God Answers Prayers

On the Fourth of July I found myself in a little conversation with God. I had a yearning in my heart to have opportunities to teach, and I was talking to God about it. I was telling Him how much I loved teaching and that I wanted to share the things He was showing me when I heard Him clearly tell me: “Why don’t you ask me?”

I realized how often I forget to do just that. It’s one thing to ask God about things for other people or for things that are far off, like praying for a godly mate for my children, but to ask God for little blessings for myself in the daily walk of my life? That’s hard to do. It challenges my faith. What if I don’t see answers? Do I really believe that God loves to give good gifts to His children? Matthew 7:7-11.

In that moment I had a choice. I could doubt God or I could trust His voice in my heart. I chose to trust. So I asked Him. “Please give me opportunities to teach, Lord.”

Five days later I found myself in a meeting discussing how a seminar I was staffing was going. It’s a seminar on leadership, being led by three of the key leaders in YWAM: the Founders, Loren and Darlene Cunningham, and David Hamilton. We were processing as a staff how the teaching was going. At an appropriate moment I shared some of my thoughts. When I finished, Darlene Cunningham looked at me and said, “You need to share that tomorrow.”

What? We have three of the top teachers in the mission and I’m being asked to share? They’ve been to every country on earth, published multiple books, and I’ve been working in missions and ministry for about 3 years. This is a leadership conference with attendees from all over the world and from both YWAM and non-YWAM ministries. Then I remembered how I had asked God just five days prior for opportunities to teach and I was so grateful. God had blessed me beyond my imagination.

Just a few days after that, I walked up again to Darlene to ask her a question. She was deep in conversation with another leader on campus who is currently leading a bilingual Discipleship Training School related to Call2All. She was telling Darlene how God was leading them to take a few days to teach the students the Father Heart of God, but the person who was going to teach that subject had to cancel. I immediately asked God, “Can I tell them that I teach that?” And I had a peace about it, so I shared my heart for that particular subject but also knew that they didn’t know whether I would be right, or even a good teacher. So, I just told them to pray about it and feel free to invite me or not.

They did and believed it was right for me to teach. As a result, I found out later that night that I would be teaching beginning the next morning and into the following two days.

Isn’t God amazing? A simple prayer asking God for a gift. A simple answer delivering that gift. God truly loves to give gifts to His children. And when we listen for His voice, ready to obey, we get to join Him on this amazing adventure of His purpose and plan. I love it.

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