Come Alongside: This marvelous thing called prayer!

Recently a girlfriend I look up to asked me to come along on a speaking engagement she had, to support her and pray for her and share as I felt led.  I was so honored and blessed to be invited to be her “right hand gal” that day, and rejoiced with her when her words opened so many hearts that day.

I was reminded today about how God also invites me to come along with him on his “engagements”, to support him and pray with him about what he is doing.  I am so honored that he trusts me with the things on his heart, just like my girlfriend.

When the prophet, Daniel was in captivity in Babylon he understood from the prophecies of other prophets before him that the 70 year captivity was nearing its end.  Instead of just sitting back, relieved that God’s people would soon be going home to Israel, Daniel fasted and prayed for the exiles’ release from Babylon and return to Israel.  Why would he pray for what God has already promised and agreed to do?  In the natural, that scenario is quite odd.  If your friend tells you she is going to take you to a concert for your birthday, you don’t ask her or remind her again and again to take you to the concert.  But that is what Daniel did.  He took the prophecy, the revelation of what God intended to do, as God’s invitation for him to come alongside and pray the thing through.  So it is that God puts the desires of his own heart on those ones who are seeking him, and they get to pray in those things to completion, and then rejoice at the outcome.

So we sing and pray, “Break my heart for what breaks yours”, oh, God, and we will rejoice with you as your will is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Say What You See

Nanette caught the bug.

My friend, Nanette has attended only two weeks of “sewing class” at my home on Monday nights, but she has definitely caught the bug.  Although her only sewing experience was in home ec. class a thousand years ago, she is piecing together blocks for 3 different quilts at the same time. 

I saw the first set of blocks all sewn together, bright orange and yellow lion and tiger blocks with a brown and black starry print in between, and it was amazing.  I love that first glimpse of what a finished project is going to look like, and the excitement that wells up inside.  I imagine that Nanette is experiencing that “quilting high” right now, standing back and looking at what her two hands have done in so short a time.  What Nanette may not yet know is that there is still a lot of work before the quilt is done.  Hopefully, the glimpse of what will be is enough to keep her going to the finish line.

These thoughts about Nanette and her quilts were going through my mind this morning as I prepared the binding for one of my own quilts.  God has just done some amazing things for me, things that I have been desperately crying out for in prayer.  Not that the entire situation is completely resolved, but the amazing changes that have happened in the past two days have taken my breath away.  The Father brought Nanette and her amazing accomplishments to mind this morning and asked me the same questions I was asking about Nanette. 

“I am showing you what I am doing, just a glimpse for now,” the Father told me. “Can you keep on trusting me that I can, and will give you the finished work?”

I am reminded of four simple words spoken by Prophet Chuck Pierce at a meeting in Manahawkin, NJ earlier this year:  “Say what you see.”   Pierce was urging God’s people to listen to what God is saying, and then to speak out, declare out loud what they are seeing.  I have given you a picture of some fabric blocks sewn together to help you imagine the beautiful quilt to come.  What are you dreaming about?  What do you see?  Is it a ministry to the homeless in Ocean County?  Restored relationships in your marriage and/or family?  A 24 day prayer journey throughout Europe? A community of artists releasing God’s heart through prophetic art?  Speak, declare it out loud so God’s family can join with you in trusting God to accomplish that dream. 

In our faith community may we continually remind each other of who we are – people entrusted with God’s heart and vision; and who we serve - the God who is in the business of calling into being things that are not, as though they were.  Let us be about the “family business”, which is, after all, the business of hope.