The Circle Maker Devotion-Part 2 (5 Hours in a Line at a Winter Jam Concert)

I am exhausted! Anyone feel the same?  I took our church's youth group to Winter Jam (a huge Christian concert) where we drove 3 hours to get there, waited 5 hours in line, and rocked and worshiped for 5 hours.  We then drove back another 3 hours at which time we arrived at 2:15 this morning.  This morning, I had to get up to make it to worship practice, to teach Sunday School, and to lead worship.  What does this have to do with The Circle Maker, you may ask.  So here goes...

 This week, we covered chapter four of The Circle Maker which focuses on praying through.  The book discussed a lady named, Mother Dabney.  She wanted God to grow her husband's church, so she had a talk with God where she promised to meet God every morning at 9am, and He would never have to wait for her to arrive.  She also promised to fast and do this prayer time for 2 years!  I have a hard time with 1 week.  As she proved faithful, the church grew drastically.  Batterson mentioned that praying for something is great, but praying through takes 1) consistency.  You don't just commit, but you stay committed.  At Jericho, they didn't just march around the wall until they were tired or bored.  They did it until God said to stop!  2) It takes intensity.  It's not about the number of words you use in prayer.  It is about the quality of your time with God in prayer.  Some of the best prayer times I have had with God were when I didn't utter a single word.  It was just vulnerability, honesty, and a lot of tears.  3)When God spoke to the Joshua, He told him, "See, I have delivered Jericho into your hands."  This was before they had marched around the wall!  God gave Joshua the victory and answer to his prayers before he had even finished marching.  There were moments when I have prayed that I felt so much peace even though I hadn't seen the prayer answered.  That peace left me no doubt God would answer the prayer.  Some of those prayers took years to be answered, but God answered them.  It was worth the wait.  This brings me back to the concert.  We waited for 5 hours to get into the concert.  It was excruciating, but God showed!  After 3 hours of waiting, a woman walked up to us and asked how many youth were in the group.  She gave every one of our youth a free ticket.  This was amazing because in order to keep the cost down so more kids could go, we provided meals.  Sandwiches. Sandwiches for lunch and sandwiches for dinner.  They weren't excited about sandwiches again, but they didn't complain.  By getting the tickets free, they were able to use their money to buy dinner at McDonalds.  This may seem small for you, but to those kids it was God telling them He loved their passion and faithfulness and wanted to honor that!  So God asks us to pray through, not just to say a little prayer as an after-thought.  He also wants us to praise Him for what He is going to do.  Once you do this, you get to stand back and watch God be faithful!

 Have a great week high-heeled warrior!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

What Is Love? Loving When It's Hard.

Image
  I want to start by saying this has been one of the most straining weeks my husband and I have experienced in a while. As many know, my husband's father nearly passed away this week. He has been sick for a few weeks. My husband had a feeling, prompted by the Holy Spirit, that he needed to get his dad to the hospital on Sunday evening. His dad had a doctor's appointment for Tuesday, but he felt like it needed to be right away. He was admitted into the hospital, and by Wednesday, his dad had sepsis. The doctors gave his dad eight hours to live. We watched his pulse and blood pressure plummet and waited for the inevitable. Meanwhile, we prayed that God would move. A miracle occurred, and he began to improve. He has been taken off the ventilator and is breathing on his own with a steady blood pressure. During all of this, my husband and I celebrated our 27th anniversary. Neither of us had hardly any sleep the first 24 hours. My husband only had 3 hours of sleep for 72 hours, so ...
Read more

Update: My Daughter's Latest EEG Six Years This Week After Brain Surgery

Image
  A couple of weeks ago, I went with my daughter to her yearly neurologist appointment. They have slowly been lowering her seizure medication. It's easy to worry after all that we've been through, but as we visited the bathroom in the waiting room, we had a little reminder to trust God. There on the paper towel dispenser was a little Jesus. It reminded us He's always with us, even in hard times. The neurologist wanted to do a new EEG. The last one was a couple of years ago and was inconclusive. We scheduled the new EEG for last week. After prayer and remembering Jesus is with us, we went. She received the results the next day. No seizure or abnormal activity! Every year that passes is good news. We are so thankful that God is faithful, and Jesus is always with us! Have a great week high-heeled warriors!
Read more

Ready to Die?

Image
  We celebrated the home coming of one of the longest-attending members of our church. I've been to funerals that were extremely sad, and I've found that I'm an empathetic cryer. I attended a funeral with a friend. I didn't know the deceased, but as we walked by the casket at the end of the funeral, I messy cried. As I heard and saw the family crying, I couldn't help it. I've been asked to sing in a lot of funerals. This empathetic crying has made it difficult to sing. A few years ago, I mentioned to a couple of friends about my messy crying and worried about losing my composure during the song. The husband had shoulder surgery the day before and was on some really strong pain killers. As I sat behind the piano and looked out at the crowd, he smiled extremely big in his painkiller-induced state and gave me a very visible thumbs up sign. At that point, I struggled not to laugh. Crying was forgotten. I say all of this because this weekend, I was preparing for cry...
Read more