People have such crazy ideas about God. So often I have found that if I offer to pray for them they often think the worst …
“Oh, no … am I going to die … do I need prayer … what’s wrong …?”
When so often, I have no idea why He wants me to pray, He just wants me to offer … the rest is up to Him, my job is to obey, do as He asks, do as He would have done … the rest is His job … and He is so very good at His job …
We extend the kingdom … he builds the church …
And so I found myself pondering this after having prayed for a girl that was quietly reading a book on a bench on the side of the street.
She had local hospital dog tags on, and had obviously finished for the day. I had felt to turn left out of a shop, rather than right, to walk home.
“Ok God” … I thought “… what are we doing?”
I turned the corner and I saw her sitting there, in the sunshine, on the last day of the year reading quietly, and I felt His familiar nudging … “ask her if you can pray”
I had nothing else, no word of knowledge, no amazing insight, no prophetic wisdom or declaration that I knew I would and could shower her with … just one girl with her God offering to pray with no idea why …
Regardless, I walked up to her gently, excused my interruption and offered to pray. I have learnt to do so, regardless of me (click here for relevant motivation for why I will stop when prompted … because you just never know!). Her first comment was …
“Oh why, there is nothing wrong with me … I do hope everything is ok …”
I smiled and said, “I don’t know why He wanted me to ask you this, but I just know He does, perhaps He just wants me to bless you, and in me stopping to pray, He is letting you know that He loves you …”
And so I took her hand and invited the Holy Spirit to come and I got …
Nothing!
Zip!
So I blessed her, and as I did I got … nothing … and so I released peace and favour and felt Him say just that her time in Australia was not yet done (she was from Canada) … she agreed saying that she was really happy and had no intentions of going back to Canada … “ok … so nothing new there” I thought (note irony of thought, and dry Aussie sense of humour tone) …
And with that … I felt Him say “that’s it”, so I thanked her for her time, and went on my way … feeling a bit of a twit … but having obeyed, and having let it go, because who knows, but God, why He wants things done as and when He does … ?
I have learnt this on my journeys and travels with God … I cannot hold onto the feeling of “silly” if I am going to keep extending His kingdom into the earth …
Extend the Kingdom … my job … build the church … His job!
How do I extend the Kingdom? … obedience to His voice, His desires, His promptings … no matter what …
Scary? … Yes! … Impssible? … No! Do I fail? … All the time! Do I make mistakes? … Yes! … But I keep at it and keep getting better 🙂 and as I do I feel, sense, hear and know Him more and more … and that is worth the challenge …
As I walked away I thought of all the times I had offered to pray for people and their first instinct was “oh no, what’s wrong?” … I even had one girl say “oh no, am I going to die?” to which I laughed and said “no, He just wants you to know He is real, loves you and wants a relationship with people …”
That time the girl didn’t quite get it … but it didn’t matter … because I cannot pray and not affect change … for powerful and effective are the prayers of a righteous person! And so, if I pray in accordance with His heart for others, always releasing love, hope, faith, joy, peace, grace, forgiveness, understanding … with the ingredients of the Kingdom of Heave in mind, I cannot go far wrong … and my prayers, which are powerful (because He says they are) cannot do anything but bless …
And so, I left the girl on the bench seat, and walked on in the sunshine … musing over why so many would think of problems or sickness in relationship to prayer and God and I realised that too few people really know the heart of God … His love, His grace, His favour … I know but a particle of His goodness …
I believe we must keep spreading the word, telling the stories of His goodness, keep blessing people with random acts of kindness, keep offering Him to the world so that both Christians and non-Christians alike can see that … OMG! Is not just a short handed expletive but OH MY God … MY …
God, IS Good!
Wow! More of us need to have your sense of faith and confidence to trust God’s “nudge” ! This is a great story and the fact that it’s real life helps me to lean not on my own understanding but rather on faith in those times when I feel even the slightest nudge to do something! Thanks for sharing! 🙂
Hey there. You hear from Him well … So step out and give it a go … The worst that can happen is someone is blessed!