God is Faithful to Bring You Encouragement

“Don’t worry, your time is coming…keep praying, keep preparing, keep planning.”  These words stood out to me as I half-heartingly scrolled through the plethora of emails in my inbox.  I read the words a few times, hoping they would be infused into my spirit and mind, as there seems to be a continual raging war between those two things within me as of late. 

When the season is daunting and you want to give up, or in my case, want to ignore the vision that lacks recent confirmation.  God allows something as simple as a few words to show up in my inbox to penetrate the dormancy of the vision as a reminder to keep going, and a nudge to keep hope alive.  My faith challenges me to believe it’s a love tap from the Lord that lets me know He’s not finished yet, so I shouldn’t be either.

Keep praying.  The Bible has a lot to say about prayer.  So, with confidence, you can be assured that praying is the preferred method of the Lord for us to reach Him.  Prayer is the means that enlightens us to understand His ways and His Word.  With that, I want to focus on prayers that were answered in the Bible.  From the beginning of creation prayer has been in existence.  Imagine, the vastness of God that He hears the prayers of His people.  WOW!  We can reach the Father’s ear and He is kind enough to reply to our words or tears.   Yes, tears are wordless prayers.

In the Bible, we read of testimonies of answered prayers.  In 2 Kings 20:1-6, Hezekiah was very sick, and the prophet Isaiah came to tell him, “Dude, with all due respect, you’re not gonna make it out of this sickness.” The King prayed by turning his face to the wall and reminding God of their relationship and how he was with him from the time of his youth.  He asked God for additional life.  God answered his prayer and gave Hezekiah another 15 years of life. 

1 Samuel 1 gives us another answered prayer testimony.  This time, it was Hannah who was in despair and needed hope.  She was childless and her “sister wife” wasn’t.  Apparently, the other wife seemed to find great pleasure in rubbing Hannah’s empty womb in her face.  Yet, Hannah continued to be faithful to the Lord be going up to the house of the Lord yearly.  Fast forward, God heard her tears and answered her prayers to have a child. God is a prayer answering God!  Always keep praying.

If you’re vision isn’t happening, it appears your prayers aren’t being answered, and your faith is wobbly, keep praying. I'd like to share with you that I think praying puts you in a position for God to answer your needs, desires, dreams and so much more. So keep praying.

Back to the original email that sparked this blog.  It read keep praying and keep preparing.  I take this to encourage and instruct me in the middle of the nothingness, I’m not to get lazy and do nothing.  In the “it’s not happening” of the vision, that’s when you prepare even more than if something was happening.  Think about it, when things do start happening, you won’t have time to prepare, and you’ll be unprepared.  So, thank God for the time to prepare.  It’s difficult and counterculture to prepare for something when nothing is happening.  But that’s faith in action!
It's in the no movement that you’ll need to be creative and innovative in your preparing to stay motivated in your preparing.  But preparing yourself will benefit you when it’s time!  Being prepared allows you to fully engage in the arrival and ride of the wave when it happens.

The third directive listed in the email to keep your vision and passion alive is to keep planning.  Planning is different from preparing.  Preparing is conditioning so that you are ready.  Planning is action.  What you will do when it happens, what’s next, step by step.  Your preparation will impact your plan and vice versa. While these two things are distantly related, they are unique in their impact.

This last directive is one that I added to help myself.  Keep pressing!  Pressing is left up to one’s own interpretation and one’s own capacity.  My most committed pressing might be mild in your scope of pressing or vice versa.  So, figure out how you press and to what capacity in your own life. 

Pressing denotes consistent work and effort.  Press on!  Keep going!  Keep the work moving.  In Luke 8 and in Mark 5, we read of the woman who kept pressing.  She had a debilitating condition and she heard about Dr Jesus!  Due to the culture of that time, her condition hindered her from having a normal life.  Despite, she pressed!  She pressed through the crowd to get to Jesus.  Not even to see Jesus’ face but to get close to his feet, specifically the hem of his clothing.  Her pressing involved groundwork.  She pressed until she got behind Jesus in the crowd confident that her contact with Him would be all she needed.  Jesus answered her prayer.  Her pressing paid off.  Interestingly, I don’t know her name, as she was only referred to as the woman with the issue of blood, but she pressed, and Jesus answered her prayers. 
Today, keep praying.  Today, keep preparing.  Today, keep planning.  Today, keep pressing.  Just for today.  Then if the Lord wakes you up tomorrow, repeat until it’s your glory time and you are seeing Jesus, face to face!

Jeremiah 29:11 For I know the plans I have for you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.