I took a job as the Volunteer Coordinator for the URBANA 90 Mission Convention. [1]
As I read through the two five-inch notebooks that contained all the things that I was responsible for during that six day convention, I turned to my husband and said, “There is no way one person can do all of this.” And it was true. If God didn’t move on His people, the 2000 plus volunteers needed to complete the 6000 plus hours of work, the 1200 staff people who needed to be fed without any money budgeted for their food, the hot chocolate and snacks for 17,000 students as they dropped their luggage off in a cold barn, and the thousands of other details would not get done.
What I learned during that job was that what I and others did, to bring off that huge conference, did not amount to anything. Prayer was the work of preparation for URBANA 90.
I remember making a to do list for the next day’s tasks, single spaced and two pages long. Before going to bed at night, I laid the list before the Lord and said, “These things need to be done tomorrow. I can’t do them. Only You can.” And then I sang myself to sleep singing a song based on 1 Peter 5:7 cast “all your anxiety on Him, because He cares for you.” God did miracle after miracle in answer to our prayers.
A favorite devotional by Oswald Chambers is the one from today, October 17…
“Prayer does not equip us for greater works— prayer is the greater work. Yet we think of prayer as some commonsense exercise of our higher powers that simply prepares us for God’s work. In the teachings of Jesus Christ, prayer is the working of the miracle of redemption in me, which produces the miracle of redemption in others, through the power of God. . . Prayer is the battle, and it makes no difference where you are. However God may engineer your circumstances, your duty is to pray. Never allow yourself this thought, “I am of no use where I am,” because you certainly cannot be used where you have not yet been placed. Wherever God has placed you and whatever your circumstances, you should pray, continually offering up prayers to Him. And He promises, “Whatever you ask in My name, that I will do…” (John 14:13). . . There is nothing thrilling about a laboring person’s work, but it is the laboring person who makes the ideas of the genius possible. And it is the laboring saint who makes the ideas of his Master possible. When you labor at prayer, from God’s perspective there are always results. What an astonishment it will be to see, once the veil is finally lifted, all the souls that have been reaped by you, simply because you have been in the habit of taking your orders from Jesus Christ.”
We at Hudson Valley School of prayer are setting aside 12 hours on October 24 for prayer.
We are having a Zoom prayer meeting at 9, noon, 3 and 6 and 9. We would love to have you join us. For the in-between hours, we have set up a Hudson Valley School of Prayer page on Facebook for you to write in your prayers and requests.
Nothing is as important as prayer. Nothing accomplishes as much as prayer.
So let’s pray. If you would like to join us, “Like” this notice, and we will invite you to our page. It is time we stop wringing our hands and complaining about the world around us, about the COVID restrictions, about the election, about the actions of people in our world motivated by the evil one, and do something about it. God is the only one who can change not only the world, but our lives as well. James 4:2 ends by telling us “You do not have because you do not ask.” So let’s do the work of asking. Join us.
Julia Ewert
[1] URBANA. God has used Urbana as a space for 300,000 people to encounter God, experience his global church, enter into his call, and engage in community. Through Urbana, movements have been born, lives saved, and unreached peoples touched by Christ’s hands and feet.
To God be the glory!
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