The Power of Prayer

I just received the email below from Pam Millington about the upcoming trip to India:

Please take a moment right now to pause and pray. I just received a phone call from Richard Fields who is in contact with our Pastor Leaders (Sanjay and Marshel). Apparently strikes have been called in Gangtok for April 4 & 5 and "everything" is scheduled to be shut down. Richard and Sanjay are working on a Plan B. Remember we have consistently talked about the importance of flexibility. Our scheduled Clinics in Gangtok may or may not occur. We may end up staying in Siliguri--we will have back up hotel reservations for Hotel Conclave for when we arrive.

Prayer Points--

1. Pray that the strike will be called off.

2. Pray that the pastors & their families coming to meet together for training, fellowship and to be with us in Gangtok will arrive safely--at this point, they still plan to come.

3. Pray for the safety and flexibility of our team.

I know that God will use us in just the right way. Does anyone get the idea that the enemy must know the power of Jesus that was planning to gather corporately in Gangtok? I'll update you if I hear more. Otherwise, I'll see you Saturday morning.

Pam

One of Pam's final sentences draws attention to a very real challenge facing believers today: the Evil One and his efforts to thwart God's plan at all costs. Make no mistake - Satan is real, he has power and dominion in this world and he would love nothing more than to halt the spread of the Good News of Jesus, the Christ. Despite what you may have read or heard lately, Satan is headed for eternal destruction and he would love to take as many souls as possible with him. It is certainly within his power to use civil unrest and/or labor disagreement to generate a strike to disrupt the plans of our team...and he may succeed in forcing our team to reschedule and adapt on the fly.

The best part is, it doesn't really matter. Ultimately, God is sovereign and what God has purposed will come to pass. It may not be in the manner that the team originally planned, but as long as they remain obedient and totally dependent upon God, then He will get the glory. And when you boil it all down, isn't that what any of this "Christian life" is all about? Our lives glorifying God and pointing others to Him?

Now, before you start to think that you have no role to play in this, let me encourage you to stop and voice a prayer right now for the concerns that Pam has mentioned. Interceding for fellow followers of Christ is one of the great privileges and weapons that we have at our disposal. In fact, in Philippians, the apostle Paul mentions that is was a great source of joy to lift up the Philippian church in prayer.

Prayer is about power. It is an opportunity to call on God to be who and what He promises to be: Provider, Healer, Deliverer, or whatever else the situation may call for. The former director of the Singing Churchmen of Oklahoma - Dr. Bill Green - had a phrase about prayer that he loved to share: "No prayer is no power. Some prayer is some power. Much prayer is much power." In my own life, I have found this to be an axiom for daily living.

So, how about it? Exercise your prayer muscle and tap in to the power that we can access when we get on our knees before a holy, powerful, merciful and loving God. Ask God to perform God-size tasks, either in India or in your own life. He can handle it.

Michael