Morning Prayer Summary for Friday, March 16, 2018

Dave shared…

The last couple weeks, I’ve been praying out some things. I thought I would share a little about that. The Lord has been opening my eyes. I had lunch with my son yesterday. He’s 19 years old and at the beginning of his life, looking into his future. He’s in college and trying to determine what he’s going to do and what he wants to be. I shared with him a couple things regarding prayer. I talked with him about as you get older, you realize all the things you did wrong when you were younger. I’m trying to impart to my son, “Don’t go down this road. There’s a pot hole over here.” Sharing wisdom and experience with him.

I’ve had many of these kinds of conversations with him about his career and what success is and how to achieve it. I was explaining to him some things and after a while I started recognizing it all funneled down to one thing. When I was younger, I had the benefit of being able to sit under Patsy Cameneti at Prayer School at Rhema. One of the things she always emphasized in prayer was finding God’s plan. She always talked about “the plan.” It seemed like that’s all she talked about. God’s plan. It is a good thing. But she spent a lot of time talking about the importance of the plan, how to determine the plan. And my experience has told me to be okay with the plan. That’s one of the hardest things that people, especially young people, have a hard time with. Being okay with the plan. Because we have these ideas in our minds of the way life should be. How many know that things don’t always turn out the way we think it should? We have these grandiose ideas—we’re going to do this or that.

Here’s one. When you find that right person and you get married, you have this idea that now everything is going to be perfect. We have an idealistic idea of what marriage is going to be. Blissful. But that’s not the way it is. It can be that and at times, it is that. But at times, it isn’t that. You recognize that what you thought it should be is not necessarily the way it is. I’ve had many times in prayer, asking the Lord about things in life and “Lord, why?” Every one of us has asked the Lord that question. Or “I don’t understand.” But one of the things I’ve learned about the Lord is this. He’s never surprised. Never. He knows the end from the beginning. He knows from the day you were born, to now, and when you’re going on with Him. And that’s hard for us to wrap our minds around because we live in a world where our world is susceptible to the things around us and whatever happens is what our reality is. But the reality of God is much different than our reality.

I’ve prayed and asked the Lord about things that I was puzzled by and it was as if He didn’t even hear me. “Lord, how many times do I have to ask you this? Does this not bother you? Is this not a problem?” This is something we have to deal with concept of understanding things the way we understand things. But this is also how we learn to trust God.

Let me ask you a question. Do you know everything? If you knew everything, then that’s a legitimate question. But asking questions like that are not legitimate because you don’t know everything. If you knew everything, then that question would be a legitimate question. So when you speak to God concerning things and we pray for things and we don’t see changes and whatnot… I’ll give you an example of that, praying and seeking God about the Presidency this last election and Donald Trump. Most of us agree, that was a good move for the country. Somebody asked me “What about all these texts” and blah, blah, blah. I said when I hire somebody to work for me, I look at the qualifications they have to do the job I’m asking them to do. I don’t care if they’re not a brick layer if I’m hiring them as an engineer. It’s a simple concept, right? You hire the best guy for the job. And who of you are without sin? So if we went by that standard, there wouldn’t be a president.

We look at that and we see the prior President and there were times we were praying and eight years of that. Boy that was like pulling teeth, right? But God’s got a plan. And you may not understand that plan, but He’s got a plan. And you may not agree with that plan, but He’s got a plan. And His plan is greater than anything you could imagine or think. And it’s a positive thing for you. And as long as we recognize that… That’s is one of the things that will put your feet in the ground and give you a foundation to stand on when everything looks contrary to what you’re believing for. A lot of people quit praying.

The world thinks prayer is worthless. People calling out the Vice President for praying. I look at that and think that’s just somebody that doesn’t understand. They’re speaking of something that they know nothing about. They’re not qualified to speak about that. However, we are not qualified to do and say things sometimes when we do. Our lack of faith or our place where we get disgruntled or upset or we don’t quite understand why things are going the way certain things are going. You’re not qualified.

It’s a humbling experience when you put your life in God’s hands. It is. Because He knows us better than we do. And humility is one of the things that every person is going to have to come to that point in their lives of recognizing “I don’t know.” And not only do I don’t know, but on the end of that “I don’t know,” You know. And I have to trust that You know. Now this doesn’t sound like a real uplifting message that I’m trying to share with you. But there’s a point to it.

When you come to the point where you recognize … stop fighting! That’s the bottom line. I’ve learned that there is a rhythm of grace. There is a flow of God’s plan. And it’s easy. I always tell people, if what you’re doing for God isn’t easy, then you’re not doing it right or you’re not doing His will. Because if it’s God, it will be easy.

I’m not saying that you’re not going to have challenges, that your flesh is going to have a hard time with, but I can tell you something that can calm that down. All the noise down. All the frustration in you, the fears of life. And that’s one of the things the Lord has been moving on me about. I told my son yesterday, “The best advice I can give you is finding your place in God.” Because nothing else matters. I could tell you the recipe of how to work hard and how to do this. I shared with him different things about learning and education and the importance of these things. I said, “The bottom line is this. And it’s always been this way. And that is, ‘What do You want me to do, Lord? Who am I? What’s Your plan for me?’” Because it doesn’t matter how hard you work. Some people say “If you just work hard, success will come.” No, that’s not true. There are a lot of hard workers out there that are struggling and people who are striving and not succeeding. People say, “If you have luck.”

What it comes down to is God’s got a plan. He created you. I told Him, “It’s like you’re a meal. And it’s like you could be a hamburger or a chocolate cake or a hot dog or pizza. There are ingredients in each one of those foods. And you don’t use pizza recipe for a chocolate cake. If you put what is in a pizza in a chocolate cake, it would no longer be a chocolate cake and it would be horrible. It would be disgusting. And the reason it’s that way is because you don’t use this to do this. And if God has called you to a certain place in life, you can’t be something else. It’s not going to work. You’re going to be frustrated. This has to do with prayer because I was telling him, you need to get on your knees and seek the Lord and ask God for His plan. Not your plan, not what you want.

So over the last couple weeks, I’ve been praying. I leave everything at the door. That’s the best time for me is when I leave it all at the door. Meaning that I’m not there with a list of the things “I need You to do for me.” It’s this… “I’m here, Lord. What’s up? What are You doing? How are You doing? How am I doing?” It’s communion.

That seems over simplified but any time I ever have a question about “why,” when I do that, the answer comes. It usually doesn’t come like when I’m praying about it. It usually comes to me and then “boop,” the answer is there. I’ll be shopping and all of a sudden, the answer will come to me.

I was in prayer the other day and I had a project I was working on that is complicated and has a lot of unknowns about it. I don’t know the answers to it. There was one particular unknown that was causing me a problem and I haven’t been able to overcome it. The other day I was seeking the Lord and then 15 minutes later, the answer came to me. This is what He told me, “Don’t think about that. Don’t worry about it. Just move on. Do something else.” Well, I moved on and as I got deeper into the project, I recognized that I didn’t need the thing I was concerned about. It wasn’t an issue. I was focusing on the wrong thing.

I say that to say that most of our problems and concerns we have are smokescreens. There are things that are just trying to captivate your attention so you can get off of the “real” thing. The enemy uses those tools and obstacles to get you in fear and away from the real reason so you’ll be defeated. Smoke. Mirrors. You’re doing this when you should be doing this.

I’ve learned that once you recognize that, you wonder “what else am I doing that’s causing me to hold up on something?” Some of us have had holdups for a long time, where you can’t quite get past this certain point. You’re focused on the wrong thing. You’re trying to make a cake with pizza ingredients. God’s trying to get you off of the pizza idea. Forget the pizza! Let’s go over here. It comes back to God’s plan and trusting in His plan. If you know that at the beginning when He created you, when you were in your mother’s womb as the Bible tells us, Ps. 146. It says before you were born when you were in your mother’s womb, He knew when you were going to be created, the day you were going to be born, how long you would be here. If you trust that, you don’t have to think about much more.

Do we pray? Yeah, we seek the Lord. But I would say your most definite purpose is just to have fellowship with God. The fellowship is the most important for this reason. That if there is something you need to pay attention to, don’t you think He’s going to tell you about it? Absolutely. And He isn’t going to tell you in fear. He’s going to tell you courage and will excite you about it. You want to be involved with what is going on. You have a project that needs to be done. You don’t have it in you to get it done. You feel like, “I better get up.” You get it in your mind that you’ve got to get it done. Why? Is the world going to end cuz you don’t blow the snow? Not to say you’re never going to do it. It’s just why do you have to do it now? You got this focus. And all the time you’re focusing on blowing the snow, your family is there waiting for you to spend time with them. And you don’t have time to spend with them when that is more important than blowing the snow. The Holy Spirit might say to you, “Don’t worry about blowing the snow. Go take your family out and do something with them.” Then later on as they get older, you’re not going to have to concern yourself with the thing of them not being connected with you and going off and doing their own thing because they’ll be connected with you cuz you spent time with them. That’s a God plan.

To get myself to sit down and take a break, it takes faith for me to do that. I have to trust and lean on God to do that. Some of us have to trust the Lord to enter to rest. When you are resting, He is working. And when you are working, He is resting. How simple is that. When your faith is engaged and you’re in rest, God is on the path. He’s doing His business. The Bible says lean not on your own understanding. Acknowledge Him in all your ways and He will direct your path.

When will He direct your path? When you’re leaning not on your own understanding. There is a prerequisite there. Your understanding tells you, you need to be blowing the snow. You need to be involved. Gosh, the hardest thing for people is to get into a place where we’re not worried. We don’t need to be worried about things because God’s got a plan. And it does not include your failure. It includes your success. Your peace. It includes everything that is all sufficiency in all things. His plan for you has everything you need. Your financial provision. The substance necessary to accomplish the work that is before you. It’s all there. How many here have a plan but finances are a hindrance to that plan? God’s plan includes that.

I remember one time I was taking a trip to Asia, in communist China. In China, you can’t just do whatever you want to do when it comes to the Gospel. It’s all underground. They arrest you for that and kick you out of the country. One year, I went to China was doing ministry work in the southern part of China. I was trying to reach a connection I had there for months. I was trying to get hold of this guy because he’s my connection there. He’s the guy that sets up all the meetings. I couldn’t get a hold of him. I said, if I can’t get a hold of him, we’re going to have to cut that part of the trip off. I’m not going to be able to go to China. But God told me to go. He said He had a plan and I had to trust that He was going to do it. So I said, “We’re going to go.” The team that was with me, we went. There was no plan on the other end! All we had were tickets to fly into this city and that was it. Get into a hotel when we got there. And some of the most miraculous things happened in that time on that trip. It’ll be with me forever.

When I hit the ground and got into my hotel, I went down stairs and talked to the concierge and asked them to get me a cell phone chip, a sim chip, that you put in your phone and now you can use their network. So he gave me a sim chip and I put it in my phone. I got a signal. I went to my room and my team is sitting in the room next to me. They’re wondering what we’re going to be doing. And I don’t have a clue. All I know is this is what I’m supposed to do. I’ve done everything I was told to do. So I’m not concerned about it. I’m praying in the Holy Ghost looking over the city. And the phone that I have rings! That didn’t surprise me because sometimes they call you when you get a new sim chip and say, “Hi! Welcome to China…” whatever. So I answered the phone and the person on the other end was talking Chinese. I’m like, “Hello? Hello?” And then they started talking English.

AND IT WAS THE GUY I HAD BEEN TRYING TO GET A HOLD OF FOR THREE MONTHS!

He’s calling my cell phone that I don’t even know the phone number to! Wow! That will get your attention, huh? That’s miraculous. I asked him, “How did you get this number?” He tells me, “Well, the Lord works in mysterious ways.”

When I went down to get my sim chip, I got tickets to go down to southern China to this town. I did everything I knew to do by faith. I did everything He told me to do by faith. This is all coming from this place of just trusting His plan. Do what you’ve been told to do. Even if you don’t understand it. I’m on the phone and he said, “Listen, I know you’ve been trying to get a hold of me. I’ve been out of the country. But I need to know what your plans are.” I said, “My plans are no plans.” He said, “Great, cuz I need somebody to go down to southern China.” And he named the city in which I have tickets in my hands to go down to! It wasn’t enough to call me on the phone that nobody knows about but now he’s telling me about a place to go to that I have tickets for the team to go down there! About this time, I’m on the floor! He said, “I need you to go down there because there are some house churches that I need work done and they need somebody with your background to help them do this work.” I said, “Well, I got my tickets and I’m heading down there tomorrow morning!” He said, “Great. This is all working out. God puts it all together.” He’s like, no big deal. He’s been doing this his whole life. I’m like, new to the gig and is this how it works? It would be nice to know ahead of time, right? No! Our flesh wants to know ahead of time. When you’re with the Lord, it’s okay you not knowing. If you knew, you might screw it all up.

In my situation, not knowing, if I don’t know, nobody else knows. And when you’re in a communist country, nobody else knowing is a good idea. How do they find you? That’s miraculous. I shared that testimony to show you the assurance that God has you in His hands. His plan is absolute and definite. He knows. Because you feel uncertain about it, that means nothing. So the real trick is this. It’s just getting you to a place where you’re okay with it. That’s what it’s about.

And prayer is more about you than it is about God. If we could get that, it would be important. You praying. You’re not going to change God’s mind about His plan. You’re not going to change His mind because of this reason. He’s got it figured out. So what’s the point of praying? You! You’re the point of praying. Cuz if I can get you to relax and in a place where you can go to China or wherever your place is at and do what He’s called you to do, then I can do my part, which if I’m God, I can do my part to keep you safe. Nobody knows what’s going on. And then unfold at the right time the plan to you. Then you look smarter than anybody. I’m going to make you look good. And when you look good, people start noticing. Peace is on you and people say “What is it? Can you help me?” You’ll grab their hand and put it in His hand. That’s all it is.

As we do that and focus our attention on these things, our prayer times become different than what we normally pray. Over the last two weeks, I’ve been praying every day. I’m been doing more fellowship than I am requesting. And in two weeks, I’ve gotten more revelation and gotten more things done than I have in a while. It’s because my approach is different. I’m not trying to get Him to do things. I’m trying to just, “what do You want to do, Lord? What is Your plan?” Then He says things to me.

Everybody has inside them some amazing things. There are things inside of you that God has to get into the earth, that He’s got for the plan. But it’s not out there because of you. You either can’t see it or you don’t understand it or something else.

We were talking about this the other day and I said the greatest thing a believer can do is just do what he’s told to do when he’s told to do it. Right? Whether you understand it or not, it’s not important that you understand.

Prayed…

Thank You, Father, for Your grace. I know it’s Your plan and purpose that we desire for our lives
We desire Your plan… to be in peace and joy in the Holy Ghost
Let Thy will be done on earth
Your peace guards our hearts
You are with me and You hold me in Your hand
The angels stand at guard to protect us
We trust You and lean not to our ways
It’s Your plan, Father
Lord, what is Your plan… reveal to us our places
Movement… acceleration… supernatural manifestations live in this place
Movement lives in this place… stagnation does not
Signs and wonders will follow
Supernatural abundance… changes…
And Jesus will be glorified
In the name of Jesus, the struggle is not yours… no more will you strive but you will move into that plan and that Jesus will be glorified in this hour… He will be made known … the struggle of the past… will be a thing of the past… I remember and I will not forget, but I will move and I will change it for your sake… signs and wonders will follow you… they will follow your hands, your words and your plans… the plans that are my plans… in the name of Jesus, breakthrough… break through… supernatural breakthrough… there is a breakthrough so seek Me, My plan and purpose, My ways… and watch and see…

Word came forth…

So this is what the Spirit of grace is saying in this hour. He’s speaking to the heart of the believer, the one who has trusted in the Lord the best they could. To lay down those things which so easily beset you. Those things you struggle with, those things you pine after, those things that seem to be good to you. Lay them down at My feet. Trust and see that I am good. And that I care about every need, every obstacle, every challenge in life. I care for them, not you. Trust in me and lean not on your understanding that you’ve for years done by your prayers, by the things you’ve done, the words you’ve spoken. Cast the care on Me and trust in Me. As you do, you’ll watch and see that I’m more than enough to meet the need. I will change things that for years have been clogged up and held in space. I will open those doors and allow them to flow with grace. Supernatural in Jesus’ name. Supernatural. And all I need from you is just to trust me. Rest in Me. Speak to Me in this time of prayer of fellowship. And I’ll take care of the needs.

I’m getting this in my spirit that there are some here that have a plan that God’s called them to and it’s been a struggle to enter into that place. The Lord is speaking to my heart telling me to tell you that He’s not forgotten these things. There is grace to walk in those things. If you do these things, cast off the cares, trust in Him and lean not to your own understanding, acknowledge Him and seek and trust Him. When I say rest, it means rest. Not to think about it all day long. I will lead and guide you.

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