Surrendering My Basic Prayer Request For Another Person

"You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your own passions" James 4:3 ESV

A month before I went on a mission trip in 2014, I received an email letter from some missionaries in The Middle East. The missionaries were working in a community that was being heavily attacked by ISIS. They explained in their letter that ISIS was going door to door and dragging Christians out of their homes and into the streets to kill them if they professed Jesus as their Lord and Savior. There were children who had an opportunity to deny Jesus as their Lord and Savior in order save their life, but rather chose to die in their faith. 

Although this email was very informative and helpful in making me aware of what is happening to Christians around the world, that was not its major purpose. The purpose of the email was for PRAYER because the missionaries, although they had an opportunity to leave the country, chose to stay with their brothers in Christ and potentially die with them.

I have heard a lot of stories like this and have honestly become a little immune to them. As Americans, it is normal for us to see the kid from another country on a commercial needing a dollar a day to live. We love that kid and want to care deeply for him, but we see him everyday and realize that we cannot help every kid that we come across with a need. It's similar to the way we love our mother. I deeply love my mom, but I do not always show it to her like I should because I see her everyday. I still love her, but cannot spend my whole life explaining it to her.

However, for some reason, this email rocked me and I could not stop thinking about all people who are struggling every day to stay alive. I kept thinking about my own daughter being in that situation. Then I started to think about my faith and beliefs. The Bible tells us that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. So why should it matter if this was my own daughter or someone that I have never met if we are all truly brothers and sisters in Christ? I should love these people like I love my personal family. I began to question why God chose to let me be born in the USA instead of another country like Iraq or Sudan. What did I do to deserve this great life? What if I was born in another country and my own daughter was taken out into the streets to die because of her faith? The same faith that she gets to easily proclaim boldly in the States. If I were born in a different country, would I trust a God that allows some people to live abundantly and others struggle daily while being persecuted?

A few weeks later, I prepared to leave for my mission trip and I went through a lot of Spiritual warfare which included side effects from the malaria medicine that I was taking and a bad cold the day before we left. To be honest, I do not handle sicknesses very well and this time was no different. I went out in my front yard at about 3am and fell to my knees ready to whine to God about my problems. However, I couldn't do it. I thought to myself, here I am worrying about my simple pains while sitting in my nice house and enjoying all the things that God has blessed me with while there are people around the world suffering from persecution and dying from real sicknesses every minute of every day. 

My prayer dramatically changed from, “God help me” to “God I surrender my needs and want you to help them! God I want to feel this pain so that someone else in the world can have a moment of peace! God if it is possible, I want to trade some of my joy for others who are in constant pain!"

The fact is that I already have a relationship with God; what more do I need or should I be asking for?

I went on my trip with a cold and never felt physically great while I was there, but found an amazing peace about my situation by seeing God work through the people we met and knowing that they had a moment of peace and joy while spending time with us praying and worshipping God. They were able to have a moment of peace in their lives by witnessing other Christians  from another country pray and encourage them. These same people who have experienced more pain in one week of their life than I have experienced in my whole life, had peace for a short time while we were there simply by knowing that there were believers around the world that loved and cared for them. 

About six months later, I was sick with a 24 hour virus. Again, I found myself cowardly crying about my pains when I happened to look at Facebook and saw that one of my mentors daughters was in the hospital. She has been in and out of the hospital her whole life and always has such a positive attitude. I felt so selfish crying over my little pains and started weeping for her. Here I am again crying over a 24hour stomach ache while a little girl deals with stuff worse than this every day. I wanted to help her, but did not know what to do. So I thought like an American and decided that I could give the family money. Money fixes everything and it is easy to do. Right after we had Sophie, I gave Lacey $1,000.00 in the middle of the night because I did not know how else to help her. I think it worked. 

However, God started to reveal to me that prayer is priceless and it actually works! Money can help us temporarily, but only God can save us and give us complete peace through anything.

I am still learning the benefits and power of prayer. Lacey and I have a debrief and accountability time every week and prayer is always at the top of the list of things that we can be doing more of. We are trying to get into a habit of doing it as a family before we leave our apartment and head out into the world everyday. We understand that every time we leave our home, we have an opportunity to change someone's future. However, it can be in a positive or negative way. We want to be Spiritually prepared for every situation and pray that God will use us so that our every interaction is giving people a positive and encouraging view of God. We also pray that God is already interceding for us in the people that we meet.

I will end with this thought:

I remember my mom telling me before I became a Christian that people were praying for me. I thought nothing of it. They did not know me, but were concerned about my relationship with God. I did not understand it and I often overlook this fact when I am sharing my testimony with others now. I don't think that I have recognized the importance of this fact.  People I did not even know were praying for my salvation and then God revealed Himself to me. Wow! I wonder if my prayers can actually have an impact on someone's eternity. Can this really happen? If this is true then I want to spend more time praying for others and less time focusing on some of my basic needs knowing that God already knows what I truly need.

Some of our favorite prayer verses:

• Psalms 46:10-11
• Ephesians 1:16-23
• Ephesians 3:14-21
• Philippians 1:9-11
• Colossians 1:9-14, 4:3-6
• 1 Timothy 6:6-10
• Romans 8:26-27