You won’t see it in this photo, but this was the place where my life changed dramatically.
With my wife and kids, I rented half of a house down at the end of this street on the left. The house itself wasn’t that memorable. The owner had divided a nice old home into a duplex, and we got the bigger portion. I was working a job that saw me report to work sometime between midnight and 4AM, depending on the day of the week. I was a freight handler for a trucking company. I had been struck by a sense of mission at the little church we attended and kept seeking ways to make it happen. But the thing that most haunted me was returning to military service as a mission field.
Administratively, the deck was stacked against me. I had served before and took an early exit for family problems. The details don’t matter much; there was a large barrier I had to cross and did lots of work putting together a pile of papers to support my application for return. But I knew I just had to do it.
So, every night before I headed off to work, I would finish my preparations and take a stroll along this street and the quiet darkened store fronts of the main drag here in Capital Hill District of Oklahoma City (off camera to my right). It was always deserted, which was perfect, because I would walk slowly praying out loud, sometimes with my hands lifted. I kept it up for about three months while the paperwork made its way through the system. I called on the Lord to work a miracle on something that really had poor prospects when reviewed by several people who knew the process.
The focus, the devotion and making room for the burning desire to serve the Lord changed me by itself, never mind the results of the process.
Of course, my request was granted and I returned to uniform for several years. It was a major high point in my ministry life, as the assignment was a place that was, at that time, wide open for the work I knew I had to do. The right people were there and the situation was just perfect. Not everything was wonderful, but the power of the Spirit working in me was off the scale of everything I had experienced before that.
In the Old Testament, it was a called a breakthrough moment. What would you be willing to do for a breakthrough?
It’s interesting how scenery or environments can draw out these observations. You could note things in your past without that, but the visual helps, even more so if you were physically at the place, like you were. I’ve experienced that somewhat recently, going back to neighborhoods I grew up in or near.
Wow. Jesus spent so much time in prayer, alone, with His Father. Prayer is NEEDED, not just as a daily routine, but as a part of existence, a part of be-ing. I wish I were more in tuned like you were/are. I know, I could be, if I would spend more time in prayer. Pray for me that I do, okay?