The Privilege of Prayer

One area the Lord has been teaching me about, as I have been seeking Him for my sister in her battle with Lymphoma Cancer, is in the area of prayer. I have always enjoyed prayer. Prayer is not something that I dread. Prayer is not something that I feel uncomfortable doing. I firmly believe that when I pray, God hears me, and not only does He hear me, but He is working in response to my prayers. Since hearing of my sister´s news, the Lord has taken me to new places in prayer.

When we receive bad news, whether it pertains to us or someone else, we are often moved to pray. For those who have a walk with Jesus, prayer is a natural bi-product of bad news. If someone tells us of a difficulty in their life, we often respond with a very appropriate, ¨I will pray for you.¨ It is up to us then to follow through on our commitment. God hears our prayers no matter how short and He knows the intentions of our heart. However, the Lord has taught me that while short prayers work, God wants to call us deeper in our prayers that we may uncover all the treasures that lay before us as we unite with the heart of God.

Since hearing of my sister´s cancer, I have found myself in a constant prayer. I feel that I am uncovering different areas of God´s heart as it involves my sister´s illness. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians 5:17, ¨Pray without ceasing.¨ I have never considered or fully understood what this passage means until this season of my life. 

There are three things that the Lord has pointed out to me from this passage. First of all, we need to have a daily, moment by moment, dependence on God in every area of our lives. As I have prayed for my sister, I realize that there is nothing I can do to make her better. If she conquers this cancer, it´s because God does it. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. 

Secondly, this passage has taught me to pray repeatedly. We should always be in a spirit of prayer. Our lives should be a conversation with God. I once heard a missionary say that every day should be a prayer or conversation with God, when you go to sleep you don´t ¨hang up the phone¨, you just say, ¨see you in the morning.¨ I have found myself praying for my sister at all hours of the day. 

The third lesson the Lord has taught me from this verse is to not give up. I love the parable Jesus shares in Luke 18 about the persistent widow. We learn a valuable lesson from this widow about prayer. We are encouraged to continue praying until everything God desires has been accomplished. God is teaching me the importance of lingering with God. We should not pray for someone in order to scratch the request off our bucket list. We should pray and pray over and over until God does something in response to our prayer. We have seen the Lord work in recent weeks in my sister´s life as God has used the chemo to shrink her tumor. I continue to pray for complete healing, pressing in until the Lord has completed His work.

What a privilege it is to pray and talk to the God of the universe. For me, prayer has never been so exciting and faith building. May God ignite within you a passion for prayer. May He take you to new levels in your prayer life and may you understand His heart more fully as you seek His face. Ask the Holy Spirit to ignite your prayer life and see what happens. What a privilege it is to carry everything to God in prayer.

A Call to Prayer

Last Thursday, while I was in St Louis for a youth conference, I received word from my Mom that my precious sister, Andrea, has a large tumor in her chest. It has been diagnosed as an uncommon and aggressive cancer called non-Hodgkins large B-cell lymphoma. 

I want to invite you to join us in prayer as we declare life, peace, joy, health and healing over her. Her situation is serious – very serious. The tumor has already broken a rib and is pressing against her heart, esophagus, larynx, and the four major blood vessels around the heart. The tumor is inoperable, but it is not untreatable.

In the next two days Andrea and her husband Josh will make a decision on the medical treatment. This is a critical time. She needs the wisdom of God and she also needs divine healing.

The good news is that our God is a healer. Healing is not just something God dabbles in once in a while – Healer is one of His names. It is who He is and what He does. He is good at it – the best. The Great Physician. No one does it better than the Lord Jesus Christ Himself.

Josh and Andrea wrote a wonderful testimony of faith describing their journey and the exact medical details. Click here <http://goo.gl/7c0ck> if you would like to read more. They will update their progress on this website blog.

I invite you to pray with us for my sister's complete healing. Please join Team Andrea by rising up and joining intercessors around the world as we seek Jesus together for wholeness and health.

Joanna and I can’t thank you enough for standing with us through this most challenging season. 

Hebrews 4:16, "Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need."

Can you hear me now?

My favorite human being on the face of the earth is my wife.  I better be careful or I might just score some brownie points.  In all seriousness, she is the most inspiring individual I have ever met. 

Let me explain.  Joanna was born with severe hearing loss and profoundly deaf in both ears.  She has worn hearing aids since she was a toddler to help increase her ability to hear.  She is a phenomenal lip reader and relies on that skill to help her communicate.  However, it is still frustrating for her.  She's not able to sit in a group and follow every word that is shared.  She's not able to enjoy music the way a hearing person does.  She won't hear you if you're talking behind her back.  If you have a long mustache and a soft voice, she wouldn't even know you're talking.  The sounds that a hearing person takes for granted, she will miss most of them.

With this being said, I hardly ever hear Joanna complain.  Joanna has an incredible ability to listen with her heart.  Yes her ears don't work well, and her eyes work pretty well, but her heart is a treasure full of gold.  She has a genuine love for people and God's creation.  Because she sees life through a different lens due to her deafness, she has a God-given ability to see the needs of people more than the average person.  She takes me to school all the time with lessons in compassion.  When one of our children gets stung by a bee, they know who to go to for comfort.  Joanna's level of concern will warm the heart of anyone.

Joanna has embraced who God has created her to be.  The Bible says in Psalm 139 that we are each fearfully and wonderfully made.  Joanna has embraced her inability to hear.  She realizes that there is nothing she can do and that God has a reason for her being deaf.  There have been times when she has been frustrated because she can't hear, or she'll come home tired from trying to follow a busy conversation.  But at the end of the day, she knows that she is God's special creation.

For the last two years, we have been praying more persistently that Joanna would be healed.  In Mark 7, we read of a man who was deaf and was healed.  We believe that Jesus is in the process of healing Joanna.  In moving to Minnesota this last year, we found out that we only live 4 hours from Mayo Clinic, which has one of the premier Cochlear Implant departments in the country.  Last Friday, Joanna underwent this surgery to improve her capacity to hear.  As she heals and awaits the activation, we are waiting with much anticipation to experience the changes this will bring to Joanna's ability to hear.  During surgery, the doctor ran a test to make sure the device was stimulating her hearing nerves and all the tests were passed.  We praise the Lord for His goodness to us!  These are exciting days ahead for our family with the prospects of Joanna hearing better.

As I have reflected on my wife's hearing in recent days, I am reminded of my need to hear the voice of God.  How often does God have to ask us, Can you hear me now?  In a world that severs our hearing nerves with the garbage of media, sin and busyness, we often block out the voice of God.  My prayer has been, as recorded in Revelation, "Give me ears to hear what the Spirit is saying."  In other words, God, give my heart a cochlear implant.  I want to position myself in a place where I can hear the voice of God.  As a husband, I must hear the voice of God.  As a father, I must hear the voice of God.  As a son, I must hear the voice of God.  As a pastor, I must hear the voice of God.  I can't be the man that God calls me to be unless I am spending time knowing and experiencing the presence of God.  When I am still, then I can know God.

God has taught me a lot through my wife.  These are just a few examples of that.  I am blessed to have a wife who loves Jesus, who loves me and cares for me and allows me to be the man that God has created me to be.  Joanna is a blessing and as we read in Proverbs 18, "He who finds a wife finds what is good and receives favor from the LORD."  I thank God for my wife!  I look forward to the end of this month when we go back to the hospital to have her hearing device activated, I may just ask her, Can you hear me now?