Prayer Begins With You

In my early walk with the Lord, I was taught personally by the Holy Spirit, not so much by books. While I was in the park near my home one morning praying, God asked me if I would be a an intercessor. That was a difficult day, because I knew if I said,”Yes,” He would require hours of prayer. My life would never again be the same.

After supper, I lay down on my bed and wrestled with God. Would I accept this assignment which meant a level of commitment I had not previously lived? Around eight o’clock in the evening, I decided, “How can I say no to God? I cannot!”

So I said, “Yes, I would accept this assignment to become an intercessor.”

I soon learned that different people have different modes of prayer that work for them. For me, I learned that prayer walking or prayer driving worked best.

Soon, the Holy Spirit led me to begin prayer driving early each morning. I would get in my car about five or six in the morning, drive the back roads and pray. Coon Rapids, the suburb where I lived was on the north side of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis/St. Paul, so I would drive north into the country. Literally, I would listen to God as to which way I should turn at every intersection. This seemed meticulous and bothersome, but in time it became easy and natural, as natural as breathing.

For two years I would get in my car and drive and pray. I would drive for an hour and pray, then turn around and drive back, so that my morning prayer time usually was about two hours.

So where would I drive? Over and over again, I was led to drive north and east.

Then a peculiar thing happened. The shootings at Columbine happened in 1999, and through special circumstances, our ministry was connected with one of the students who had been in the library when his two friends on either side of him were shot by the gunmen. We decided God was asking us to bring in students from the Columbine shooting and have an outreach event in Rush City, Minnesota.

Pastor Nancy Swanson was a youth pastor at the First Assembly of God Church of Pine City, north of Rush City. A year or so earlier I had spoken in her church and out of that meeting I helped them plant a Bible Club in the local high school. After a year, six girls gave their lives to Christ in that Bible Club.

Now, I felt led to ask Pastor Nancy if we were to do an event in her area. Her response was a resounding, “Yes!”

The first planning meeting was to be held in her home in Harris, Minnesota, between Pine City and Rush City. She gave me instructions to her home and when I arrived, I was amazed. “I have driven right by your home three times, praying,” I said to her. Of course, at the time, I didn’t know it was her home.

The event was a tremendous success, exceeding our wildest expectations. Over two nights we drew 3000 people in Rush City, a town of 1500. When the invitation was given to accept Jesus as Savior, people stampeded to the front. The crowd filled the front and backed up in the aisles halfway to the back of the three-basketball-court gymnasium.

When it was all over, a revelation hit me that was quite amazing. During those two years of prayer, the Holy Spirit kept directing me to an area north and east of my home, which happened to be the same area from which people came to the event. Two years of prayer over the harvest field. I had no idea, at the time, what God was going to do there.

The area was extremely hard ground for the Gospel. Pine City, I later learned, was a meeting place for Warlocks. In fact, one early morning as I was praying, I had a vision in great detail of a smiling man with gold edging on his front teeth. Alarmed, I asked God who that man was. “That’s the warlock who is praying against you,” He said.

At that time, Pine County was the poorest county in the state. My pastor friend, who had done missionary trips to India, said he had encountered worse poverty in parts of Pine County than in India.

Satanism and the Occult bring poverty to the people wherever it resides. Some people think the prosperity message is of the devil. I once heard a pastor say that. That’s really ridiculous, and frankly, an insult to God. The devil brings poverty. God brings prosperity.

If people repent, cry out to God, and seek His face, He will bring prosperity to otherwise desperate, impoverished areas.

An example of that is the Fiji Islands. The Islands had a history of witchcraft and devil worship. The ceremonies were indescribably horrific, with an abundance of torture and murder. Alongside the heathen temples, there were piles of human bones of those killed in Satanic ceremonies. The tribes of the area warred with one another and would often roast their captives over the fire and eat them.

Many years later, in modern times, the population of Fiji is half indigenous natives of Fiji and half Indians. In the national election preceding the year 2000 the Indian candidate won the election for president, sparking an outcry from the other side. Extremist leaders took control of The Islands and 56 days of total chaos followed. A thriving economy crashed.

Several pastors began to cry out to God in prayer and repentance and soon others followed, growing into a movement of thousands. Churches began to fill and God poured out His Spirit in a mighty move of revival that swept The Islands. The move reached hardened criminals and drug dealers who left their practices and gave their lives to Christ.

Remember I said, “Satan brings poverty, God brings prosperity?”

A peculiar thing began to happen. Trees that had long been barren began to bear fruit of extraordinary size.

Previously, fishing had been a large part of the economy, but the coral reef had died. Now, suddenly after this move of repentance and prayer, new shoots began to grow out of the coral reef. Fish returned in large numbers, and in new species. The reef came alive and with it, the fishing industry returned to abundance.

Eventually 80 to 90 percent of the population of The Islands began to attend church.

What is the lesson to America?

These troubled times are unprecedented in my lifetime. Consumer confidence in the future has plummeted. Gas prices have risen sharply, as has inflation. Crime has increased sharply. Many, many small businesses have gone under. There are electrical shortages in some parts of the country.

God is looking for repentance and prayer from the nation, but especially from Christians, those who are called by His name.

We must continually place this scripture before us and practice it:

If my people who are called by my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.

2 Chronicles 7:14 (NKJV)

In Fiji, amidst political chaos and a collapsed economy, a few pastors began to repent and to pray. Others followed them, thousands of Fijians, and then . . . God brought miracles to the economy, God brought abundance and financial prosperity.

Again, as I stated in the September newsletter, we, God’s kids, don’t have to take our optimism reading from the condition of the nation. God has His own economy that has nothing to do with the world system.

If you know the Lord, and serve Him, then God has opportunities for you. He is looking for a contrite heart, an attitude of prayer and repentance, and a listening ear to obey His every command.

. . . And that is a reason for optimism.

Photo designed and taken by Lorraine