

The things we surround ourselves with must be removed, by us, to make room for more of His presence.

Wounds get opened so they can be cleansed so that the healing we prayed for can come.

Can deliverance and freedom come instantly by the hand of God? Absolutely.

But staying free is a process that involves our will and that process can be hard, because our flesh has to die in order for us to stay free, and man, that hurts.

I said all that to say this –

We pray for the outcome. God chooses the process. We cannot control it, and it will do no good to pray for God to skip the painful parts.

He loves us too much to say yes to that.

One last thing…

Not all answers to prayer are painful. God is so good, so gracious, and so merciful it’s ridiculous. But when we ask Him to do a work in us, or in the people we love, that makes us more like Jesus, you can bet something will have to die with the answer to that prayer.

A painful process is an indicator that God is doing something good. Keep praying!

Marriage Matters: The Motive of Prayer

Me

I had been asking God for so many years to change my husband. Begging God, really. But I saw little movement over almost two decades. Makes a girl weary, you know? Finally, God made a change, and that change was in me. 

During the very difficult beginning of our restoration season, God allowed me to see things through a very different lens. It was the lens of heaven, seeing my husband with eyes of love and compassion over his brokenness. Seeing him as God sees him…as a child of God, hurting, and in great need of the Father’s healing. For his sake, not mine. And that is where the change came. In the motive of my prayer.

I realized that all those years I wanted my husband to change so that my life would be easier; so that I wouldn’t have to deal with his anger, his pride, or his control. I wanted him to change so that I could relax and maybe be happy for a change. 

You do not have because you do not ask. You ask and don’t receive because you ask with wrong motives, so that you may spend it on your pleasures. (James 4:3)

This was the verse that God first used to address my prayer life, specifically my prayers for my husband. This is where I began to learn that motives matter to God, and my motive in prayer was me, more often than not. 

As my view of my husband changed, so did my motives. As I saw what God saw, my heart broke for my husband more than it broke for me. And when I began to pray out of a genuine desire to see him free, to see him know the deep love of His Father, to know his worth – the changes I had prayed for began to happen. Little bits at a time for sure, but they were there. 

Discovering that God, not my husband, is my source of happiness and peace was a shift I needed that enabled me to begin to pray with Godly motives rather than selfish ones. 

If you are weary in prayer for your spouse, or anyone else for that matter, let God call out your motives. It will be hard, but so very worth it.

For more on my marriage restoration – visit here. 

Forty Days of Praying the Word of God: Day 34

“He humbled you by letting you go hungry; then He gave you manna to eat, which you and your ancestors had not known, so that you might learn that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the Lord.”

Deuteronomy 8:3

Thank You Lord, for every word that comes from Your mouth. Today, I pray we will hunger for it like never before. May Your people crave the sustenance of truth found only in Your word.

Father, I pray that we will feel the sharpness of the living Word, that it would pierce us as it discerns our every thought and motive. I pray for a humbling of our own opinions, Lord, that we would bring our own thoughts and perspectives into submission to Your word. {Hebrews 4:12}

I pray that Your Church would come into unity under the Word of God, that the enemy’s schemes to divide us and confuse us would be turned against him, as the Holy Spirit opens our eyes and ears to the scriptures. I pray that we will begin to rightly handle the Word of Truth, and that we would closely watch, guard and protect our doctrines. {1Timothy 4:16}

Lord, may our hearts burn within us in the presence of Your word. May we, like David, love Your statutes, and may they be our meditation. I pray Your Word will be a lamp unto the feet of Your people, Lord, and that the ways, thoughts, and opinions of this world have no influence, hold no sway over us. I pray that Your Word will teach us, correct us, and train us in righteousness in ever increasing measure, so that Your people will be fully equipped and competent for the work that lies ahead. {Luke 24:32, Psalm 119:97, Psalm 119:105; 2Timothy 3:16-17}

Father, I pray that in every pulpit, in every place where Your people are gathered, Your Word would have full reign, be the final authority, and the plumb line of truth. I pray that Your Church will carry Your words within her, buried in her heart, treasured and pondered, and loved.

May we feast on Your word, and live.

In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Forty Days of Praying the Word of God: Day 29

“We will not hide them from their children, but will tell a future generation the praiseworthy acts of the Lord, His might, and the wondrous works He has performed.”

Psalm 78:4

Father, I pray that we will not keep Your wonders to ourselves, but that we will share them with our children. I pray that the next generation will know what You have done. I pray they will know Your power and Your great love, because we have told them of all of Your goodness toward us.

“so that a future generation—children yet to be born—might know. They were to rise and tell their children so that they might put their confidence in God and not forget God’s works, but keep His commands.”

Psalm 78:6-7

Lord, I pray that our children and our grandchildren, the generations of those faithful to You, will put their confidence in You and walk in Your ways, because they have been told of Your wonders, Your goodness, and Your sovereignty.

Make us Your storytellers, Lord. May we tell Your story more than we tell our own. May it be the wonders, and the exploits of You that we pass on. I pray that we will be a people who proclaim all that You have done, more than we tell of all that we have done.

I pray that our children will know how You saved us and how You have loved us. I pray they will know how You have forgiven our sins, and why. I pray they will hear of how You calmed our storms, delivered us from oppression, and brought us out of slavery. I pray that our children and their children will know of Your great mercies and the power of Your presence.

I pray they will know, because we have told them. And I pray they will then know for themselves, and tell their own children. May we pass on the stories of You from one generation to the next. I pray that we will repeat Your Words to our children, talking about them in our homes, and wherever we go, when we lie down at night, and when we get up in the morning. (Deuteronomy 6:7)

From one generation to the next, Lord, may You be known!

In the Name of Jesus I pray. Amen.