I Stand Amazed

If you read my post from Father's Day then you will know the background to this post. To summarize, our church went to God in a true sense this past Sunday asking for His will to be done. This post is a follow-up and I hope you will find inspiration from it.

I received a phone call last night about 7:00 from my friend Lanice. Lanice has been a long time friend and is the great-niece of the gentleman our church prayed for on Sunday. Lanice wanted to share with me a story. She said that her father, the nephew referred to in the Father's Day post, went to Memphis to visit the man involved in the car accident. As this nephew was conversing with the family he received a shocking revelation. Sunday, the gentleman became stable enough that the doctors could perform a surgery that was crucial to his chances of recovery. The amazing part is the timing that this took place. This man's condition changed between 11:15 and 12:00 Sunday morning. This is the same time that our church was bowed in fervent prayer and supplication for this man. I got chills as Lanice was relaying this story to me and I thank God for this. My wife prays often that God will reveal Himself to her and that she can get to know Him better. I believe this has happened. God has revealed to us what happens when we pray faithfully.

1 John 5:14-15 14 Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. 15 And if we know that He hears us, whatever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we have asked of Him.

While we do not know what will come of this situation I know that God's will is going to be done. Perhaps God's will is for our church, or just me, to see what happens when we pray with faith that God will answer. I know in my heart that every man who prayed that morning did so with the knowledge that God is going to answer this prayer in one way or another. We must always pray, not just to pray, but to receive answers so that we can see the power of our God and praise Him even more. If you are reading this I hope that you will stop now and give God thanks and praise for answering prayers, not just this one in this post, but all of the prayers you have offered in your life.

As I write this I am reminded of a series of lessons I heard Dale Jenkins deliver on the book of James. In his discussion of James 1 he points out the importance of expecting an answer when we pray. We must pray knowing that God cares and is listening to us and if not, we have no right to expect an answer. Let us all remember to pray with wisdom and with the remembrance that God is listening.

James 1: 6-8 6 But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind. 7 For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord; 8 he is a double-minded man, unstable in all his ways.

Just look for it

It is amazing to me how God will reveal Himself to us if we just look for Him. I prayed Saturday night on my way home from a dinner that God would reveal Himself to me more this week and provide me with more opportunities to serve Him and what do you know, it is happening.
I will start with the revealing. I have seen God working wonders in many of the lives of those around me this week. For starters I received an e-mail yesterday from my cousin who is pregnant. I know that many people are praying for her to have a healthy pregnancy and that she is happy and secure. I can safely say from her e-mail that those prayers seem as if they are being answered currently. Secondly, I have another cousin who is a photographer in Oklahoma. About two weeks ago she and her husband had a great deal of their expensive equipment stolen. To make a long story short, their faith and trust in God never waivered and it all of their equipment has been returned in tact. Watch my blog for a link to this story when they post it on their blog.
Now, on to the opportunities to serve. Where to begin? I guess I will just talk about two opportunities. I had dinner with a friend the other night who is a very strong Christian and who I know has no desire greater than to be a loving Christian. That being said, I could tell that this person was very troubled about a situation in their life. So much so that I felt a great deal of sadness after leaving this dinner. This may seem like nothing much but I knew in my heart that this person needed an encouraging word. A quick e-mail was all I wrote but I know if God was not the master of my life I would not have even thought or noticed the pain they were in. Even more importantly, I would not have thought to do anything about it. To gives kudos to my good friend Jason Jarrett, his sermon on bearing one another's burdens helped with this as well.
The second opportunity to serve came yesterday. I work with a group of people who for the most part fail to censor their language or think about the thought that the words you choose tell people a great deal about your heart (as well as your intelligence, but we won't get in to that). I often find myself retreating to my office and putting on a sermon or Christian music just to filter out some of the world. Yesterday I chose to listed to Dan Chambers sermon from the 2006 Challenge Youth Conference (cyconline.com if you are interested in hearing some really powerful youth driven messages). His sermon was based on the life of Moses and his calling to do God's work in Exodus 3. He focused on the excuses that Moses served up to God when God called him. It was a great message and my friend Jay Boyett (I love you man) who is a fountain of scriptural knowledge, walked in at the end of the lesson and heard the end of it. We were talking about how Moses was chosen to do his job as a baby and discussing the absurdity of any of us thinking we are any different (God has chosen all of us to do great things, I know there's a great sermon in there somewhere) when another co-worker walked in. Jay asked this individual how their faith was coming and this person began to offer up the very same excuses that Moses did in this sermon I just listened. Coincidence, there is no such thing. This was God answering my prayer to serve Him. Without saying much I was able to relate to this person how they sounded like what I had just heard and direct them to the scripture to see what I was talking about.
I would say that God has answered my prayer and he has continued to do so by giving me a very good idea about our youth ministry at church that I plan to implement soon. I can see God in so many different ways and these past few days He has shown Himself in a huge manner. I hope that all who are reading this will also pray for God to not only reveal Himself but to also give you opportunities to serve Him.