05 February 2005

What's up now...

I've just been at a 24-7 prayer room since last tuesday, the 8th...if you're not familiar with what I speaking about check www.24-7prayer.com
The rest of you I've been e.amailing and updating about it already...
I just decided to open this blog to make things easier to communicate. It was a friend's sugestion...I didn't know it was so easy and really practical...I'm kinda naive with this tecnological things, but they're useful...
So, these days have been just great !!!
Those words that God brought through a friend, in John 21:1-14, are making more and more sense now...I can see the net full of fish, after spending so much time catching nothing...
The first days were hard and many people still didn't get the full idea of what it is to pray in a dedicated room 24 hours a day during 7 days (or more)...
The breakthrough started to happen on thursday and yesterday night I got to share in the service about the whole idea...there were not many people attending, but it was good...first because God really enabled me to speak ( I don't like speaking in public), then because I felt The Spirit of God speaking to people through it...I basicly just shared about all the process that took us to organize the prayer room at this church. How my initial plan was to make it at the Mental Hospital (10m from this church) and how God showed His plan after the Hospital Director said "NO"... I belive the problem was not with the Hospital people, but simply because it was not God's timming and not the best plan...
For those of you who don't know how it went I give you a brief report...so, I received the "no" and accepted it has God's will (we were waiting for an answer fro almost a month)...so I turn to God and told Him " - O.k., my plan failed, please tell me Yours"...so it came to my mind to do it at this church ( I had already shared here at a sunday service about the week at the Hospital and several people were praying for the opening there...one woman suggested me before to do it at the church but on that time I presented my reasons why we really wanted at the Hospital)...so I went to the church and spoke with one of the pastors, a friend of mine. he got excited about the idea, but still needed to speak with others...
I went home and I checked my e.mails...I had 2 replies of my "PLEASE HELP ME" e.mail which I sent to a bunch of friends who pray and listen God...They totally touched my spirit and things started to make sense...
O.K, I was sharing and I went reading John 21:1-14... There're so much stuff here...first Peter just got a simple initiative of going fishing, then how interesting it was that they didn't recognize Jesus at the beach when he first spoke with them, how they just listened and obbeyed, how after seeing the blessing they recognize that guy was The Jesus,then Peter just took the cloth out and forgetting about teh fish, He just went to meet His best friend and Lord...and Jesus had fish already on coals and just invited His friends to have communion with Him...they didn't even speak a thing, they just stayed in His presence in awe...waw, so cool... I enphasized verse 6 where Jesus told the disciples to throw the net to the right side after they were fishing all night without geting a thing, and the miracle took place...They went right into the centre of God's will, His best and perfect plan...
That's what God told me this thing was all about... It was not plan B to do the prayer room at the church building, it always meant to be plan A in God's heart...I was sure of that !!!
I believe this is the time for the church in Portugal to be awaken to pray and seek God's face and heart...
next day I woke up with a burden to pray for the main Pastor of this church,João Cardoso, and the whole congregation. João Cardoso is also the president of the portuguese Evangelical alliance and a bunch of other stuff...he's a visionary and a men after God's own heart I believe..while praying God started to share these verses in Oseah 10:12 and II Cron.7:14,he was now speaking not only about this particular congregation, but about the portuguese church...YES, is definitelly time to seek The Lord, the only One who can heal this land and bring true Salvation, but we need to do our part :to humble ourselves, repent from our evil ways and PRAY...GOD HAS BEEN SPEAKING TO MANY PEOPLE AND THROUGH MANY WAYS THAT HE HAS NEW THINGS FOR PORTUGAL, IS TIME TO GIVE BIRTH TO THESE THINGS AND I BELIEVE MANY WERE ALREADY BORN...
IT'S TIME TO SEEK INTIMACY...and I went sharing how this is one the purposes of the Prayer Rooms, to awake this in God's own people first and then the others...
In the beggining of this week I could feel a lot of scepticism about teh prayer room...it's normal to think "- why do I have to go to any room to meet with God? He's everywhere anyway and I have my own time with God."...
But the thing is that we consacrated the room and the week to seek God's intimacy, and this is what causes in us, first a DISPOSITION to go and meet, and then an EXPECTATION...just like dating with someone...it keeps the passion of the first love...we go to be alone with our lover...it's this expectation that will open our hearts to listen to God and find Him...
God loves meetings, He loves that we sek Him, He loves to be found and to find us...
I went on speaking a bit about the meeting between Jesus, Mary and Martha...and how Jesus told Martha mary chose the best part, to simply be at His feet...just like someone in Love...
I quoted this phrase I just read " you are happy to be in the House of the Lord, but I wanna be at His lap"...sooo, cool!!!
I shared my opinion about paryer too.For me is so much more then going with a list of things to ask or even give thanks...petition and thanksgiving are part of it, but is much more about LISTENING, instead of speaking...That my biggest challenge and desire : TO LISTEN AND DISCERN GOD'S VOICE, TO BE IN TUNE WITH GOD'S HEART...Beyond that, only seeing Him face to face :-)
So, I spoke about intimacy as one of the purposes of the prayer rooms, and how that leads us to listen God's heart, then I went to speak about 2 other purposes, which are : TO INTERCEED (pray for others) and TO GIVE TESTIMONY...We cannot separate those...when we pray for others God gives us His heart for them so we wanna speak, when we pray for nations, God might send us...and before speaking about God to people, we must first speak about these people to God...When we listen God's heart we will for sure listen His cry for the lost...
So, basicly I shared that God wants to show us that when we start to STOP and LISTEN we will spare time, energy and resourses...we will be more effective on reaching the goals of God.
I heard this once : "it seams that the church today is more like a fan.We spend energy to create a fake wind...but we are to be a wind meal, which catches the real wind and easily produces energy...
I finished reading Amos 3:7,8 "Indeed, the Lord God does nothing without revealing His plan to His servants the prophets...The Lord God has spoken; who will not prophesy?"
IT'S TIME FOR US TO LET THE PROPHETIC VOICE RISE UP !!! IT'S TIME FOR PORTUGAL TO SEEK GOD'S FACE AND LISTEN...SO WE CAN SPEAK ON EARTH AND USE THE AUTHORITY HE GIVES US TO CHANGE PEOPLE AND NATIONS...

With all this I was personally challenged to seek God's presence more...I do wanna hear Him better and be used to speak...even though that scares me, 'cause I don't like in to speak in public at all, too much insecure...I was challenged by God few weeks before in our "ConnectPortugal" Meeting that I should speak and I do have things to say that are relevant not only for me...
One day I was at the prayer room watching my prayers and I noticed most of them were for portugal, for people, for the church...then I wrote this note to God in the prayer room, even though I didn't leave it there but put it in my Bible :
- I wanna speak Father, I feel I'm always trying to share what you put in my heart...I'm always trying to communicate Your Message, whether using words, actions or atitudes...sometimes I even wanna stop having this conscience that there's always someone watching me...this intimidates me but sometimes it encourage me to communicate...
I don't know if this is right or wrong, I would like to be more focused on You and let You use my expressions to speak to others, but I don't know how...
So, the same day later they invited me to speak at this service and I accepted for the first time confidentely...I was surprised with myself 'cause usually I start thinking "-oh, I cannot speak, I'm too shy, I'm don't know how to, I'm not sure if I'll discern what God has to say. etc..."...This time I steped out in faith and God just blessed me and totally enabled me to do it...I know it was Him. that I'm sure, I could never do it really !!! :-)
Yah, I'll stop writing...I'm really bad on reducing details, sorry...it's just that I see God's hand in every little thing...and that makes me praise Him even more !!!