Submitted by Josh
Arrington
And pray in the
Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in
mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. Ephesians 6:18
One summer evening,
as I was taking out the garbage in the complex where we lived, a lady came
running out of her townhome and met me at the garbage bin. She wanted to know what I was doing here. I
assured her that I lived here and was simply taking out the trash. She said she knew that I lived in the complex
but she wanted to know why I lived in that neighborhood and why we had so many
different people that kept coming around to help (referring to our mission
teams).
I began to share
with her that we had moved here to start new churches and to serve our
community, but before I could get any more words out, she stopped me
mid-sentence and asked, “Are you praying in our neighborhood?” I told her we were and that over the past
eight weeks we had actually been walking and praying over every street and
house in Pitt Meadows. I told her we almost always started in this complex and
who knows how many times and how many people have prayed for her.
She got a big smile
on her face and said, “I knew it! I was
telling my husband that I am not sure what these people are doing here but I
told him I thought you were praying for us!”
She then said, “I don’t know what you believe or anything, but I can
tell you this, whatever was here in our neighborhood before this summer is gone
and we like it that way!”
WOW!!! Prayer should never just be a part of our
strategy for life or ministry - it is
the strategy for life and ministry! The
spiritual attacks we have faced here in Canada have been unlike anything I had
ever experienced before in my life. We
must put on our spiritual armor daily. Paul talks about this in Ephesians 6,
and I love what he says to do after we put on our armor - he tells us to pray!!!
Lord, I pray for
the leaders at Church on the Rock and for us here at home – that we would be
suited up daily with the armor of God.
