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From the heart

Last night in our small group, this lovely woman who used to deal drugs, and was a drug and gambling addict came to share. What she shared touched everyone - it was pretty amazing because it was as though God's blessings were overflowing from her to us as she shared and then, we started sharing with one another (i.e., the blessings overflowed even more!) - like He was really pouring out 'immeasurably more than we could ever ask or imagine'. There's so much I want to blog about but I haven't the time, so I'll just post this much to remind myself to blog later. :)

I will share this one thing I learnt though:

 I've been really struggling to have faith when I pray lately - ever so often I'd pray for some area and then go away and live like God didn't even hear me talking to him. I've been praying a few times for God to help me have more faith. At the end of her testimony and her pastor's testimony (he was the one whom God led to take her in while she was still addicted), I asked them, "How did you pray for freedom for her from her addiction? How did you and Sylvia (a pseudoname guys, not her real name) pray for freedom for the man who had been locked up for 27 years (she became a missionary and she met this man on one of her trips, he was demon-possessed and had been hurting his family so they locked him up in a secluded cell where he just eats whatever they give him and drinks his urine)?"

I was expecting a reply on fasting for days, on declarative prayers, on quoting Scripture, on getting right with God - my pen was poised to write down some sort of difficult and complicated formula that would be really hard to follow through.

But you know what the pastor said to me? He said, "We just said a simple prayer, 'Lord, heal her'. But we prayed from the heart. It must come from HERE (points directly to his heart)."

And I don't think that pastor would ever know how encouraging that simple sentence will be to me as I carry on with life!

"We just said a simple prayer, from the heart." God used that simple statement to make a beeline to my faithless heart, and now I have much more faith to pray again for anything, anyone, everything God wants me to pray for (God, I pray this faith will stay!!!) You know, though quoting scripture, having a right relationship with God etc is important when we pray - when we start by praying to God from the heart - everything else follows :)


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