Wednesday, January 14, 2004

It has been forever since I last wrote and there is so much that I could say. Rather than write a book about my life, I am instead going to share about how God has really been active in my life today and what has made it an incredible day.

All the events of the day center around prayer and how God answers prayer. Last night at prayer meeting, Josh challenged us to pray about big things that we want God to do in our life. One of my big things was that God would keep me moving on the commitments that I made at Urbana . The main commitment that I made at Urbana was to go into missions upon graduating from college. I realized that it was important for me to began looking into possibilities right away. Today, God answered my prayers in a big way by having two different missions agencies e-mail me. This really made me remember my commitment and motivated me to start collecting more information and prepare for the future.

Another great time today was praying with Sarah. We try to pray together a few times a week and I always feel closer to her after these times. Today we were able to talk a lot about the way that Sarah feels called to be a part of the women's community and how she loves the fellowship that she has with other Christian women. This is encouraging for me to hear. It is so great to see how God has been working in Sarah's life and called her to start a GIG and reach out to those on her floor. She also mentioned the possibility of living on MLH 8 th floor next year. At first I thought about how much nice that it is that she is only 2 floors away but then almost immediately I realized that this really shouldn't matter. Instead a feeling of excitement filled me and I am praying that the women will form a strong community.

The prayer meeting tonight focused on applying the confidence that Christ gives us to speak in his name and that he gives us the words to say through the holy spirit. The challenge given to those in attendance was to pair up and sit with someone that you didn't know or that you haven't talked with in awhile.

This verse was the encouragement that I shared with everyone before we prayed and went off. It is from Luke 10: 1-3

“After this the Lord appointed seventy-two others and sent them two by two ahead of him to every town and place where he was about to go. He told them, "The harvest is plentiful, but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field. Go! I am sending you out like lambs among wolves.”

God is calling us to be workers and wants to use us to bring in the bountiful harvest that he has her at MSOE. Some other things that God reminded me of in prayer include that it is our duty not to convert people but just to preach the word. I think that this means that we don't need to be concerned with the end result but just that we do what we can to share the Good News that has been given to us. Another encouraging thought is that God is already at work in these people and that we may be planting seeds or watering seeds.

My personal experience at dinner was very powerful. I was able to see how God was present in my conversations and I know that my words did make a difference. I sat down at a table with Drew and Craig and found out a lot about them. They both started here this quarter and are both mechanical engineering students. Craig is switching to be an architectural engineer and is also involved with the National Guard. Drew is a hockey player and hopes to play on the MSOE team next year.

After these two new friends left, I saw an old friend John sitting alone. I went over and talked to him. We caught up on all the interesting things that have been happening and I was able to invite him to our GIG. It was neat to see how involved he is in other organizations and he expressed a genuine interest in coming to the GIG.

Then Jesse joined us and we ended up talking a lot about their speech class that they are in with Sarah. This was cool because I knew some of what was going on from talking to Sarah. We just sat there and talked for close to 30 minutes about nothing too serious. I think that God was using this time to show them how much I really do care about them.

These are just a few of the many examples of how God has been faithfully responding to my prayers. I find that when I pray bold prayers according to God's will he has a way of answering them in unexpected ways. I know that it was only because of my prayers that I was able to have 2 great conversation and touch the lives of four people during my hour at dinner.