A young missionary on furlough told this incredible story while visiting his home church in Michigan. "While serving at a small field hospital in Africa, every two weeks I traveled by bicycle through the jungle to a nearby city for supplies. This was a journey of two days and required camping overnight at the halfway point. On one of these journeys, I arrived in the city where I planned to collect money from a bank, purchase medicine and supplies, and then begin my two-day journey back to the field hospital.Upon arrival in the city, I observed two men fighting, one of whom had been seriously injured. I treated him for his injuries and at the same time talked to him about the Lord Jesus Christ. I then traveled two days, camping overnight, and arrived home without incident. Two weeks later, I repeated my journey.Upon arriving in the city once again, I was approached by the young man I had treated. He told me that he had known that I carried money and medicines. He said, "Some friends and I followed you into the jungle, knowing you would camp overnight. We planned to kill you and take your money and drugs. But just as we were about to move into your camp, we saw that you were surrounded by twenty-six armed guards." At this, I laughed and said that I was certainly all alone out in that jungle campsite. The young man pressed the point, however, and said, "No sir, I was not the only person to see the guards. My five friends also saw them, and we all counted them. It was because of those guards that we were afraid and left you alone.At this point in the sermon, one of the men in the congregation jumped to his feet and interrupted the missionary and asked if he could tell him the exact day this happened. The missionary told the congregation the date, and the man who interrupted told him this story: "On the night of your incident in Africa, it was morning here and I was preparing to go play golf. I was about to putt when I felt the urge to pray for you. In fact, the urging of the Lord was so strong, I called men in this church to meet with me here in the sanctuary to pray for you. Would all of those men who met with me on that day please stand up?" The men who had met together to pray that day stood up. The missionary wasn't concerned with who they were, he was too busy counting how many men he saw. There were twenty-six."
"Be a prayer warrior, not a prayer worrier. A prayer warrior walks in the authority of Jesus."
1.What is prayer?
Prayer is the simple act of "talking with God" and opening our minds to receive His point of view on a matter. Prayer is a hotline to God. Each time we pray, we won't receive a busy signal, and we can spend all the time we want talking to God. How can this be? Because God is never too busy to speak with us. He always welcomes our calls and we don't need to be concerned about any phone charges, because Jesus already paid our bill in full.Whenever God is our focus we are praying.More specifically, prayer is:~ Our S.O.S. signal to God in times of crisis. Prayer is one of the most important instruments in our spiritual survival arsenal as it stops the strategy of the enemy.~ The key that unlocks the miraculous.~ Where we become spiritually recharged.~ Talking to God with a trusting heart.~ Asking God for guidance.~ Listening for God's voice. Isn't listening one of the qualities we look for in others? This is the same in our relationship with God. He is looking for us to not only talk to Him, but care enough to spend time listening to him.Once a young man lost his job. As time went on, he grew desperate about his situation. He decided to ask for some wisdom from an old preacher he knew. As the young man poured out his heart to the preacher he angrily declared, "I've begged and begged God to say something to help me. Why doesn't God answer?" The old preacher, who was sitting across the room, spoke a reply so quiet the young man was unable to understand what he said. So, the young man stepped across the room. "What did you say?" he asked. The preacher repeated himself, again in a soft tone. So, the young man moved closer until he was leaning on the preacher's chair. "Sorry," he said. "I still didn't hear you." With their heads bent together, the old preacher spoke once more, "God sometimes whispers, so we will move closer to hear him."
"Prayer is the safe sanctuary where you can open your heart to God."
Praying when everything is going well is really great, but when pain and crisis hits prayer needs to be a "knee jerk" reaction. Talking with God about our problems and then giving our burdens to Him is a great benefit. Undoubtedly, there will be times when we are too emotionally overwhelmed to find the words to pray, this is when we can rely on the Holy Spirit to intercede on our behalf. Romans 8:26-27, "The Holy Spirit helps us in our distress. For we don't even know what we should pray for, nor how we should pray. But the Holy Spirit prays for us with groanings that cannot be expressed in words. And the Father who knows all hearts knows what the Spirit is saying, for the Spirit pleads for us believers in harmony with God's own will."
"God understands your prayers even when you can't find the words to say them."
2.Can I really hear God's voice?
Yes! God is constantly speaking to us, but His voice is rarely audible. Our challenge is to sharpen our spiritual ears to hear God's voice and to not write off what we hear as something we are imagining.During the first stages of learning to hear God's voice, a quiet environment is essential as it usually comes as a sweet whisper within our thoughts, as an insight as we study scripture, through our dreams, through spiritual visions, and through prophecy. Acts 2:17, "In the last days, God said, I will pour out My Spirit upon all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your young men will see visions,and your old men will dream dreams." Dreams are given to bring us guidance, understanding, and insight; to warn us of some impending danger, and to reveal to us a situation which is going undetected by our natural mind. Visions are pictures given for our clarification of a matter and to birth the Lord's plans through us on earth. Prophecy is not only about future events, but also encouraging words given to us to strengthen our faith, bring us comfort, and give us direction for our lives.God will also speak to us through our spouses, our Pastors, and other believers of proven integrity and spiritual maturity. A reason we may not be hearing the Lord is that our spiritual antennae is not up ready to receive the sound waves of His voice or we are distracted with ongoing auditory input through music, radio, TV, etc.
"It's hard to tune in on heaven's message, if your life is full of earthly static."
