Vox Lucens

I must admit, one of my least favorite parts about missions trips is trying to summarize them for others. There is so much emotion, so much passion, so many stories in each one that words just don’t cut it.

So when I take the time to really try to get some of the passion out in words, it may bear repeating…

From today’s Weekly Reminder:

***
Anyone who has done an international trip knows what I’m talking about when I say that flying for dozens of hours at a stretch can be brutally painful. And yet, in looking back on a missions trip, it never ceases to amaze me that all of those hours can be made worth it by just a single moment of ministry.

We had many of those moments over the last week and a half in Jordan. Now, back in the States, I have time to look back on them and marvel. There were the moments spent in fellowship with fellow brothers and sisters in Christ, the moments watching our doctors at work and seeing the joy and relief in the eyes of those they served, and the moments of watching God-ordained doors open.

But the moment that keeps sticking out to me was one that was completely unexpected. The Iraqi church service was coming to an end, but just before dismissal, the pastor said that there was a man in the church that was sick, and had asked for prayers from the elders. As the elders gathered at the front, the pastor motioned to me and the Remember doctors to join them in laying hands and praying. Our team had considered James 5:14-15 in our team prayer times, and the chance to follow this command was a joy:

Is any sick among you? let him call for the elders of the Church; and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord: And the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up; and if he have committed sins, they shall be forgiven him.

We joined them, and as we bowed our heads to join in Scriptural supplication, the pastor turned and asked me to lead in the prayer. I don’t know that I have ever felt more inadequate, surrounded by men and women who are forced to live brutally real faith on a daily basis, but pray I did, and when my English prayer was done an elder prayed in Arabic. As we agreed together in intercession – agreeing in spirit while our ears could not understand the words – it was impossible to miss the presence of the Spirit of God.

I prayed without knowing what condition I was praying for, and found out only afterwards that the young man had a couple of psychological disorders – afflictions that require a miracle to heal. Good thing that we serve the Great Physician, the God of miracles!

If that time around the altar in a small Iraqi church would have been the only “moment” on this trip, it would have been worth all of the hours of travel, excruciating though they were. And really, what a picture of prayer that is! Prayer is not easy; it is long hours of sometimes excruciating pain – but oh, how worth it. Even if just one request out of a hundred is miraculously answered, how worth it those hours would be

And we don’t serve a God who answers one prayer out of a hundred. Our God answers ever single one.

I wish you could have been with us, prayer warrior, on this trip, around that young man, in the presence of the Spirit. But even if you cannot see the answers to your prayers, know that they are so very real.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, July 16th, 2008 at 2:42 pm and is filed under Persecuted Church. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.