There’s something about being outside at night (specifically while exercising) that the Lord loves to use to speak to me. It has been a very repeated theme in my life. Stars are super cool and remind me how BIG God is. The moon is this beautiful reminder of who we are called to be in Christ… we literally only even see the moon because it simply reflects the sun’s light. Maybe it’s just because life is so much less distracting in that space. I don’t know. But regardless, the Lord spoke into that space again, last night. I was at Butler, running bleachers, and kicking a soccer ball around.
It had been a pretty heavy week. There were 8 people/situations that I had been intentionally covering in prayer. 7 of those people were walking through HEAVY things, and seemingly not seeing any answers. So I went to just spend some time listening to the Lord. I looped a song named Blessing by Kari Jobe and Cody Carnes for about 2 hours.
I HIGHLY recommend that you stop reading this and take 10 minutes to listen to this song. It is phenomenal! Here is the link:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zp6aygmvzM4
Y’all, the part where they just keep singing “Amen” over and over absolutely GRIPPED by heart! I was reminded of what “Amen” means. That word is not just some culturally correct way to end a prayer. Translated it literally means “Yes, so let it be”. It is to come into agreement with something.
Super ironically, I was supposed to preach last night at a worship night. I had been leaning towards talking about praying boldly (I’m not much of a planner, so I wasn’t positive haha). That had been on my heart since seeing the Lord show up in a completely miraculous way, 2 weeks ago (I know that is super vague, but I don’t think this is the place to share the miracle). But we had to call off this month’s worship night because of the whole coronavirus thing.
We are called to pray boldly ALL over scripture. We are called to come before His throne with boldness (Hebrews 4). We are told that He is moved by, and responds to, our resilience in prayer (Luke 11). We are called to seek healing, signs, and wonders (all 4 gospels and Acts). I have seen ALL of those things to be true, in my life. But man, instead God decided to speak just that word of Amen over my night. To truly let my heart be aligned to “Yes Lord. Your will/way for this situation. So let it be”
All of that truth still stands with boldness. But, He asked me if I believe that He is just as good, in all of these heavy circumstances… Circumstances where there is literally NOTHING that I can tangibly do. The funny thing is that even in sharing the miracle from a couple weeks ago, I have made sure to articulate the truth that He is just as good when the miracle doesn’t come right away.
I know all of that to be true, but the Lord asked if I really KNEW/believed that, or just knew about it… specifically in these 7 situations. It was a super beautiful reminder of fixing my eyes on Him. He’s faithful even when we aren’t. He’s good even when we don’t understand it.
That song goes on to sing about favor over and over and over… favor isn’t just seeing what we perceive to be “good”. True favor is simply that He walks with us. True favor in our lives is Him having His way, often in spite of what we want/plan/think is best. I sure know that I’ve asked Him for things over and over that when I look back I am so so so glad He answered with “no” and something that I didn’t understand at all in the moment.
All of that is to encourage you to pray with/for an Amen mindset. Yes, pray with boldness. We are called to it, and He really does still show up in miraculous ways. He isn’t some distant, dormant God. He is ALIVE and ACTIVE. I’ve seen that over and over and over, in my life. But I also encourage you to focus on “Amen”. To truly believe He is GOOD. Period. To truly desire what He has in mind, not just what “makes the most sense”. To surrender. To lock your eyes on His goodness. To let your desires die, and really let your prayers be for His desire over a situation.
