Planning, nurturing, waiting, and holding firm to a vision can be hard, even exhausting. As we wait for the promise to be fulfilled, weeks can turn into months and months into years. Think of Sarah and Abraham who had to withstand 25 years for the promise of a son to be fulfilled!
When my husband had cancer and was undergoing treatments, we held fervently to the hope of his healing. Groaning inwardly, we prayed daily, confessed Scripture, believed, trusted…waiting is very hard work! But God rewarded our endurance and we were blessed with his complete healing after many intense battles. (www.healedhealthyandwhole.com).
What are you holding out for today? Galatians 6:9 encourages us to not beome weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up.
To help us endure, Isaiah 40:30-31 reminds us that strengthening and refreshing come from the Lord, for even youths grow tired and weary and young men stumble and fall; but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary; they will walk and not be faint. What a promise!
But, there is more. Every vision will be tested and, at times, that testing can be very fierce. Ephesians 6 warns that we wrestle not with flesh and blood, but against principalities and powers, agains the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual forces of evil in heavenly places.
Pastor/author John Piper offers this treasure of instruction:
Prayer is a walkie talkie on the battlefield of the world. It calls on God for courage (Eph. 6:19). It calls in for troop deployment and target location (Acts 13:1). It calls in for protection and air cover (Matt. 6:13, Luke 21:36). It calls in for fire power to blast open a way for the Word (Col. 4:3). It calls in for the miracle of healing for the wounded soldiers (James 5:16). It calls in for supplies for the forces (Matt. 6:11, Phil. 4:6) And, it calls in for the needed reinforcements (Matt. 9:38).
This is the place of prayer—on the battlefield of the world. It is a wartime walkie-talkie for spiritual warfare, not a domestic intercom to increase the comforts of the saints. And, one of the reasons it malfunctions in the hands of so many Christian soldiers is that they have gone AWOL.
My husband and I used prayer as a weapon during his cancer treatments. Not only did we pray daily, together and alone, but we mobilized prayer teams of family and friends all over the country. We held prayer sessions in our home for up to half a day, with people coming and going like Olympians in a relay race. At one point, we had over 100 people praying for us from all over the world!
I teach in my book “Healed, Healthy and Whole, How We Beat Cancer with Integrative Treatments and Essential Healing Strategies” about the many kinds of healing prayers we used (www.healedhealthyandwhole.com) as we battled for my husband’s life.
Scriptures are God’s way of talking to us, and prayer is how we talk to God. Though you may be tempted to give up—perhaps even now— hold tight to your vision. May God grant you the strength and endurance as you press in and wait well for your breakthrough to come.
Prayer is the mightiest of all weapons
that created natures can wield.
~Martin Luther
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