God answers prayer?

when God answers prayer i am amazed and excited. yet at the same time i am ashamed. i am ashamed at my amazement. yes, God should amaze and excite us. maybe it is more that i am somewhat startled when He answers prayer. yes, it is because i do not have faith that He will answer. then i see that He does and am startled that He did answer and ashamed i did not believe.

today i received a text message from a prayer warrior in my church, "well, did the credit card show up?"

rewind to yesterday when my dad explained a situation to me: my sister, angela (who works at an orphanage in haiti, and thus doesn't live in the same country as her bank in the US), has a check card which expires soon, so the bank sent my parents the new one. my parents sent it to shannon (a lady who lives in so cal and works with the orphange) so that shannon could somehow get it to haiti to my sister. as my dad was explaining this to me yesterday he said, "we sent the card a week ago, and shannon hasn't received it yet." i got this knot in my stomach--i feared someone had gotten hold of her card and she would 1- not be able to use it to buy food etc, and 2- have the possibility of dealing with bad credit, identity theft, all that stuff that could possibly come from someone stealing your check card or credit card. my dad continued, "i'm just going to pray that it gets there tomorrow."

so later on that night i followed my dad's example...i prayed hard to God that my sister's card would be in shannon's mailbox tomorrow.

but i feared my prayers weren't strong enough, so i shot off a text message to someone who i know is a prayer warrior in our church, "you're a prayer warrior. please pray that my sister's credit card will be in shannon's mailbox tomorrow. thanks! :)" this person had no idea who shannon was or anything about the credit card situation. but today at 2:30 in the afternoon i got the text message: "well, did the credit card show up?"

ah! i had forgotten to check! i went over to my mac, pulled up my parent's webmail (my parents left for Ukraine this morning on a mission trip), and saw an email from shannon in the inbox "Re: Visa"! i opened it and read this:

Okay - who has been praying????

Your credit card arrived today!...

WOW. God answers prayer. God answers prayer? i knew it. i can read it in Scripture. i've heard stories of answered prayers. God has even answered my prayers before. but, somehow, i still don't get it. God...answers...prayers.

what i found cool was that, when we prayed He would cause the credit card to arrive today...that's the very day it DID arrive. not a few days later ("oh, whew, it showed up. thank You, God."), not that we were mistaken and it had already showed up ("oh, thank You, God! it was here all the time!")...both of which would have been, in a sense, an answer to prayer because our desire was simply that it would not be lost and in someone else's hands, and that we would be able to get it to my sister. no...God answered our SPECIFIC prayer. on the DAY we asked it to be there.

God indeed does answer prayer.

Praise Him!

when i can't see

i didn't write this, but i wanted to post it anyway. it was in the March 2007 TMI Newsletter...

This poem was written by Dan Bender during the middle of the night after he learned of the Vision which Tecate Mission International (website) will be pursuing in the next five years.

The road I've traveled has passed through heartache and sorrow--
But I'll surrender these and more to Your grace,
And I'll steadily forge ahead even when I can't see.

My journey today may be easy or burdensome--
But I'll sacrifice my creature comforts and personal gain,
And I'll walk at a steady pace even when I can't see.

This path to the future grows increasingly brighter--
Notwithstanding numerous setbacks and delays,
So I'll chase the vision that's been written on my heart
even when I can't see.

Tomorrow is unknown, but with the faith that's been given--
I'll march ahead to fulfill Your plan and purpose,
For my Father knows what's best...
even when I can't see.

"just as I have loved you"

getting ready for sunday school tomorrow. we're going to talk about Christ washing the disciples feet, and the fact that as He was washing He already knew that they would all flee, Peter would deny Him and Judas would betray Him. Yet...He washed their feet anyway. He truly loved them "to the highest degree." (John 13:1)

I love Everybodyduck's lyrics. Here's one of their songs:

Hindsight
I remember when You kneeled to wash our feet that night
though I resisted, You explained it had to be
as an example of how we should serve each other
but as You gently cleansed my feet what did You see?

it seems like yesterday we all sat there together
and each word You said stirred fire in my soul
vowing i'd be Your most faithful man, come sun or stormy weather
but as You smiled at me then You must have known

chorus:
as You gently poured the water
You heard me say i never knew You
as You wiped away the dust
You saw me hide beneath the lie
as You anointed me with oil
you must have know i wouldn't stay
You washed my feet, so i could walk away

looking back i can't imagine how You did it
i could not have show such love if i had known
that this man whose feet i washed
would soon deny that he had known me
still You humbly served Your servant,
now that love cuts to the bone

because i promised that i never would deny You
i said that i would rather die than curse Your name
and all along You loved me though You knew
they were shallow empty words
and now each time my feet are washed,
it just reminds me of my shame

(chorus)

how could You love me?
why did You love me?

now for the first time
i can finally see things clearly
You gave love and asked for nothing in return
so now I pledge my life to loving others
just like You loved me
oh how the memories of that night
You washed my feet have set me free

(chorus)
--

Jesus had told Peter that he wouldn't understand what He was doing until later (John 13:7). And in John 13:34-35 Jesus said "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."

Wow. That's tough. To love "just as [Christ] loved [us]"?! ...Jesus showed love to all the disciples even though He knew they would all scatter (Matthew 26:31). Jesus showed love to Peter when He knew Peter would deny Him (Matt. 26:33-35). He showed love to Judas even when He knew he would betray Him for the price of a slave! (cf. Matt 26:14-16 and Exodus 21:32)

It's hard to love that way. But that's what Christ has called us to. (But, take heart! He also gives us the strength we need: Phil. 2:12-13 and Eph. 3:20-21.)

ex nihilo

(that means "out of nothing" in Latin)

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

And the earth was formless and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep: and the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.

And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.

And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.

And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

~Genesis 1:1-5

I'm reading a book right now called "More Than Meets the Eye" by Richard A. Swenson. It looks at God's creation from a scientific/medical standpoint. In the intro the author writes, "As you read, it is my hope that you will be fascinated by the science, and captivated by the Designer who stands behind it all."

Later, speaking of that Designer, he says, "He spoke the universe into existence. Nothingness obeys His voice."

That caught my attention.

"Nothingness obeys His voice." Because, what was there before God created it? Nothing. Nothingness.

I have been awed along with the disciples when they asked, "Who is this that even the wind and waves obey His voice?" And that is, truly, awesome. But...even nothingness obeys His voice. We can build and design and construct with the material things that God provides us. These things obey our desires, thoughts and words to an extent. But nothingness...we can't even comprehend what nothingness is. I try to picture nothingness and I picture blackness. Blackness isn't nothingness...it's blackness.

We can't comprehend it...and as far as I know "nothingness" technically doesn't exist. Yet it obeys His voice. That's what was there before creation: nothingness. And He spoke to the nothingness and it obeyed His voice and became somethingness. Then it was formless and void...and He spoke again and created light and darkness, waters, heavens, land and seas, plants and trees, stars moon and sun, living creatures that fly swim and run, and last He made man.

Nothingness...obeys His voice.

I'm captivated by the Designer who stands behind that!

Hug a Mac

Have you hugged your Mac today? I did.

I got a call a couple days ago from a guy in our church. He asked me if I could come over and help him with his wife's computer 'cause it was acting up. She has been wanting to sell things on Ebay, but the duo of Internet Explorer and Zone Alarm were causing problems (surprisedly).

I went over there this morning and worked on it. Uninstalled Zone Alarm (horrible program in my opinion, especially for the common user who get confused by every alert that comes up and just clicks whatever button they feel might be best 'cause they have no idea what program is alerting them or what it's really saying)...installed AVG (much better anti-virus program, but still unnecessary: just get a mac). Removed every visible trace of Internet Exploder (err..explorer), downloaded Firefox (the browser of browsers no matter what OS) and set that up as her default browser. Uninstalled "MyWebSearch" and a bunch of other useless programs that change settings and slow down the computer. Showed her how to use Firefox and a bit about AVG. She said "Thank you" and as I was leaving she commented "This stuff is supposed to be easy!" I said, "Yeah, that's how they advertise it." I could have told her that it is easy...you just need to get a mac. But I didn't want to 'cause they just recently spent a bunch of money on new Dells.

Then i went home and hugged my mac. literally.