Answered Prayers

Many people pray. Even more doubt. But when all you have is prayer, you're much more inclined to hope.

This is where our team is at. We have realized that ingenious programs and persistence don't always pay off. We have gotten to the end of our rope and realized the most powerful place is on our knees when we come to God in prayer and ask Him to do it. When we really take time to seek and ask, instead of a prayer here and there. Its amazing to see the power of coming into the presence of God and making your heart known to Him. Of asking Him to work in situations where only He can. He is good and He does love to give gifts to His children. This doesn't mean things always magically go our way, but it does mean that we begin to see with His eyes whats going on and why and learn to trust Him. We can rejoice when amazing things happen and mourn when tough things happen, because that's what He does.

We all need to be reminded daily that there is a God and He listens to us because He loves us.

Here are a couple reminders...

This last 2 week we were praying that I could have a follow up meeting with a student I met a few weeks ago during surveys. I wrote about him in a blog post called "survey reflections." You see follow up meetings don't come easy. Most students don't want to get together and talk about spiritual things, especially if they have had a bad experience with the church. But low and behold he responded and we met for coffee. It was cool, we started our friendship that day.

One more story, this one started a year and a half ago on a road trip with my good friend and wise sage John who was letting me tag along as he took pictures of the mountains in central Oregon. As we drove he told me one of the lessons he learned in life. He said that he used to try to influence situations in ministry to go his way but as he progressed in years he has learned to pray more and let God give him the opportunities in ministry God wants instead of trying to influence them himself. He said that it is amazing to see things happen and opportunities he never would have dreamed of come true as God worked and John just prayed but didn't tell people his desires (this is the super condensed unquoted version).
Well, 4 months ago when we were still new in town one of the guys that helps run the youth program at church found out from a teammate I had done some preaching in the past and he said, "Hey we should have you come and talk some time at youth group." To which I replied "Sure, that would be great." Well nothing ever came from it and I was thinking about reminding them that I could come and speak sometime as I sat in church this last weekend. Then John's message came to mind and I decided that I would pray that if God wanted it to happen, He could make it happen. After the church service ended the youth leaders came and asked me to speak this week. Huh.
Thanks John.