The God Who Listens and Answers

Answered prayer can be one of the biggest faith builders can it not? Sometimes God answers prayers over long periods of time; sometimes he answers no; sometimes he answers way after you pray, and sometimes he answers immediately.

This weekend I was playing ultimate frisbee with some brothers and sisters in Christ from churches all over LR. After we were done, my friend Blake gave me the idea to invite people from the group to come and invite their friends to serve with us tonight at the Little Rock Juvenile Detention Center. The word went out, and I began to pray that God would bring people as He willed. Every other Sunday and one Friday night a month some people from The Bible Church have the opportunity to go and worship, hang out, and share Christ with the inmates at the d-center. This ministry is hard, awkward at times, and has some major schedule conflicts with other ministries at the church. Because of these things it is often understaffed. The more people that go, the more the gospel gets to go out in one on one conversation with the inmates. God gave me a huge desire to see this ministry extend to people outside just the local expression of the universal Church that I attend. Saturday night I was reading Hosea 1 and read this in verse 11, "And the children of Judah and the children of Israel shall gather together, and they shall appoint for themselves one head..." God immediately brought to mind how Christ is the Head of the body, and how even though there are different likeminded churches across LR, and I am glad because each has unique ways God uses them all, we all have the same head and can serve together as the body. This just pushed me to pray harder for God to bring people from different churches together to join hands with us as we bring the gospel to needy kids in the d-center.

As today progressed, to be totally honest, I had given up, but God was working. A few hours before we were going to head down to the d-center, I got a text from a sister in Christ I had never met saying that she had been told about the ministry by a mutual friend and wanted to come and bring some friends! To say the least I was ecstatic! A while later I got a call from a friend who said that he couldn't come tonight but wanted to know next time we were going so he could come and bring some people.

Little did I know that tonight was the biggest group of inmates I think we have ever had. God knew that we needed some more people, and brought people who were so excited to be there and to serve. God did some amazing things tonight! I wish I could post all of the testimonies that were given of different ways God allowed the gospel to go out, and the different responses to the gospel; it was incredible. Another awesome thing was that there were three or four churches represented by the people who came. God completely answered my prayers and answered them in such a miraculous way that only He can take credit for what happened. I pray that this ministry will grow and that more and more people will come and love on and share the life transforming gospel with these precious kids.

May the revival I see happening in Little Rock continue to push people to their knees and continue to push people to be the loving hands of Christ all throughout this city.

For the glory of God

Seth