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spiritual life

You're An Answer To Prayer

I suppose I’ve heard that before - and I never thought much about it. Maybe because I always remembered it being said after I helped someone though something pretty tough.  But me?  An answer to prayer? My 8 year old daughter asked me one night, "Have you called our neighbor to see how she is?”  Why she thought to ask that, I don’t know. We hadn’t particularly talked about them in some time. But I decided to pick up the phone.

“Hello….um, this is Michael from next door. We just thought we’d call and see how you are.  Can we bring you anything?  Go get something for you?”

“You have no idea…you’re an answer to prayer.”

“Why do you say that?” I asked.

I then heard a story of a fall, broken bones, a run to the hospital, a husband that had taken a turn for the worse…

“I was just saying to dad that we don’t have anyone to call to help us. And not but two minutes ago, I just prayed that God would help us…and then the phone rang.”  Tears welled up in me.  Now I knew where my daughter’s question came from.

God really does use us to answer prayer.  It’s Him, and His story, and we get to be a part of it.

As we sit in unique roles, leading our companies, our families, and others around us, God will use us to answer prayers, if we are open to the His voice.  It will be at work, at home, at the gas station.  Sometimes, we’ll know we part of the story, and other times, we may never know.

But, yes, we really can be an answer to prayer.

With Boldness & Without Hindrance

The Acts of the Apostles is the fifth book of the New Testament and tells of the founding of the Christian church and the spread of its message to the Roman empire. Acts begins with Jesus’s charge to the Twelve Apostles to spread the Gospel throughout the world. From that point forward, quite simply, the book of Acts tells the story of men and women ON MISSION.

Acts ends with the simple statement about Paul … He proclaimed the kingdom of God and taught about the Lord Jesus Christ—with all boldness and without hindrance. (Acts 28:31)

With all boldness and without hindrance … those words popped for me. That is the instruction and example set for how we are to act on our mission, on our plans and intentions.

The month of January is finished and we should be through the important work of visioning, planning, goal setting, etc. Now the focus is on the hard work of execution, follow-through, implementation, accomplishment. Let’s approach that work with all boldness and without hindrance and see what magic happens.