In a few days our church will begin 21 Days of Prayer and Fasting. Like most churches we believe there is power in submitting to God through prayer. In my life prayer can be hard because I love doing. Prayer seems counterintuitive. Prayer is the refusal to do, move, go and achieve. It’s the quiet surrender of our most valued resource: time.
Augustine said it well: Pray as though everything depended on God; work as though everything depended on you. -
I’d like to encourage you with 3 stories of answered prayer in my own personal life. I’ll keep to brief, but these were huge answers to big problems in my life.
God I am broke, but I trust You
I was 23 years old. My wife and I were newlyweds struggling to make ends meet. I had 3 jobs. Two were blue collar hourly wage jobs and one was my job at the church plant we were helping. My focus and passion was church ministry. However, I had bills to pay. Many nights I would work at one job until 3am, only to head to the next job at 5am. It wasn’t sustainable. I began praying about quitting one of my jobs. I knew that ministry was my calling. Between the other 2 jobs there was a huge difference in pay. The night job (7pm-3am) paid $14/hr but the early morning job (5am-10am) only paid $10/hr. I prayed and prayed and determined to trust God. My goal wasn’t to just quit and be lazy. I’d be committing more time to the new church I was working at. I gave my notice at the night job. I felt sure i was making a huge financial mistake. A few days later I was called into the terminal manager’s office at my morning job. He explained corporate had decided to give everyone in my department a 40% raise. I knew in that moment I could trust God. My pay at the morning job was now the same as the evening job. What’s more I became eligible for some of the best benefits on the planet regardless of how many hours I worked. God is so good. I kept that job for 15 years. I only recently left to spend more time with our son (more on that later).
God we have no options. It’s Your problem now
I was 30 years old. We were in the early stages of planning and launching Restore Church. This was before our public launch, before we had a staff, before we had a building. Restore was an idea at best. At this point Casie and I had gathered a launch team to start the church. A few dozen friends and family had committed to help us start a church from scratch. It’s basically a wild idea now that I’m typing it. Anyway the launch team was forming. We were gathering weekly to pray, plan and prepare for this new church. It was fall and our cookouts were getting chilly. We had run out of room in my home so we met at a few local spots in town. Then we lost those spots. Some closed, others were closed to us. I had a team that needed to meet, but nowhere to meet. I remember walking in my yard and having a nervous break down. I prayed and told God “If You want a church here it’s Your problem to solve. I can’t solve this.” A few hours later a local pastor I’d never met reached out to me on Twitter. He explained he felt moved to offer me the use of his building until we launched the church. As we stared at each other across our coffees I explained our situation. He said “God wants this church to start. He’s got a solution. That’s why I’m here.” The rest is history. We met at Forward Church pre-launch, launched in the Sports Hall and grew, then bought our facility in 2017. Every. Single. Step. Required dependence upon God. He always came through.
Some people don’t get their miracle baby
I was 34 years old. At this point many of our church people knew that Casie and I desired to have children, but the path had been hard. We had seen God move and there were miracle babies in our church on Port Centre Pkwy, but not in our home on Tyler Crescent.
Through the years we’d tried everything. First it was drugs and treatments. Then surgery. Finally we were attempting multiple rounds of IVF. If you don’t know what IVF is it’s a very expensive option of last resort for couples who can’t conceive. I cried the first time it failed. I was numb by the 2nd round of IVF. When the 3rd round failed our doctors told us it was time to accept that we could never have children. I wish I prayed, but at that point I was too angry to talk to God. I just mourned and moved on. My wife and our friends kept praying.
One day Kevin told me he’d been praying. I was tired of hearing people feel sorry for us. I explained that we weren’t the only couple without kids. I even mentioned a couple that to this day can conceive. I said “I’m ok. People just need to accept that not everyone gets their miracle baby.” Poor Kevin. How can you respond to that. He wasn’t alone though. My wife, our parents and many others kept praying.
In 2020 when the world came to a screeching halt my wife went to her doctor for an exam. They noticed some abnormalities and ask if she would take a pregnancy test. Casie laughed and shared why we couldn’t have kids. The doctor acknowledged, but said it would just help them rule out bigger tests if they could have her take a pregnancy test. They made her take 2. They said it was because the first didn't read. The real reason was they didn’t want her to get excited for a false positive. The nurse showed her both positive tests and said bloodwork confirmed the good news. Seven months later our son was born happy and healthy. He is a miracle that we can’t explain. Our fertility doctors can’t explain it either. God is good.
What’s your story? Do you have answered prayer you’d be willing to share? Let us know in the comments.
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