Impossible Prayers

It is so easy to pray ethereal prayers that can be unanswered and we will never know. Sunday night I felt like it was important that we start praying the kind of prayers that are sometimes scary to pray; the kind that ask for real answers. We wanted to pray for things that are impossible for us; impossible for anyone but God. We followed a model of prayer in James 5.

James 5:13-18 states, “Is any one of you in trouble? He should pray. Is anyone happy? Let him sing songs of praise. Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Elijah was a man just like us. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it did not rain on the land for three and a half years. Again he prayed, and the heavens gave rain, and the earth produced its crops.”

I love where it says that Elijah was a man like us. We are able to ask God to do great things. Things that are impossible by human standards, but with God all things are possible. I look forward to hearing how God answers these prayers.

A journey to remember…

I received this poetic entry by Charity Luce about Furnace Encounter. I thought I'd share it here. Enjoy:


It began with a dream in the hearts of 12, around a childlike rendezvous. Prayers, loves, and ideas were offered humbly to the adored one with high expectations and souls w i d e o p e n.

Several trailers, a laughter-salted road trip, and roughly 130 registrations later, the epic gathering met in curious hope.

Prayer. Adoration. Blessing.

They washed the dust from their feet and hearts… love was a participant this expectant evening.

Fire raged in the night as the lovesick met at what would seem like ungodly hours in the night, prayers scrawled on heartfelt, homemade alters shaped like canvases.

Sleep was scarce while worship overflowed in beautiful medleys of honest affection.

The dawn awoke to the cries, the prayers, the whispers of passionate tongues alive through the night.

Whilst males strived fervently for manhood, scaling cliffs and engaging battles of the heart, the women waged their own wars with cries of freedom and
brilliant
colours
of beauty.
They gazed into the image of the father and found themselves in his eyes of adoration. Wholeness was the gift bestowed this morning, to women and men alike.

Later, in the stillness of the noon-washed mountains, silence was beckoned into their presence. The people watched and waited for whispers of Truth and visions of Life. Some were strengthened by these gifts, others by the patience and faithfulness cultivated within them.
And then the Word came,
welcomed by exposure and persistent study and ardent discussion, awakening thirsts for the powerful voice of the LORD-- captured in frail language, in leather binding, tree-burning pages, and ink symbols.
Life
was allowed through their doorposts,
thank the Source.

The evening was soon upon them, by candlelight they danced unbound—for forgiveness, for restoration, for the Spirit, for devotion, for the return of the Most High.

Release, abandon, organic joy arose among them. Celebration was the order of the day. By the flames they rejoiced in the midst of hearts on fire.

Sleep still ran scarce, and worship still flowed gratefully and abundantly through the late hours and wee hours.

The later morning hours also found a grateful people, encircled so that each could see the other’s countenance—humbled, brightened, strengthened. Repentance and responsiveness were the activities engaged upon. Stories and legendary moments passed and passed from mouth to mouth.

“Praise my Healer. Praise the One who loves. Praise the One who holds us. Praise the One who is coming back…”

The beginning of
abundant life-worship signaled the end of an
abundant elope-of-a-gathering.
Life is upon us. Worship is who we are.

Amen.

February 1st, 2009

Furnace Encounter

Packed in a room that would comfortably fit a group half our size we began to worship Jesus with everything we had. The music blared from the stage, people jumped, danced, and cried: this was Furnace Encounter. There is just nothing like going to the mountains of Colorado in order to pray and worship with 150 of your closest friends.
Furnace Encounter is a deeper life retreat. We specifically set time aside in order to pray, worship, study, and cultivate our relationship with the Lord. This weekend was planned in order to emulate a God time, the only difference is that we did it all together as a big corporate group. Friday night started with worship. We did the typical singing to the Lord, but people also were encouraged to journal who God has been to them. Everyone was asked to use their own words, not the cute phraseology that we all learn in church. After that each person wrote their own Psalm. It was essentially a mad lib Psalm. After worship we had a time of introspective prayer; praying through distractions, hurts, worries, repentance and so on. The night concluded by breaking into groups for a time of foot washing by the accountability leaders.
One of the fun things that happened over the weekend was that we had a prayer meeting that lasted through the night both nights. People were able to sign up for time slots to keep the fire of prayer burning through the night and there was not an hour that was left empty. Alarm clocks went off at all hours of the night as people rose to go to the prayer room. And it is not as if there was only one person at a time, groups of 4-10 people filled each hour with intercession.
Saturday was full of activities interactive sessions. There was a split guy/girl session, paint wars, tug of war, blind folded hiking, times of silence and waiting on God, individual observational bible study, group discussions and other applied activities.
Truth be told, Saturday night was really were real encounter happened. This was a typical retreat session minus the preaching. There were basically two elements, worship and prayer. Both flowed throughout the evening. Saturday night came down to Revelation 21:5 & 6, “He who was seated on the throne said, "I am making everything new!" Then he said, "Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true." He said to me: "It is done. I am the Alpha and the Omega, the Beginning and the End. To him who is thirsty I will give to drink without cost from the spring of the water of life.”
This led into a prayer time of asking to be those that longed for His return, that view Him as King, and that pray thirsty prayers. We spent the rest of the night praying these “thirsty” prayers. There was prayer for the healing of those that had been wounded by a father or leader, prayer against a religious spirit or performance mentality, prayer for those that had been hurt by people trying to force the gifts of the Holy Spirit, we eagerly desired and prayed for gifts, we asked for the planting and growth of the fruit of the Spirit. This is just a few things that were prayed for. The truth is that so much happened that night that it cannot really be summed up in a paragraph. People were healed, hearts were mended, worship was real, prayer was fervent. It was one of the most powerful evenings that I have been a part of in a long time.
Sunday morning we got to sit around and tell testimonies of what God had done over the past 40 hours of our being together. It was so encouraging to hear the stories that most of us would never hear. God did so much outside of our little plans. This weekend showed yet again that it is the presence of God that marks us.

***I want to give a quick shout out to the worship band and the Dream Team! Without you guys we could not have done the weekend. You are amazing; keep storing up the heavenly crown. Much love.

Revival Town

Revival Town is tonight at 6:30!!!

The Furnace will be having pre-service prayer at 5:45 in the _tag office bay. I hope you all can make it.

Verdict That Demands Action

"The King will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.'" Matthew 25:40

I view the time between 4:00 AM and 4:59 AM as the most ungodly hour. Nothing good happens during this hour. If you are up until 3:59 AM . . . go to bed! Nothing good can come of still being awake. If you wake up at some point during this ungodly hour . . . hit snooze! Seriously. I think that my time of opening a coffee shop at 4:45 AM has lead me to this belief - it may be wrong, but I am sticking to it.

Monday was one of those days that I was forced to be awake during this the most ungodly of hours. Amy and I went to Seattle, WA last week for our first married Christmas. It was one year ago that we got engage in this beautiful city, so this trip was our Christmas gift to each other. We had an incredible time and took advantage of as much of this great city as possible in our short time there. We had an early flight out on Monday that forced me to break my 4 o'clock rule.

As we flew out I had an interesting thought. How did I impact that city in my few days there? Was it different then when I came? Economically speaking, I am sure that it was beneficial to have another couple come to the city, eat the food, shop and do all the typical vacation activities, but I do not pretend to think that our modest trip and few activities made any impact on the economic state of the city. It'd be nice to think that we single handedly fixed the economic problems, but we simply did not.

There was something that I could not get out of my head though. The night before we left I saw a young guy in his twenties holding a sign that read, "Survival isn't a privilege, it's a right. Please help me out." I don't know why he stood out to me. I had passed by so many homeless all weekend and none of them phased me the way that this guy did. Then I realized that maybe that was the problem. Why was I able to walk by so many poor and needy, so many that are hurting, and not be compelled to do something?

There are so many logical reasons why we pass by these people without a second thought. After all, they must have done something in order to end up like this and if we give them money they will surely just use it to feed addictions . . . or so we rationalize.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think that dropping my loose change in their bucket would have really helped much. But what about a conversation? What about a meal? I'll tell you what I would like to do, I'd like to respond like Peter did in Acts 3 and say, "Silver or gold I do not have, but what I have I give you. In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, be healed." That is what I'd like to do in these situations.

The truth is that I do not know how we should act. I do know this, as we do to the least of these; we do to the Lord - that is a weighty idea that does demands action.

Furnace Prayer Meetings

The Furnace prayer leaders have started blogging about each prayer meeting. I love being able to read about what God is doing in the prayer meetings.

Here is one entry from Josiah Carlson who leads the Monday night prayer meeting:


Coming into this prayer meeting, for some reason or another, it seemed liked our hearts were hard as a whole. Maybe it was from sin, or lack of pursuit, but regardless by the end of the night there was true, authentic intimacy. It was repenting during the first hour that softened our hearts and drew us to the Lord. The whole second hour was straight up worship! It was worship deep with our spirits and with truth. We approached the Lord with the Fear of the Lord. We stepped into humbleness which was the key to the door of intimacy. Tonight there was a real longing to meet with God. We asked for Him tonight, and we actively sought Him. It wasn't something that I lead the prayer meeting into... it was something that God did. My leadership was irrelevant because the furnace came to meet with him and was able to follow Him first.
Tonight was truly intimate, and I pray that the furnace's hearts would be resolute to follow a relentless God. We have so much to jump into... and I have faith that we will, and not just in the future, but now, and with this crew!

Much love,
Josiah

check out more entries like this at furnaceprayerblog.blogspot.com

Night of Desperation - Pueblo

Last Saturday the Furnace took a team to Pueblo, Colorado for a Night of Desperation. It was a great night full of prayer, worship, and connecting. Brandan Bustamonte came down to lead worship for the event. Brandan is a worship leader that is incredibly talented and anointed.

Pastor Dominic Suazo hosted the event at the Pueblo Prayer and Worship Center. We had a packed house as we prayed for a move of God in Pueblo. There is a groundswell of prayer that is beginning in this area and we were excited to go down to be a part of it.

Thanks to everyone that came out. We will continue to pray for Pueblo!