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Episode 15 - Pray to See What is Really Happening
45 Plays2 months ago
Why do we become more aware of God and His activity in our lives when we are outside of our normal context and routine? What do we miss in normal, daily life? Reflect on a fascinating passage from 2 Kings 6, and try the prayer challenge this week so you can see what is really happening.
The Pray and See podcast is a ministry of Central Ohio Youth for Christ.
Central Ohio Youth for Christ: www.coyfc.org
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Transcript
Introduction and Brian Brooks' Background
00:00:11
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Hey there, I'm Brian Brooks, and I've been involved with Central Ohio Youth for Christ for about 16 years. The most compelling thing for me is seeing God answer prayers.
00:00:24
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Big, small, organizational, personal, all of the above. I hope you get to see God answer prayer in your own life.
The Power and Influence of Prayer
00:00:34
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That's why we're doing this podcast.
00:00:37
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If you're just joining us, go back, check out episode one, to hear the story of why we launched the podcast, but listen through the other episodes too. We talk about helpful ways to think about prayer, and my hope is that it motivates you to pray more.
00:00:52
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The reality is, if you're a follower of Jesus, you have a unique opportunity to positively influence people anywhere, from anywhere, in any situation, with God's power, love, and grace through prayer.
00:01:08
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Stories of answer to prayer are not only encouraging, but they show us who God is and what he's like. And we look at the Bible each episode to learn something about how praying works.
00:01:22
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And I'm inviting you to learn along with us. I want you to see what we are seeing at Youth for Christ. You can join up with a prayer team to pray for one of our ministries, build your own backlog of seeing God answer prayer in the lives of students.
00:01:38
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It's awesome. The next step for you, though, it might be to begin a relationship with God.
Understanding Salvation and Starting a Relationship with God
00:01:45
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The Bible says that it's by grace you've been saved through faith.
00:01:51
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It's not your own doing. It's the gift of God, not a result of works, so no one may boast. God offers a relationship, his undeserved kindness through Jesus Christ, and it's not something you can earn as a result of your works. It's a gift that you can receive.
00:02:08
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I hope you can hear that. start that relationship with God. You can ask him for forgiveness, ask him to come into your life, ask him to save you, to begin a relationship with you, and he will do it.
00:02:22
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If you find this podcast helpful, do what others have done and share it with friends, family, students who are interested in connecting with God or anyone you know that might be encouraged.
Prayer Initiatives and Community Engagement
00:02:33
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Lastly, over the next year, we want to launch several more prayer teams, and we're going to be doing some in-person events coming up in a few months to gather people together to pray.
00:02:45
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I hope you can come, we can pray together in person. For now, let's pray and see what God does. Pray along with me. God, thank you that you hear our prayers. Thank you you know everything about us, including our brokenness, and you initiate relationship with us.
00:03:02
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We have so many things that distract us from reflecting, being in tune with our own thoughts, and being aware of you and your presence. Lord, would you open our eyes and help us to see?
00:03:16
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Amen.
Stories of Prayer and Spiritual Awareness
00:03:17
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Today's point is see what is really happening. I shared in the last episode, we just went on high school mission trip called Mohican Valley Mission.
00:03:29
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Every morning, their team of adult leaders would gather to pray in a room where all the coffee makers were, right? That's where you get together at 6.30 in the morning.
00:03:40
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One morning, ah leader Shelley shared a point from a book about God answering prayers in a personal way. And the phrase was a God wink.
00:03:51
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Well, throughout the course of the week, we had three solid days of service. It was hot. It was about 95 degrees Fahrenheit outside. It was scheduled to rain on the last day.
00:04:03
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And we still had a ton of work to do at the sites. So that morning, Wednesday morning, we prayed and asked that God would hold the rain off until at least 2.30. Right at 2.30, it rained.
00:04:17
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I forgot that we had prayed that together, and I checked my watch to see what time it was when it rained, and it was literally 2.30. Is that a coincidence? Or is it God answering prayer, reminding us that he's working and present in the midst of what we're doing?
00:04:35
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I think is the second one. Similarly, for years during the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the detention center here in downtown Columbus was closed to outside visitors, family, and chaplains like people on our team.
00:04:54
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We prayed for almost three years every week, in some cases every day, for our team to have the opportunity to connect with young people in that center. When it finally opened up,
00:05:05
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Turns out there was a new superintendent who was very supportive of our ministry and helped us to connect with youth inside of the facility. It was awesome. We didn't know this, but the whole time God had been working something and we finally got to see it.
Western Society and Spiritual Realities
00:05:21
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We want to pray to see what is really happening. It was easier to see answers to prayer on a mission trip with high school students because I got outside of the daily routine.
00:05:33
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I paid attention more. Maybe I was more desperate. Maybe I was more tired. I don't know. Maybe it was the coffee. But it reminded me of going to see the eye doctor.
00:05:45
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One of my best friends is named Brad, and he is an eye doctor. When I go to see him, I need a machine, right, to be configured just right so I can read with 20-20 vision.
00:06:01
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Whenever Brad dials in the lenses just so, my eyes relax, it feels relieving to see something clearly. What does it feel like when you encounter God or you're reminded of his presence?
00:06:18
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I think it has the same effect. There's a feeling of relief, a feeling of, oh yeah, there's something bigger than me. There's more going on than I can see.
00:06:28
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It could be a feeling of comfort. I'm not sure. A long time ago, I read an article It was called The Flaw of the Excluded Middle. The premise of the article was that in other countries all over the world, people are more in tune with the fact that there is a spiritual reality to life.
00:06:50
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They don't have a ground floor, you know, level one existence, and then there's God and the spiritual realm totally detached. They know that there is a middle layer where God is interacting with them in their daily life.
00:07:09
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In Western society, though, we've kind of been trained out of this way of thinking. And I think we miss out on seeing, yeah, there is a God. There is a spiritual realm to life.
00:07:21
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These things are more than coincidences, and they're personal. That is what we get to see in prayer. We get to see what's really happening. Listen to this story from the Old Testament in 2 Kings chapter 6.
00:07:35
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Syria, which existed back then, had a sizable army. They're getting ready to war with a little nation called Israel, and there's a prophet named Elisha.
00:07:47
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Elisha would find out from God where the Syrian king and their army was secretly planning to camp to ambush Israel, and he would warn the king of Israel.
00:08:00
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This happened multiple times to where finally the Syrian king is bothered and frustrated asking, who is this guy? How does he know what I'm secretly planning? Why is this happening?
00:08:12
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So he decided i'm going to dispatch troops and send them after Elisha to capture him to stop this so I can carry out my plans. He sends troops. They're surrounding the city where Elisha is.
00:08:26
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And we pick up in verse 15 of 2 Kings 6. when the servant of the man of god alicious servant rose early in the morning and went out there' is an army with horses and chariots all around the city and the servant said my master what are we going to do <unk>ia said do not be afraid for those who are with us or more and those who are with that then alicia prayed and said o lord please open his eyes that he may see.
00:08:57
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So the Lord opened the eyes of the young man and he saw, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha.
00:09:10
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Elisha prayed and the servant could see what was really happening. There was a spiritual reality to this battle scene that immediately he couldn't see. This is the point.
00:09:21
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God is up to something. He's up to something in your midst.
Encouragement to Seek Spiritual Truths and Join Prayer Groups
00:09:26
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you can pray and see what's really happening. Here's my challenge for you today. First, pray that someone else would see.
00:09:36
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Pray for the people you know who don't know Jesus. Paul writes in 2 Corinthians 4, pray that God would open their eyes. Here's what he says. For people that don't believe Jesus or they're they're fuzzy about who he is, they're not sure about God, Paul says,
00:09:54
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In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God.
00:10:05
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Pray that God would open their eyes. This is a good prayer request for people who don't know Jesus. Second, you can pray with a friend and ask God to show you guys what he is doing in your family, your workplace, your neighborhood, your friends, with students.
00:10:24
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Paul says we walk by faith, not by sight. And he's contrasting having faith in what God is doing versus what we can literally see with our eyes.
00:10:37
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In the chapter before that, also in 2 Corinthians 4, he says, This what like following Jesus. He continues, aka we're getting older our inner self is being renewed day by day this is what it's like following jesus he continues Ask God to you what he's doing so you can see what's really happening. And pray that with someone else so can understand and experience what Paul's saying this verse.
00:11:04
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that are unseen things that are seen are transient but the things that are unseen are eternal ask god to show you what he's doing so you can see what's really happening and pray that with someone else so you can understand and experience what paul's saying in this verse Lastly, if you are trying to find God yourself, ask him to show himself to you.
00:11:30
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He will do it. God lets himself be found and he can show himself to you in ways that are personal that you will understand if you want to believe in him and follow him. If you want to connect and learn more about joining a prayer group from one of our Youth for Christ ministries, send an email to pray at C-O-Y-F-C dot org.
00:11:54
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It's a chance to see what's really happening and see God move. hope you'll join us. Thanks for listening.