Someone Has to Say It

 

 









 

Someone has to name what is going on so it can start to be addressed. Someone has to start talking about it.

Dear Church, Environmentalists, Social Justice seekers,

The people and the land are hurting…bad.

This is going to be on two subjects that rarely are placed in the same place these days: Spirituality and the physicality of the  land. There are very few people in the Church or among environmentalists that combine the two. We have a mess that needs help and it impacts us all.

This will stretch your spirituality, this will burden your heart, this has rocked me to the core and those that catch a glimpse of it; brace yourself. Open your heart if you pray. Open your mind if you don’t. The two are connected.

Our riversides and waterways have been getting sick. The soil is sick and man has been destroying himself.  Environmentalists, I know you are listening. Church, listen! I was walking with a friend who pointed out all of the buckthorn growing in a Refuge. Among it were plantings, weeds, unproductive plant life under the guise of “forest” depleting the soil and choking out this 300 year old oak. “This oak knew the elk, the bison, the carrier pigeon and the people who lived beneath it.” My heart was pierced. “This all used to be savannah,” he said.

I prayed. I prayed for two days asking God to help me with this. I grew up in a conservative home; one of faith, but one of progress, science and financial acquisition.  The things that somehow foreshadowed me back then for what I am burdened and passionate for today was that I had a painting of Jesus over my childhood twin bed and a decal of the Ecology flag I put on my bed room window by the shelves of the plants I grew in the south facing window instead of using my allowance to buy candy.

I walk in a relationship with God where I hear Him speak. To some of you who may be environmentalists: Yes, I’m being for real. To some of you who are the Church: Yes, I’m being for real. He speaks.

This is what He said, “As the Nation cries out for repentance, they have been going up the wrong trees. Repentance needs to go back to the Land and what was done to the people on it and the blood that was shed.” Our brothers and sisters!  This is what has been a two year journey that God has taken me on, reworking my mind and heart to see as He does through the very people of this land who are BOTH Spiritual AND Land honoring.

This is the time to write in short, the plea to see!

I have just returned from Standing Rock. Please, listen.

This is more than about the pipeline; it’s that the pipeline is bringing our attention to this place that God wants us to see. It’s about the water, the people and the land. It’s a microcosm of the whole and how we have been doing things and why.

The rivers are where life is derived from. Water. We need it to live. We are made mostly of water. Church, the places of great events and life and living happened on the rivers. The Nile, the Euphrates, the Jordan. The Egyptian writings are there in the hieroglyphs. Life, people, history, culture, worship and ancestry happened there. We tour there to see where Jesus was baptized, the Sea of Galilee where they fished, the Nile and its ancient cities and reflect at times gone by.

First Nations people lived along the rivers here. Ancient writings are in the petroglyphs around this country. Life, people, history, culture, worship and ancestry happened here with the same thousands of years worth of history. We are appalled at the decimation of sacred places taking place in the Middle East. It’s happening here. Paleontologists have sites in Standing Rock. From a building devoted to it and a Casino with dinosaur bones displayed in a window shelf along with ancestral artifacts to name a few. This is one reservation. And bulldozers have been tearing apart the land as its dust rises up.

Do a search on the Cannonball River. Read the history. The tribes spanning centuries of life and death and life again along that river that flows into the Missouri River is historic and ancestral and part of families’ heritage. I have driven between Bismarck, North Dakota and Standing Rock. The route is altered because of the pipeline and protest site. The drive takes an hour. Driving through mostly prairie between hills, and badland rock formations, and mountains far in the distance; this drive through this land has few dwellings. Then, entering in, one can see the pipeline area. It is in the area of these men and women’s history; the Cannonball River, the Missouri River, Lake Oahe and in easy eyeshot is the greatest concentration of Standing Rock citizens’ homes, businesses and Tribal Government center. To say this pipeline location is not infringing is a gross lie. It is before them after driving an hour’s span of miles from a town and land that rejected the pipeline, past vast spaces with little to no dwelling areas to be horrifically displayed in the very backyard of lives and living of the people of the community of Standing Rock. The land the pipeline is on is scarcely beyond the shrunken border of what is currently a broken Treaty, and in blatant eyesight of those who have their lives there and derive their life from these waters. It is upsetting in every way to a culture that lives with the land and honors it. Who in faith see spiritually the land, its life, and their own all connected by a Creator, a culture and people that regards with great respect, ancestors, heritage and that they survived nearly being destroyed.

The Standing Rock youth began to protect their water. Environmental protectors arrived. Social Justice protectors arrived, people from Tribes all over the country arrived and those who pray. Some came in with arrogance and rude behavior that exasperated and antagonized the police force called in. It was not the intent of the people of Standing Rock to behave like that. Theirs was a call to honor, prayer and a peaceful protest because of the priority of remaining humble. One of the Tribal members prays for her people and their families and prays for the police and their families and the governing people and their families. It is a blanket of honor of love and the desire that all would see one another and be one in that kind of love. Even among the tanks, armored trucks, pepper spray, helicopters and psychological intimidation that has been brought into this place of what must have been seen as  out of the way and no one will notice. The people who live in Standing Rock insisted on prayer. That this has received the attention it has and the support it has must be an act of God. So many other land atrocities have been swept under the rug.

I believe with all my heart God is saying, “Look!”

Many argue that it is within the legal rights of private land to run this pipeline. Whose legal rights, I ask? Which Government?

The land is sacred to people who have lived off of it in honor and understanding that as the earth lives, so do they. As Creator created us He created this living land. The Church let go of that.

Repentance.

Isaiah 9:6 For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
 

The Cannonball River is the border between the Nation of Standing Rock and the European occupation of Turtle Island, now called the United States of America and in particular, North Dakota. These words may be foreign to you. We didn’t get taught our true history. We heard about settlers coming, the Gold Rush expanding the west and immigrants seeking a better life.

Why?

They wanted to come to a new land and to gain wealth They came under the guise of Manifest Destiny.

Please listen. Church, listen please, I beg you.

Manifest Destiny is a spirit; an evil one. Europeans partnered with this thing and tried to call it good. Coming here to settle and tame the land and live off its riches at the expense of those already living here.  Jesus said in John 10:10 “The Thief comes to steal, kill and destroy, I have come to give life and life abundantly.”

Land was taken for wealth, gold, silver and the best hunting and farming grounds, promises broken, people killed and cultures nearly destroyed. Manifest Destiny is a spirit not of Christ, but of Satan. In the spiritual part of my knowledge of generational spiritual strongholds, I asked God to deliver me from Manifest Destiny. He did. I felt a softening within my muscles as a sense of striving left me and a far deeper peace and contentment came upon me. My mind yielded and a sense of bull-headedness left me. Cooperation, listening, compassion, sharing and giving became strengthened. Yes, really.

I told my son about it and asked if he would want to be prayed for and be delivered from it if it was a part of him. He agreed. As I prayed and God touched him, he relaxed next to me. The very next day he came home from school and said, “Mom, guess what?! We learned about Manifest Destiny today! America was horrible.”

Now the land and atmosphere is being compromised for oil and people are put down for money.

We are seeing what is happening to our water. Kids try to take a drink with a cup at the beach and we knock it away and say, "Don't drink that!" Soil is contaminated with pesticides and more. We’ve seen extinctions. Now we are seeing dramatic weather changes that are affecting us all. Environmentalists can’t sleep at night listening to the premature snow melting and dripping from roofs. They know the value of the land and how we are all dependent on it. We need a miracle. We all need to pray and repent for what we have done to this land and what we have done to one another and get set free from the evils that have been driving us to our own destruction.

My friend is on his fifth tour of running/walking across the United States with the American Indian Movement’s Longest Walk 5.2. It will be completed again in Washington DC in July 2017. Currently in Nevada, he recently spent time on the Paiute-Shoshone Reservation where he said they have a sad history of nuclear waste and testing/flight practices. Our brothers’ and sisters’ scarce portions of land retained, is used by the U.S. Government to experiment on for weapons of destruction. Water is at a minimum and somehow, the Paiute-Shoshone have managed to remain there and survive. One text he sent came alone. The words, “Man is destroying himself.”

A piece about the Paiute-Shoshone Nye County written in the Las Vegas Review Journal  by Keith Rogers, posted January 11, 2014 reads: Time has left its mark on the land. From etchings in stone and symbolic paintings left on walls of wind caves by Ancient American Indians to remnants from gold and silver mines, to hundreds of pock marks- subsidence craters- from underground nuclear weapons tests, Nye County’s past and recent history are preserved in its landscape.

Everything we have comes from the Earth; physically everything. Spiritually, we have a gage or conscience that knows mostly what is right or wrong. If we see a child about to fall off of something we run and try to catch them before they do. We have a sense for the value of well-being and life. It’s within us, an invisible. Another invisible is that sense that wells up for social justice; identifying evil and desiring what is right and good and fair. This is spirituality with a winning side where the majority of humans ultimately want what’s right. God, a good God, our Creator and Savior Yeshua is intertwined as He taught us to pray, “Your Kingdom come, Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”  

In an article that tried to switch focus from the pipeline, they wrote about the trash accumulated at the protest camp. The words were that when the snow melts and the river floods, all those people who say they are environmentalists and protesting the protection of the water, are going to be polluting it.

I was just there. The clean-up is done.

The real clean-up needs to be done within ourselves, created in the image of God and living with one another on this one extraordinary place of living earth where our own lives and our children's are dependent.

I watched Indigenous people repent out loud for things they did to each other, for wrongful worship of animism, witchcraft, and for unforgiveness, anger etc. People stood in the gap for abuse, addictions and more. A man who came from Ireland repented for the conflicts between Catholics and Protestants and the religious spirit and abuses that came through and stood in the place of that. It was powerful. We will see something come of this. Standing Rock, in its very name, carries prophetic things.  Psalm 18:2 Yahweh/the LORD is my solid rock, my fortress, my rescuer. My God is my rock- I take refuge in Him! He's my shield, my salvation's strength, my place of safety.

Church, listen to this verse again. It has been your battle cry when you have been crying out for the Nation’s repentance.

2 Chronicles 7:14 If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Environmentalists, the Word in the Bible agrees with what you see and know in regards to the land. The head knowledge is also His heart. You are a blessing as you have persevered against financial greed and work to bring about restoration. The ways of what was first instilled is what works. Grazing kept the healthy cycle for soil, plants, water and animal life. Destroying nearly to extinction, the bison and the people living along the waters, has us environmentally feeling it now. Industrialization brought productivity and also produced pollution that is having detrimental effects.

This is a link to some experiments regarding reintroduction to grazing. Our thoughts need to return to what was and what worked and learn from the original design. Observing nature can teach us so much. A man says he learned how to lead by watching his horses. He is a pastor and has been leading many to Christ by following the way of leadership he learned from his horses.  

Isaiah 32:20 ESV “Happy are you who sow beside all waters, who let the feet of the ox and the donkey range free.”

Praying, humbling ourselves, turning from wicked ways, listening, efforts to understand cultures and love one another and truly observing and honoring the LORD and this living earth; God says He will heal this land. First Nations people  humbled themselves at the Inter-Tribal Prayer Gathering and Indigenous Healing the Land Conference at Standing Rock last week. We are believing in Him for His word.

May we all begin to look and see and understand right up to our President, so that when the Church cries out in repentance regarding the Nation, that it goes back to the depths of the heart of God where He has not forgotten those whom He had first established the Nations on this land.

Romans 8:19-21 ESV  For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. 20 For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope 21 that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain freedom of the glory of the children of God.
 

The more you read and research the history of indigenous people along the rivers and waterways, and study environmental research and search your own heart, you will see. Start a relationship or renew one with God. Pray. We can’t do this without Him. He loves us all. 2 Peter 3:9 The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.

·        If you are feeling prayerful, listen to this song “Called by My Name” by Robby Cummings. It was sung by he and Alex Costillo in worship at the Inter-Tribal Prayer Gathering and Indigenous Healing the Land Conference at Standing Rock March 3-7, 2017

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter 11 Praying for Others



Intercessory prayer is another way of saying you are praying for someone else.  It’s that simple.  Sometimes you hear the word intercessor.  That’s what the person is called that is praying for someone else; praying on their behalf. 

There is also a phrase of this type of thing referred to as, “standing in the gap.”  It is the connecting part between acknowledging God and the person you are praying for, or a situation you are praying about.  This phrase comes from the Bible verse in Ezekiel 22:30  “ I looked for someone who might rebuild the wall of righteousness that guards the land. I searched for someone to stand in the gap in the wall so I wouldn't have to destroy the land, but I found no one.” NLT

We know that God loves us and wants to have us to talk to Him. 

There is more. 

There is a call to pray not only for ourselves and to converse with Him, but to lift others in prayer before Him that need His hand in their lives or situations.  This is where our relationships, our placement in life and in the lives of others, our individual interests and compassions come into great purpose.

There is only one you.  Only you know the people you know in the ways of relationships that you have.  Only you have been given an interest and compassion in certain ways based on your own circumstances, places you’ve lived and point of view.  These are all areas God can use for great purposes through you and you alone.

Over 20 years ago I heard about a young mom whose baby girl had an emergency situation and needed to be taken by an ambulance.  She shared how she had always prayed for ambulances when she saw them.  She would pray for the people needing them, the people that were giving medical care and prayers for the driver.  She found herself on an ambulance with her little girl and she thought how surely there were others praying for them as they traveled in route to the hospital.  It gave her comfort.

I was moved by this.  I had never thought to do this and it changed me.  I became an avid prayer person this way.  I prayed for the ambulances as I thought of her story.  I began praying for the people in the hospitals as I would drive past them.  I especially prayed for children that I saw outside or when I drove by schools.  God had given me a heart for children.  This was part of the way I was made. 

My mom would always pray when she saw an airplane overhead.  We lived near a major airport and the planes are frequent.  She prayed for the passengers thinking of their business or family visits, vacations or maybe a need to see someone that was sick or attend a funeral.  She thought and prayed for a lot of situations.  She also prayed for the pilots and flight attendants. 

I have heard some pretty great stories of people being able to pray for others or change a life towards God while they flew next to someone on an airplane.  Sometimes I wonder if God also partnered with someone on the ground through their prayers.

These are some things you can pray for based on the way you are created; the things that trigger you.  We didn’t know who we were praying for, but we prayed.  Some people pray for government because they are politically minded.  Some think and pray for soldiers, some for truck drivers, some for teachers and some when they pass by nursing homes.

 One woman walked along a sidewalk in front of my parents’ house.   My dad was outside.  His house was for sale and the For Sale sign was up.  The woman spoke to him and told him that she always prays for the houses she sees that are for sale.  She prays for a sale, for blessed buyers and blessed sellers and that God would make good homes for them both and she would be praying for his. 

There are endless ways to pray and things to pray about.  I have learned that when someone comes to mind, I will pray for them.  It is a lot more fun to tell them that I was praying for them than to say I was thinking of them.  Sometimes I don’t see that person, but later hear that they had been going through something where prayers were needed.  God loves to partner with us in ways that He is moving.  When we act on them, it helps build our faith.

There were a couple of ways that God showed me how He was partnering with me in what He had planned and was doing.  I didn’t know them at the time, but just prayed.

I mentioned earlier that I had a tender heart towards children.  While I was in the car one morning driving to work, I saw a little boy outside by the street corner.  He was dressed like one of the characters of The Blues Brothers.  He was a plump little boy and he had on a hat and sunglasses and he was holding a saxophone.  His mom was taking his picture by the street sign. 

I began praying for him and my prayers took off in the Spirit.  It was so strong as I prayed and I wondered why I cared so much in the Spirit about the little boy whom I had never met. 

My daughter was 18 years old and started dating a guy that she met from the swim team that she helped assist on at her high school.  He wasn’t a Christian and she made it clear to him that church was important to her and so was her faith.  She told him that if he wanted any part of her life, he would have to come to church with her.  He agreed and would come and sit with her and our family each Sunday. 

During one of the worship songs, it really moved him. He wanted to have a life in Christ and became a follower of Jesus.  The song playing that moved him to this decision was “LORD, Reign In Me.”  It meant so much to him that he even got a tattoo on his arm with a cross and “Reign In Me” written on it. 

One day, my daughter and her boyfriend were talking about when they were little.  He shared how he had been really short and chubby like our daughter had been in middle school.  It was funny because he was now 6’4 and very thin.  She went and got her pictures of herself and he went home to get his.  We looked through the stack and there was a photo of him dressed as a Blues Brother with a saxophone standing by the street sign.  It was the snapshot of the photo I saw taken years before on that same street!

He was the little boy!  He was who Jesus cared so much for and had me partner in prayer for him.  Not only did the LORD love him, but He showed His love for me by showing me His power and love and to strengthen my faith in prayer.  He has given me this story to share with others, too. 

 

The young man and my daughter later ended their relationship, but he continued to come to our church and often sat with our family.  He frequently played his saxophone with the worship/music team at the church services and for special programs.  Later, he gave his testimony in front of the church congregation of how he came to Jesus through the music of that church and the insistence of a girl he was dating that his only access to her was if he came to church. 

Later, he married a friend of our daughter’s who attended that church, too.  God is good and He has a plan and He invites us to participate in what He is doing through the beautiful ability to pray with the breath that He has given us.  Our lives matter and He gives purpose to our breath by His Spirit.

Another example that God showed me His hand in nudging me to pray was revealed to me more quickly.  I was waiting to go inside a Bible bookstore.  It hadn’t opened yet and would in 15 minutes.  I decided to wait in my car and I decided to ask God who He wanted me to pray for while I waited for it to open.  The LORD said, “Tim Pawlenty.”  He had been our Minnesota Governor the previous term.  I wasn’t one that was ever into our state government and people.  I was surprised by his name and knew I certainly didn’t think that up myself.  I asked the LORD how He wanted me to pray for him; politically, personally, family?  God said, “All of it.”  So, I did.  I prayed for those 15 minutes and then I noticed that two boys got inside the store so I knew the doors were now open.

I walked into the store through the first set of doors and then opened the set that opened straight into the store.  In Minnesota, we have double sets of doors to help keep the cold out.  As I watched my step over the threshold, I looked up just as I got passed it.  There was this tower built like a pyramid out of books from the floor to six feet tall.  It was built out of one book and on the cover it read, “’Courage to Stand’ by Tim Pawlenty” and a big picture of his smiling face!  I was shocked and jolted and bought the book!  I was excited as I told the cashier what had just happened and she sort of looked at me like I was nuts.  It wasn’t the reaction I was expecting in a Bible Bookstore, but I didn’t care.  I grabbed my book and raced home and kept praying for him.  Three weeks later, he announced his candidacy for the Presidency of the United States.  He ran for office for a while and God continued to prompt me to pray for him.  Even after he announced his resignation from the race, God continued to have me pray as he transitioned into his next role.

God is amazing.  He does so much when we open our lives and our everyday to Him as we really walk with Him and breathe Him in and know how much He loves us.  He’s powerfully active and He puts us in the places that He desires for purpose…His purpose.

I mentioned how cold Minnesota is.  It is brutally cold.  I don’t like the cold.  I love heat and humidity and I often wondered why God had me live here.  This last Easter time I was in Florida visiting my parents and enjoying a beach vacation with them at their place. I was doing my usual complaining, wondering why on earth God would have me live in Minnesota while I believed that I was made for Florida as I sat sunning on the beach. 

 

A friend of my Mom’s listened to me and he looked down at me lying there as he towered over and said, “You aren’t in Minnesota for you, you’re in Minnesota for God.”  Wow!  He silenced me in a flash! Like lightning.  I remember my Mom’s mouth dropping open along with mine.

 These were strong, powerful words that I will not soon forget.  So, here I sit, typing during a blizzard and hearing thunder at the same time in the middle of April.  But, I’m here for Him and my purpose, my place, my relationships and my interests are all used with the incredible life God has given me to know Him more and to bless others through Him by my own life and God-given breath.  Where are you?  You have much to do there.  You have been created for more.

When God decides to reveal why He had you pray, it builds your faith.  Your praying does so much to build your own faith when you act in obedience and He shows you later why you were moved to pray.

A beautiful thing happened right at this point of writing.  I had wrapped up writing for the day and thought of a friend of mine.  I decided to pray for her and I let her know that I did and was thinking of her.  She responded with gratitude and thanked me as a friend, as a sister in faith and teacher.  She went on to say that what I had taught about praying for others when they come to mind, in practice, had given her a joy and peace like none other.  She thanked me for teaching her that.  Not only was she blessed by my prayers, but the return was exactly what I needed!  Her words encouraged me at this exact time of writing on this exact subject!  It affirmed my current work and at times, in all honesty, when you are in the midst of a project you feel you are being obedient to God for, you sometimes wonder, in the amount of effort and no knowledge of any good of it, if it was really for Him after all?  God blessed me through her words.  I had not known that she had ever grasped that part of anything I had ever said before, taught or wrote.  It blessed me with a new certainty in the writing and the time commitment that it has taken in research, prayer and effort in placing the words together.  God loves to weave within our lives and create and prove His undeniable presence amidst our lives in precise, perfected timing. 

(I am writing this portion later.  This woman that I felt led to pray for and she responded back in ways of encouragement was only three weeks from passing away.  Those were the last words I ever heard back from her.  I knew she was ill, but had no idea how far the cancer had gone.  I went to see her a few days before she died.  She was unable to respond or communicate.  I prayed love, gratitude for her life and her encouraging words she gave for so many and for blessing on her and peace.  What she had given without speaking of her own troubles was an incredible generosity.)

Intercession, praying for others, is a ministry of divine appointment.  Esther 4:14 “For if you remain silent at this time, relief and deliverance for the Jews will arise from another place, but you and your father’s family will perish. And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”    Esther is a book about intercession.

Even in silence there could be death.  Speaking in Esther’s case, was the only hope for life.

Through a series of miraculous favor, Esther was given the position of Queen.  All along the way was her cousin, Mordecai.  She had been an orphan and Mordecai cared for her and brought her up.  When she became Queen, he sat at the gates of the Kingdom observing and watching over all that was happening to Esther.  He was keeping watch. They were Jews and at that time, were thought of as lowly.  The King was not aware of Esther’s lineage.

Mordecai overheard the plans of an evil right hand man of the King’s named Haman.  Mordecai informed Esther of Haman’s plan and the King proclaimed what Haman had wanted… the killing of all of the Jews.  Mordecai plead with Esther to help save the people.  Only she had access to the King.  Esther then told Mordecai to tell all of the people to fast for three days while she prayed and prepared for what she must do.  She was to approach the King without having been invited.  This could be reason alone for death in those times.

As Mordecai interceded for the people in asking Esther for her help, Esther in turn asked for the interceding of the people to help her by prayer and fasting.  Mordecai’s famous words ring on often in the ways of purpose; “For who knows that you have come to royal position for such a time as this.”  Prior to these words he said and if you do not do this God will save the Jews through another way, but you and your household will perish. 

This means that God’s plan will take place.  He will keep His people safe and will not let them come to complete destruction.  But, if she does not step in, she herself has lost her own life in the way of disobedience and not trusting God as she serves Him.  She loses the testimony of His salvation and greatness and therefore, would have no heritage of faith to pass on to her children and family.

Some of my own legacy comes from the knowledge of the prayers and faith of my great grandparents.  It is known among all of the great grands and the great-great grand children that our great-great grandmother prayed for her children, her children’s children, their children after them and so on.  The knowledge of her words of faith and prayers to carry into generations are carried in our hearts and minds as we, too, have learned to pray that way.  She spoke it out.  We know other family members prayed and believed and showed actions of faith, but her words spoken are known to us and easy to carry with us.

As Esther listened to Mordecai regarding this she said, Go, gather all the Jews to be found in Susa, and hold a fast on my behalf, and do not eat or drink for three days, night or day. I and my young women will also fast as you do. Then I will go to the king, though it is against the law, and if I perish, I perish Esther 4:16 ESV 

 

Esther showed that she cared more for her people and believing and walking in faith.  Doing what was right in her faith and spirit was more important than a physical death.  Some versions of this say, “If I die, I die.”    

Esther 5:1 On the third day Esther put on her royal robes and stood in the inner court of the palace, in front of the king’s hall. The king was sitting on his royal throne in the hall, facing the entrance. 2When he saw Queen Esther standing in the court, he was pleased with her and held out to her the gold scepter that was in his hand. So Esther approached and touched the tip of the scepter.

There are traits here that I see in coming before God like coming before His throne in prayer.  We have seen verses that say because of what Jesus did for us, we can now come boldly and confidently before Him.  Isaiah 61:10   “I delight greatly in the LORD; my soul rejoices in my God. For he has clothed me with garments of salvation and arrayed me in a robe of righteousness, as a bridegroom adorns his head like a priest, and as a bride adorns herself with her jewels.”  Esther used her position as Bride and adorned herself before coming to the throne.  So has Christ’s intercession for us become the garments of salvation and a robe of righteousness.

Esther 7:3-4  Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have found favor with you, O king, and if it pleases your majesty, grant me my life—this is my petition. And spare my people—this is my request. 4For I and my people have been sold for destruction and slaughter and annihilation. If we had merely been sold as male and female slaves, I would have kept quiet, because no such distress would justify disturbing the king.

.  Here we see in Esther her distress.  She would not have bothered the king with something they could have endured and suffered through, but it was the things that would be unbearable that she asked for mercy in.

Reading in Mark, we observe Jesus going before God the Father prior His crucifixion.  He brought Peter, James and John with Him to be the watch for Him, His intercessors as He was about to intercede for us. 

Mark 14:33-35  33He took Peter, James and John along with him, and he began to be deeply distressed and troubled. 34“My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death,” he said to them. “Stay here and keep watch.”

 35Going a little farther, he fell to the ground and prayed that if possible the hour might pass from him. 36“Abba, Father,” he said, “everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”  

Jesus fell to the ground before God in prayer and anguish for what was to come.  He prayed His requests and used His position of Son as He called God, “Abba, Father.”

But, He held God in authority and showed that He would follow His will.

 Jesus saw that the ones that He had asked to watch over Him while He prayed had fallen asleep again.  This can also be seen in a metaphor as people that believe in Jesus, but fall asleep in the efforts of prayer and watching out for others fall asleep at the requests of God in this respect. We are easily tempted by our own desires and distractions and remaining prayerful and watchful has great importance to keep us from temptations. Mark 14:37-38 Then he returned to his disciples and found them sleeping. “Simon,” he said to Peter, “are you asleep? Could you not keep watch for one hour? 38Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the body is weak.”

Our strength comes from a relationship with God.  Often we want that, but don’t do a very good job and doing the things necessary for it. 

We need to pray.

 These are Characteristics of Intercessors. 

We can see this in Esther’s example and Jesus’.

Selflessness and self discipline

Obedience

Persistence and determination

Patience

Faith

Spirit placed burden

Love for others

Willing to give up one’s self for God’s will/Sacrifice

 

It sometimes involves fasting and some examples of that are found in Deuteronomy 9, Ezra 10, Daniel 9, Joel 2 and Jonah 3, Matthew 4

As a group of believers join together, the prayer and fasting time together can open more of God’s work and power.  Again, this is part of our relationships.  Isaiah 62:6-7 I have posted watchmen on your walls, O Jerusalem; they will never be silent day or night. You who call on the Lord, give yourselves no rest,7 and give him no rest till he establishes Jerusalem and makes her the praise of the earth. 

Jesus didn’t call just one to “watch,” but three, when He prayed in Gethsemane.  He drew upon their close relationship to Him and one another and that together, He expected them to be strong. 

As people that have been asked to pray or have a desire or nudge to pray for someone, you are called.  It is an appointment into a role that you were called to do.  If you have ever thought of someone and shortly later saw them or heard something about them, you have been nudged by His Spirit.  Some call it intuition, but it is placed upon you by your Creator. 

 

It is part of His power and your purpose. 

 

We need to open ourselves up to this and use it for the great good of those promptings and nudges.  You are appointed to service! 

To those that have prayed for others: You are the ones carrying the beggars, blind and lame for you hear Him and know Him and follow His ways.  The Lord has given you eyes to see and ears to hear.  This call is for a purpose far greater than you can know.

If you haven’t prayed in this way for others, follow those promptings.  It is the beginning of learning how to walk by His Spirit.  Believe that the prayers open wide His door of blessings to come.  His Kingdom waits for the requests of its people.

There was a time that was hard for me to step in and pray.  I was at a conference and the speaker sat on a stool on the stage.  There were around 700 people present.  I strongly sensed the LORD telling me to go up and place a hand on him and speak a short prayer over him.  God told me what I was to say.  It was only three sentences long. 

I started to panic and didn’t want to do it and then questioned if God really wanted me to do that!  It seemed ridiculous, not to mention incredibly embarrassing!  A man in front of me had been rocking side to side for more than 10 minutes.  I was irritated by it and had wished for a while that he would stop, but to no avail.  As I thought of this absurd request, I said to God in my mind, “Okay, LORD.  If that is really You, make that man stop.”  I had not even sounded the “p” out in my mind for “stop” and he stopped!  My heart pounded in my chest and I KNEW I had to go forward.  Once again, in a panic of knowing His instruction, I told God my part of the conditions.  I can be dangerously bold sometimes and He could have not helped, but by His grace and His desire for me to act, He acted.  I told Him, “You are going to HAVE to tell me when to go and do it.” 

The speaker went into a prayer time where we all prayed quietly to ourselves.  Then he started singing, “Arise, my child, arise.”  It was soft and sweet and gentle.  I knew that was my cue.  I got up.  I kept my head down the whole way up, so embarrassed and hoping no one knew me.  I didn’t know if he had people like guards or bouncers that would grab me and pull me away, or if he would tell me to get down from the stage, or get upset with me approaching.  I walked up the stairs, placed my hand on him and said the words.  He looked up at me with the kindest and warmest smile. 

I quickly turned away after I said it and over and over again, I heard him say as people were still quietly praying, “Thank you, Jesus.  Thank you, Jesus.”  Whatever it was, it was between him and Jesus.  I never found out why or what, but I knew Jesus did something in that moment for him.  I couldn’t wait to get out of there.  I was still embarrassed, but my desire to do as God asked was stronger than my desire to not obey.  Our words are powerful.  Whatever it was that I said to him mattered a lot to him as God used me to communicate in another way to him, God’s love.

I shared this incident to some women that I was teaching.  Another woman shared a time when she was asked by the LORD to do something weird.   She was led to pray for someone that was leading and to go to that person’s feet and pray over them.  She did it.  After the prayer time broke up, the woman next to her said to her that she had that same nudge to do that, but she didn’t do it.  It is an example that God’s desires will take place, but we have the choice to partner with Him or not. 

Had either one of us not been in regular relationship with the LORD in prayer, it would have been easy to not have acted.  Many of us would wish that we would do such a thing, with the Spirit being willing, but our flesh is weak.  My weakness was still prominent as I put conditions up for God to answer in order to make me feel confident enough to do it.  Our flesh IS weak!  We need His help!  He often helps to help us to believe.

Not everyone God calls you to pray for know Him.  God will prompt us to pray for people that don’t know Him or for people that are in the midst of wicked lives.  He welcomes the hands of the wicked to be made clean.  It is His heart.  Don’t let a criticism for their life keep you from being opened to those nudges.  Keeping yourself from judging or being critical opens you up to the fullness of love and serving that Jesus intended.  It is why the lifestyle of forgiveness is so important.  Forgiveness is a humbling of yourself.  When you are humbled you are compassionate to the struggles of others.

Believe that the prayers open wide His door of blessings to come.  The person you are praying for may not have ever had a prayer lifted on their behalf before God. 

 

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One Phone Call

I had a friend that I went to high school with.  That was over thirty years ago.  His mom attends the church that I attended most of my life.  She is also friends with my mom.  They aren’t the kind of friends that get together very often, but the kind that have the same heart and faith and the few times that they do get together they both leave blessed. They both belong to a traditional Lutheran church over those years, but they knew the LORD in His fullness of His Spirit.  Both of them lived with the gifts of His Spirit.  

Rarely spoken about in the church, these charismatic women would find each other and have a prayer time in their private homes where they were free to pray in His Spirit and worship in His fullness and power.  It was a little bit of an underground, but those prayers kept families, often unknowing pastors, and one another going.  These women are remarkable and I am blessed to have grown up under their prayers and love.

My mom has been spending time in Florida during some cold Minnesota months.  Apparently she wrote her friend a letter and she shared some of the things happening in our lives.  Good things.  God things.

I had just finished writing another article and I sat in the quiet and wondered to myself, “Now what?”  The phone rang and broke through the silence.  It was my mom’s friend.  I may have had conversations with her on the phone two times in the last thirty years. She was crying.  She quickly told me she was crying and praising.

She began sharing that she got a letter from my mom and she was moved by what my mom had shared in regards to the miracle of our new grandson.  From there she proceeded to pray for my family, my children, my husband, my brother and his family.  She prayed blessings, she praised and she prayed in the Spirit.  She wept, prayed, prophesied and praised some more. 

As the ring of the phone burst into the quiet, so did her prayers like a sudden gust of wind.  I can’t really describe it.  I received her prayers.  As quickly as it blew in, it was done and we hung up.

This lovely lady in her eighties has been widowed two times.  She told me that she is alone in her home and she sings and praises and sings towards that empty place where her husband used to lay beside her. He has been gone for two years.  She says she misses him, but she doesn’t grieve any longer.  She said it is because she knows how happy her husband is with Jesus.  

Instead of counting her loss, she counts his gain.  She sings and praises and prays for others.  She says she likes this quiet time because she’s free to fill her house with singing to the LORD.

Her exuberance in the call, her hope and joy were life to me.  Her prayers for the people I love dearly were a blanket of comfort and protection.  It was a shower of gifts; one gift after another, with every word of life, love, hope, blessing and prayer.  Her words that were spoken in tongues that I did not understand were velvety and beautiful and sounded like they belonged in a palace for a King.  And they were.  She did not hold anything back from the flow of His Spirit. 

I am still in a bit of wonder from what feels like such a holy time that burst through my quiet.   I am inspired by one so sweet and courageous to boldly speak this kind of blessing and celebration into my mind, heart and soul.  She prayed for and blessed going down the generations of my family; my husband and me, our children and our grandchild. 

Her choice to use her time and life by placing a phone call praying and blessing while praising the LORD was a powerful choice and it gives much into our lives.  She is an example of living life boldly and that we can continue to do great things in life and in His Name  even from a home alone, but filled with His Presence.

If you come across older women with twinkles in their eyes and smiles on their faces, there may be a whole lot more going on than you thought and if they offer to pray for you, let them.

Psalm 145:18  The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth.

Ezekiel 34:26  I will bless them and…there will be showers of blessing.

 

 

 

Soul Food For Your Prayer Life

 

 

Sometimes one person can say something that changes the way you do life.  Just over twenty years ago, one of those times happened.  A young mom shared a story.  Her daughter had nearly drowned and was in route by ambulance to a hospital.  She talked about how in the past, whenever she would see ambulances, she always said a prayer for the people needing them and for the workers on them.  Her thought of how she prayed for ambulances brought her comfort as she believed others were praying for her little girl now in one herself.  She held to those thoughts and comfort and hope.  Her daughter was fully revived and did not suffer any losses.

 

This was a new beginning for me.  I had never thought to say a prayer in those cases.  I began to.  I prayed for police.  I would pray for those in a hospital that I drove past. Then I took it further to other places, situations and people.  I especially prayed for kids that were in the school I passed or for kids playing, walking or biking down a side walk. 

   

One time in particular, I saw a little boy standing on a street corner by a main road.  His mom was taking a picture of him.  It looked like he may have been at a bus stop.  He was dressed up like one of the characters from The Blues Brothers and he resembled Jake, John Belushi’s character. He was a little shorter and rounder.  He wore a hat and sunglasses and he held a saxophone.  I prayed for him.

 

As I prayed in the Spirit the prayer became stronger than I had any mind for as I continued driving down the road.   I was surprised by the intensity of the prayer and I wondered why I cared so much for this little boy as I drove down the street on my way to work.  Sometimes God would move like that as I prayed for people.

 

My Mom told me she always prayed for people in airplanes when she would see one.  She thought of people going to see a sick relative or going to a funeral, for people on business or on vacation.  She lived near an airport so she was busy.

 

 Praying for strangers began to be a part of my every day.

 

When our daughter was in her late teens she started dating a boy.  They both were on the school swim teams.  He didn’t share the same faith as she did, but she told him that if he wanted to date her, he had to go to church with her.  He agreed.  He was interested in her enough to make the effort.

 

He was a gifted musician and enjoyed the music at the church.  During one of the songs, he was moved.  The words, “LORD, reign in me” became his heart’s request.  He came to Christ in that moment and through the music.  Later, he would play with our worship team.

 

After they had been dating for a while they started to talk about when they were kids.  They both had said they were shorter than most of the other kids back then and slightly over-weight.  It was hard to believe.  They were both now thin and he was super tall.  They each went and located their pictures from that time and were looking through them.  She was laughing and said, “Mom, you have to see these.”

 

I went through his stack of photos and there he was.  There was the photo of the little boy I had driven by years before dressed as a Blues Brother holding his saxophone.   He was standing at the street sign that I remembered having been driving by.   I was astonished!  I had prayed for him!  God had a plan on his life and I got to be a part of a moment in time to pray along and over this child that the LORD loved so much.

 

One moment given.

 

One moment partnered with God can change lives.

  

 It changed my life in a way of faith and purpose.  

 

As they got older they no longer dated, but he continued to attend the church.  As a young man, he got up and shared his testimony of how he came to Jesus during one of the worship songs.  He even has a tattoo that says, “Lord, reign in me” with a cross.  His gift of music and his saxophone has blessed that church many times and later he married a woman that had attended that church, too.

 

The blessing of God letting me see a result of a prayer for a stranger has impacted me for the rest of my life.  I know the prayers are heard.  I know He loves all of those we see and come across.  Your place, your timing, and the people around you have purpose.  

 

 Live in your purpose.  Live in love.

 

I shared this story with a group of women five years ago.  As I shared, one woman in particular gasped.  She was back in the states on a missionary furlough.  She was obviously moved by the story.  Just two weeks ago, on another furlough from their work in Sri Lanka, her husband approached me.  He told me that he shares that story I told of one prayer to everyone he gets to meet in Sri Lanka.  

 

One prayer.

One story.

 

You matter.  Your prayers matter.  Your words matter.  Your life has the ability for great purpose. God hears and He moves.  Be encouraged today that you and your prayers matter.  Believe.  There is hope. 

 

 Romans 5:5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.