Do you remember when Papa Deo talked about John 15??
Well, one of the things I began to realize and pray about upon getting home from TZ & Ethiopia in August, was just that my life here in North Carolina can be as rich and full as the lives we led while in Africa, and that in fact is should be. I've a personal goal to seek to to this, with so much joy from the Lord, & with a humble heart that is ready to be molded, pruned, transformed. To make a long story short, one of the ways the Lord has blessed this desire in my life has been through the focus of my Bible Study this fall: it's all about John 15 and abiding. We are listening to a series by Graham Cooke, and I thought this prayer was so powerful. It reminded me of each of you and our nightly chats with Papa Deo in Legho. So, I had to share with you. (I included a little bit of his Cooke's words leading up to the prayer, too. They were too beautiful to omit!)
Hope you are well. Miss you all a lot.
So much love,
Meredith <><
Let's pray. For those are you who are being pruned, stand. God has real designs on you for intimacy. What he's doing when he prunes you, he's taking away all the distractions of ministry and service. There are times you know God loves you serving him, but he loves you seeing him as he really is. He wants you to see, he wants you to get him, to get who he is, to get who he is for you. He's pruning you because you need a bigger, improved revelation of who he is for you. This is a good time.
Right now God is reestablishing your affection in him. He's reestablishing in your heart the truth of how he sees you, how he feels about you. You must come to a deeper level of affection, a deeper place of joy, a deeper place of worship, a deeper place of intimacy, prayer. The Holy Spirit has designs on you to help you come into that place. You will discover about the Holy Spirit that he's a complete genius, so he tells me. He's already got a plan marked out. He already knows what he wants to say to you, what he wants to do, where he wants to lead you. Just be lead by the Spirit, so that's what I'm going to pray. So assume the position. Hands out.
Father, here we are. It's a great moment, and you are really excited. You have things to give us. You are such a great, great giver. Some of us are so behind in our receiving, but you are changing all of that. I ask for favor in the name of Jesus. I ask that in this time of pruning, in this time of rebuilding intimacy, all the intimacy that should have been ours that we haven't picked up, but all of that will come to us so you will backdate our intimacy. But also all the intimacy you want in this next season of our life, all that will come. Give us a double portion, in Jesus' name. All the stuff that we should have picked up, I pray that we won't miss it. It will come to us. All the stuff you got planned for us from now and this next season of our journey, all that will come to us, too. Give us a double portion of your intimacy, your favor, your blessing. Pour out your love on our life, pour out your love upon us. Bring us to a place of abiding, staying, dwelling, remaining, resting. Loving being with you. Loving your presence. Loving what you bring. Make this a time that you will lavish affection on us. Indulge yourself. Go over the top in what you bring to us. Remake us now in our thinking, turn our thinking to a point of incredible favor where we know that it is my privilege and my joy and my inheritance to live under the smile of God all the days of my life. Papa, lift up the light of your countenance upon us, smile on us. Bestow upon us your own intimate heart so we are touched by the majesty of your affection for us, that our thinking is changed and rearranged, that our heart is enlarged, that our concept of you and our experience of you goes to a height and a depth that it's never gone to before.
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