DON'T QUIT! I don't know that I can emphasis that enough! DON'T QUIT!
Again and again, we earnestly seek something and it does not come to pass!
Again and again, we pray for someone and see no results!
There is nothing more discouraging then praying for someone and seeing nothing happen. Then earnestly praying, earnestly pressing in, pushing for the Lord to heal this person and getting nothing. It is a lot easier to pray for someone or something removed from us; to pray when the person is not around, even, because then if nothing happens we don't 1) look like such a fool, and 2)we don't get as discouraged! When we are not around, we can stop praying after hours, lay down for the night, and when we next talk to the person and find nothing happened, it's all right. That was yesterday. This is today...perhaps it was impatience, but now it's complacency.
I don't know about you, but I get discouraged. I, for one, am not healed completely. I still suffer the after affects of the medicine I was on and the permanent crippling of the disease of Arthritis. I don't know how many times I've stomped and prayed till I was red in the face, or how many times I knelt and pushed, or how many times I cried in all earnestness till the tears dried up. Yet still nothing! I've been to prayer services, watched ones on the Internet, read the books, heard the preachings, tried everything I could think of. And I am thankful for being out of the wheelchair (don't get me wrong), but that's not enough! I've laughed hysterically under the influence of the Spirit, "fallen out" under the overflow of the Holy Ghost, and completely surrendered to Him till I was twitching uncontrollably or dancing like a maniac under the electrical power surges coursing through my heart; yet nothing physically has been completed! Don't get me wrong, again, it has started again; I grew an inch within a week after Philippines 2007 trip, I was delivered of my milk allergy while on that same trip, I've grown and matured in other non-physical ways, and begun to know and even feel the Divine Presence of the Lord as an everyday, almost minutely experience. YET, still, the physical remains bent and crippled. The straightening has started in my back, but what I would give for the foot over night! After all, if that was not impossible for me to believe as a child, why should it be any more impossible for God to do now that my mind knows how much more impossible that should be?
Children have such incredible faith. They'll believe anything you tell them. I remember when I was about 6 years old and my Dad was joking one night about not wanting to take out the trash. It was raining and he said he might melt! To this day, I can still hear my little sister begin to weep uncontrollably as he stepped outside with the trash. Mom kept trying to console her and tell her Dad would be back shortly. But when I explained she might have actually believed Dad would melt, we all waited. And as soon as Dad came back, Mom made sure he went to my sister and showed her, and told her, that he had only been joking and was perfectly fine. Being a resilient child, she was fine within a few minutes and off having fun, but I'll never forget that example of a child's simple belief.
When nothing happens as we pray and continue to seek God for a miracle, and we get discouraged, we--or at least I do--ask what happened. I always want to know why it didn't happen. Did I not have enough faith? Or perhaps the person I was praying for, did they not have enough faith? We are reminded constantly to be like little children (Mat. 18:3), and told that in order to have a peace that passes understanding (Php. 4:7) we have to give up our right to understand, yet we still ask. We still want to know what we can do.
Well, I wish I knew. I really do. But the one thing I do know, God will work regardless of any seeming hindrances, when it is time! After all, He is God of all things. Hindrances, principalities (Rom. 8:38), lack of faith (Rom. 3:3, II Tim. 2:13), etc, all included!
SOOOO: DON'T QUIT!
Don't give up! Between us all, I'm sure all the hours are filled with prayers for the same people and situations. Between all of us who continue to persevere on other's behalf, or stand firm with them, I'm sure the hour will come when deliverance comes in the flesh again! But what will happen if we don't stand firm? It'll probably still happen, but you'll miss out on your part, your blessing of persevering.
"Ask...seek...knock, and it will be opened to you..." (Matt. 7:7 & Luke 11:9)
DON'T QUIT!
Yeah, it can be embarrassing to stand at the proverbial door at 3am (which is the time it is now) and bang on it loud enough to wake the neighbors and then some. But if we truly want something bad enough, we'll be willing to suffer all (to sell all; see Matt. 13:44) to get it. Even if that means we look stupid when nothing happens, the neighbors wake up and yell at us, and yet we go back again and again, night after night! (see Luke 18:1-8)
I used to think it was bad to want something really bad from God, like healing. After all, wasn't it possible we were looking for Him to do something for us, instead of reaching for Him? Yeah, it is. But even if that is the case, even if a miracle happens in another country to a few unbelievers, does it not point the way to God? by showing them His miracle-working hands, are we not showing them Him, even if only the smaller part of just His hands?
I had a vision in January, in it I saw all the gifts, all the miracles, all the desires we have ever sought from Christ. And they were not sitting in front of Him. But rather, they were Him. They were in Hi gut! And by reaching for them, we were reaching for Him!
So How much of God do you want? Enough to be called foolish? Or look stupid?
Enough to NOT QUIT?!
I hope so...I pray together we both remain in this fight, and together, I know we will all see the full manifestation of Christ in and through us--the Person of Christ, in the flesh, our flesh--once again!
DON'T QUIT!
And it will come to pass!
Luke 18:1 "...to show that at all times they ought to pray and not to lose heart..."
I Cor. 16:13 "Be on the alert, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong."
Eph. 6:10 "Finally, be strong in the Lord and in the strength of His might."
II Tim. 2:1 "You therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus."
Stand with me!
<>< Hannah Joy
