This sermon stood out to me first off with the speaker making a connection with his faith to his paternal grandmother! (totally like me!)... and he goes on to talk of fatherhood - Christ between God..... This too strikes a chord as since my relationship with my father is interesting as to say, and I love how Jesus loves his father. With prayer, time, and action.
The faith, the representation of prayer...... so convicting. To think that the parable of going to a friend in the middle of the night to ask for resource.... and that friend, to honor his name, does so, with out question. And this friend is like our God when we pray? He honors His name! Always and always answers us - it is without question! "I am who I am."
Man this really stroke me deep. I had a freaky dream last night, and my heart was weirdly shaken up before starting the sermon this morning. But wow.... what a focus and a sense of consistency. Faith in prayer is unquestionable! God is who He is! Duh! I do myself struggle with prayer - specifically with just starting to pray. Once in prayer - it's the best! - so filling and real. But I often feel like I don't want to pray right before I pray. And this parable.... one I have never looked at in depth... shows a faith that is reaction to life and is normal. It's what you do! We pray! It's HOW we get know God.
"When we pray we increase our capacity to know God" Not the exact quote, but it's true! It's how we grow to know Him and love Him!
I think one of the most meaningful part of my summers serving with Sonshine was the time I spent in prayer with staff. Those experiences in my first summer along with a book I read last fall really changed my perspective on prayer. So over this summer I came to learn the INTIMACY of prayer, and since the summer I've really come to see the POWER of prayer. As we know, the trainee program is a multi-faceted, well-rounded kick in the face, but the best part is that it keeps kicking once you leave the docks! One of the perspectives we learned about was that it's not MY ministry. It wasn't a particularly confusing or challenging concept for me at first... until it followed me home and continued to kick my butt! The day before I headed to paradise to start my session, I was a part of leading worship at our Thursday night college service. That night we had twelve people attend, and I left feeling discouraged and praying the prayer of "God, I know you can hold this service together without me over this next month." As my session began I was praying daily for the volunteers (who did an awesome job of stepping up to share my responsibilities while I was gone!) and for the services. All of this to say that when I got back to Fresno, I heard that our attendance had more than quadrupled since i had been gone! God was trainee floating me in Fresno! "Kyle, MY ministry does just fine without you, but as you've seen- your prayer and dependance on me is what will hold things together.
ReplyDeleteBoom, dead. Idiot.
I realized that by praying daily for a once a week service, I had served and worshiped more than ever before! Humbling to know that God can do big things without us and that in the same way that it’s not our place to take credit for the victories of ministry, neither do we need to bear the burden of the “speedbumps”. As I've changed my work week to have more intentional time praying over music, volunteers, etc.. God has continued to be faithful. Last night marked the one year (anniversary?) of our college service. We looked at the passage from Joshua 10 where God made the sun stand still so that the impossible could be done and launched a giving campaign where, in the next six weeks, we're challenging the service to give 200 hrs of community service, 1,500 dollars to an orphan ministry, and put together 50 thanksgiving meals for less-fortunate families. The leadership team spent the week praying for the service, for the campaign, and for the next year and spend yesterday fasting in petition and anticipation for God's plans. So at the end of the night God had provided: our largest attendance to date, our largest tithe to date, and an awesome display commitments from those who attended. So would you join me this week as we pray to the God Ephesians 3 says is "able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine"? He's faithful and he can make the sun stand still.
Apologies for the incredibly long-winded comment, it’s awesome to be taking on this adventure together!