As christians we obviously believe in prayer, right? I mean, it’s how we communicate with God. Sometimes we pray with such faith that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God not only hears us but that He’s going to answer. But then sometimes, when we pray, we kinda just loft up softballs. You know what I mean, right? It’s when you’re so desperate that you (out of your desperation) just throw-up a “hail mary prayer” hoping that God will catch it (kind of like Doug Flutie did against the Caines back in the 80’s... either you know what I’m talking about or you don’t, sorry.) so that you can be rescued from your difficulty. It’s like you pray for something but deep down there’s this little spark of doubt that He’s going to answer your prayer in the way that you want. And you feel like the outcome won’t be exactly the way you want it to be and that you’re gonna have to just live with that particular situation. I mean, you know that God’s going to answer your prayer but His answer might be, “just deal with it.” Have you ever felt that way?
To be honest with you, I’ve felt that way a lot here in Brazil. There’s been so much difficulty being here and we’ve been through so much spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally... you name it, we’ve been through it, that we’ve wanted to quit soooo many times. We’re seeing lives changed by the Gospel and we’re seeing people effected by the love of Jesus but it’s a constant pressure that you have to push against continually. And it’s tiring. And it’s felt like, as we’ve prayed, that God’s answer to our prayers has been, “just deal with it because my grace is all you need.” Now that sounds great and all, but when you’re actually living in the middle of it, that’s just not what you want to hear. You want God to move mightily on your behalf and you want Him to move yesterday! But sometimes He doesn’t. He’s seems to be on a different timetable or something. I guess that’s what that scripture was talking about when it said, “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). Cool scripture but not really what you want to hear when your waiting for a prayer to be answered.
So as we’ve been doing what God’s called us to do here in Brazil and as we’ve been pressing through the difficulty, we’ve definitely prayed some prayers that weren’t powered by a lot of faith. But prayers, nonetheless. And that’s where we underestimated the power of "our prayers."
We’ve been having MAJOR issues with someone here in the Brazilian government. The harassment from this particular government official has been going on for a couple of years (against my brother-in-law and sister-in-law) and has bled over onto Me, MJ and our children. We realize that the enemy (the devil) doesn’t want us here and that he uses people to buffet us sometimes. This particular person was definitely a tool in the hand of the enemy. Some of the things that this person was doing even seemed illegal. We spoke to a few of our friends (that are Brazilian) and they encouraged us to file charges against this person. We almost did but we just decided to drop it and just pray. And as much as I wanted to physically harm this person (sorry, when it comes to my family I get defensive) for their blatant attack against us, and as much as I wanted to go to Curitiba and file charges against this person, we decided to just let God defend us. And in the midst of our despair we underestimated the power of our prayers. I say that, because a couple of weeks ago, we found out that this person is no longer in their position with the government! We don’t know what happened except that we didn’t have to do anything... but pray. To be honest, by us praying, I was expecting this person to just start liking us and back-off or something like that. But God ("and I said, but Godddd"... said with my best T.D. Jakes preacher imitation voice. haha!) had different plans. He had them removed! He (God) fought the battle and we didn’t have to do anything but pray and trust Him.
Salmo 91:2
By reading this I realize that you probably don’t understand the gravity of this event... but it’s HUGE! This person was literally threatening our family and with us being foreigners, we felt like there was nobody on our side and that this person had the Brazilian government on their side. But we had someone on our side all along... God. Bam! In your face devil!
I’m writing this today because I know that some of you have huge things that you’re facing right now. And as hard as it is, I just want to encourage you to not give up. Keep pressing in to God and keep petitioning Him for what you need. Sure, sometimes His answer will be, “just deal with it because I’m with you,” but sometimes He’ll blow your mind and go far beyond what you can ask or think. So don’t underestimate the power of your prayers!
Praying,
Jim
PS - the picture up top is of our youngest son Robert. He just lost a tooth last week. If you thought he “looked like trouble” before...
As christians we obviously believe in prayer, right? I mean, it’s how we communicate with God. Sometimes we pray with such faith that we know beyond a shadow of a doubt that God not only hears us but that He’s going to answer. But then sometimes, when we pray, we kinda just loft up softballs. You know what I mean, right? It’s when you’re so desperate that you (out of your desperation) just throw-up a “hail mary prayer” hoping that God will catch it (kind of like Doug Flutie did against the Caines back in the 80’s... either you know what I’m talking about or you don’t, sorry.) so that you can be rescued from your difficulty. It’s like you pray for something but somewhere deep down there’s this little spark of doubt that He’s going to answer your prayer in the way that you want. And you feel like the outcome won’t be exactly the way you want it to be and that you’re gonna have to just live with that particular situation. I mean, you know that God’s going to answer your prayer but His answer might be, “just deal with it.” Have you ever felt that way?
To be honest with you, I’ve felt that way a lot here in Brazil. There’s been so much difficulty being here and we’ve been through so much spiritually, emotionally, physically, relationally... you name it, we’ve been through it, that we’ve wanted to quit soooo many times. We’re seeing lives changed by the Gospel and we’re seeing people effected by the love of Jesus but it’s a constant pressure that you have to push against continually. And it’s tiring. And it’s felt like, as we’ve prayed, that God’s answer to our prayers has been, “just deal with it because my grace is all you need.” Now that sounds great and all, but when you’re actually living in the middle of it, that’s just not what you want to hear. You want God to move mightily on your behalf and you want Him to move yesterday! But sometimes He doesn’t. He’s seems to be on a different timetable or something. I guess that’s what that scripture was talking about when it said, “with the Lord a day is like a thousand years and a thousand years is like a day” (2 Peter 3:8). Cool scripture but not really what you want to hear when your waiting for a prayer to be answered, right? lol!
So as we’ve been doing what God’s called us to do here in Brazil and as we’ve been pressing through the difficulty, we’ve definitely prayed some prayers that weren’t powered by a lot of faith. But prayers, nonetheless. And that’s where we underestimated the power of "our prayers."
We’ve been having MAJOR issues with someone here in the Brazilian government. The harassment from this particular government official has been going on for a couple of years (against my brother-in-law and sister-in-law) and has bled over onto Me, MJ and our children. We realize that the enemy (the devil) doesn’t want us here and that he uses people to buffet us sometimes. This particular person was definitely a tool in the hand of the enemy. Some of the things that this person was doing even seemed illegal. We spoke to a few of our friends (that are Brazilian) and they encouraged us to file charges against this person. We almost did but we just decided to drop it and just pray. And as much as I wanted to physically harm this person (sorry, when it comes to my family I get defensive) for their blatant attack against us, and as much as I wanted to go to Curitiba and file charges against this person, we decided to just let God defend us. And in the midst of our despair we underestimated the power of our prayers. I say that, because a couple of weeks ago, we found out that this person is no longer in their position with the government! We don’t know what happened except that we didn’t have to do anything... but pray. To be honest, by us praying, I was expecting this person to just start liking us and back-off or something like that. But God ("and I said, but Godddd"... said with my best T.D. Jakes preacher imitation voice. haha!) had different plans. He had them removed! He (God) fought the battle and we didn’t have to do anything but pray and trust Him.
By reading this I realize that you probably don’t understand the gravity of this event... but it’s HUGE! This person was literally threatening our family and with us being foreigners, we felt like there was nobody on our side and that this person had the Brazilian government on their side. But we had someone on our side all along... God. Bam! In your face devil!
I’m writing this today because I know that some of you have huge things that you’re facing right now. And as hard as it is, I just want to encourage you to not give up. Keep pressing in to God and keep petitioning Him for what you need. Sure, sometimes His answer will be, “just deal with it because I’m with you,” but sometimes He’ll blow your mind and go far beyond what you can ask or think. So don’t underestimate the power of your prayers!
Praying,
Jim
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