This is the beginning of a series that encapsulates what I want this space to be about. Testimony. Truth. And faith.
To kick off this series, I am including a copy of Ann Voskamp's post. It is about women coming together to do something brave. Something courageous. Some might think it's cheesy. Some might laugh. But I pray that you would join in.
To be honest, as I read this post myself, I was skeptical. "Women across the globe praying at the same time? Don't they know there's this thing called a time-change?" and on and on it went. But as I continued to read, I knew it was exactly yet thing I need to be a part of. And the art about praying at the same time, it's actually a beautiful thing if you think about it...all day, at any hour of the day, women will be praying this prayer.
All the information is included below. I hope you will take a moment to read and consider joining us.
I will be praying at 5:03 every morning because of the time I have to be at school. I hope that you will find a time that works for you and that this will challenge you to become less fearful and more faithful & courageous.
This link will take you to Ann's page if you prefer to read it there.
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To kick off this series, I am including a copy of Ann Voskamp's post. It is about women coming together to do something brave. Something courageous. Some might think it's cheesy. Some might laugh. But I pray that you would join in.
To be honest, as I read this post myself, I was skeptical. "Women across the globe praying at the same time? Don't they know there's this thing called a time-change?" and on and on it went. But as I continued to read, I knew it was exactly yet thing I need to be a part of. And the art about praying at the same time, it's actually a beautiful thing if you think about it...all day, at any hour of the day, women will be praying this prayer.
All the information is included below. I hope you will take a moment to read and consider joining us.
I will be praying at 5:03 every morning because of the time I have to be at school. I hope that you will find a time that works for you and that this will challenge you to become less fearful and more faithful & courageous.
This link will take you to Ann's page if you prefer to read it there.
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Yeah, they can go ahead about this time of year and have their 2 for 1 winter specials right to take a cruise to some island —
Who get down on their knees and pray for God to take the land, heal the land, for God to rescue us from living lives of island isolation and make us this motley tribe of prayer warriors who will not stop at nothing less than deliverance, nothing less than freedom, nothing less than taking their one next step to take the healing Kingdom of Heaven further on earth?
Now that’s a trip you don’t want to ever quit.
Over 100,000 of us around the world took it, leaning in for the IF:Gatheringvia livestream, women from Stockholm to New Zealand to Illinois to Louisiana —
Women who are done with playing games and are brave enough to wrestle it out: If I really believe God is real, then.….
Once you have tasted conviction, you can’t bear to keep swallowing complacency.
Women who are done with struggling in their own strength and are starved for some supernatural help to take some supernatural steps. You can’t do God’s Work without God’s Power.
There are women who know that you can’t slay your fears without a Prayer Sword of Courage.
Nothing will change unless we change something.
Nothing will change unless we change something.
So a whole tribe of us kneeled and made a commitment to pray 1 Samuel 7:3 at 7:03 every morning — a prayer of repentance, a prayer of deliverance, a prayer of courage:
“IF — IF… IF you are truly serious about coming back to God, clean house. Get rid of the foreign gods… and ground yourselves firmly in God, worship Him and Him alone, and He’ll save you from… oppression.” 1 Samuel 7:3MSG
As Lent begins next week, this tsunami movement of prayer that’s begun around the world at 7:03 every day, #IFPray703, will grow to include many tools that we want to get into your hands that will have us praying for the healing of our land and all our broken hearts until 7:14 am, praying those words from 2 Chronicles 7:14:
“IF… IF…. If My people who are called by My name humble themselves and pray and seek My face and turn from their ways, then I will hear from heaven, will forgive their sin and will heal their land.”
Until there is Repentance — there will be no Difference, there will be no Deliverance, there will be no Resurgence.
Until there is Repentance — there will be no Difference, there will be no Deliverance, there will be no Resurgence.
Nothing will change unless we change something.
While we diligently work on fresh, powerful tools for you for next week: 2015: A Lent to Repent & Revive — There’s this Prayer Sword of Courage that you asked for straight from this weekend, to pray every day at 7:03 with thousands of women around the world, our closing prayer directly from the IF:Gathering.
Only fools face their giants empty-handed.
The courageous can face their giants because they’ve prayed for the help of a God who is far more dangerous.
It happened this weekend. And you can feel it happen:
When women kneel, walls are knocked down.
And what looks impossible?
What looks impossible changes because when we pray to a God who is ABLE, He changes us into the ImpossABLES.
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The Courageous Prayer: #IFPRAY703
GOD, we believe that faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see —
and we have assurance that You will make us strong and courageous to “lay down every dead thing we are still holding on to, to dismount from our dead horses,” (Christine Caine) to stop holding to the past so we can step into what You are holding out to us.
We may not be fearless but we will be strong and courageous and faithful because our faith in You is greater than the fears in us.
We lay down our comfort zones because they are death traps, and we will be strong and courageous because You literally save us, and that makes us safe and the safest place we could ever be is in Your hand — and because we are savedby You, we are always, always safe, — so we are now called to go live dangerous lives.
We lay down our safe, comfortable homogeneous ghettos, and in You will be strong and courageous to warrior for a diversity, for racial harmony, for Kingdom community, because our GOD is not American, but our God is African and Jamaican and Dominican and about Global Kingdom of God.
We will be strong and courageous because today there will be eyes on us, and they will need to see Christ in us and that we have answered Your calling for us because we have hung up on the lies from the pit of hell.
Make us hunger for lives of hidden service in the battle, not for public medals out of the battle. Make us daily pray for character greater than our calling and for a humility greater than our work.
Make us hunger for lives of hidden service in the battle, not for public medals out of the battle. Make us daily pray for character greater than our calling and for a humility greater than our work.
Make us strong and courageous to get down on our faces every morning at 7:03 and repent of our fears and our idols and our sins and our messes because there will be no regeneration in this generation until there is a repentance on our faces because we cannot win any battle with rebel hearts, so may a movement of repentance move us so You hear from heaven and heal our land, so the land is taken for you.
Make us strong and courageous to do the new thing, because You are not the God of I was but You are the God I am and You are doing a new thing and that thing is unfolding right now in us will unfold in thousand of places around the world as we walk out our doors today and into dangerous lives.
Make us strong and courageous in a “faith that doesn’t erase insecurity, doubt, suffering or fear, but literally, daily, overcomes them.” (Jen Hatmaker)
Make us strong and courageous in a “faith that is not a formula to get us cheap stuff that only looks like the good stuff, but gives us faith that IS wild and dangerous and IS itself the real best stuff.” (Jen Hatmaker)
We will be strong and courageous and we will not be afraid; we will not be discouraged, for You are the Lord our God & You will be with you us wherever we go, so we take the next step which may feel like a leap of faith but our best mode of transportation through anything is always a leap of faith
take the next step which may feel like a leap of faith but our best mode of transportation through anything is always a leap of faith
.
We will be strong and courageous because “Your hold on us is stronger than our hold on You” (Jo Saxton) and delivered people go deliver peopleand because we have met You, we will go live a different story today than yesterday.
Make us strong and courageous because the great people living great stories are simply the ones who believe GOD CAN.
The hopeful stare up the steps. The faithful step up the stairs.
We will never see the miracles of God until we take the next step up the mountain. Even the smallest of faith in a great God is the greatest equalizer, the greatest eraser, and the greatest definer.
Faith diets from stress and feasts on Grace. Simply: Faith refuses to stress.
Lord, nobody knows how hard we’re trying to be brave to show up when it’d be easier to give up, to go do hard & holy things when it’d be easier to go do happy things, to not quit when we don’t know how to keep going on.
And You lean close & breathe warm courage into our exhausted places “Just Call to Me. I guarantee I will answer you. I will make you strong & brave and courageous.” Jeremiah 33:3 MSG, Joshua 1
So we will be brave. And hold on to Your light to hold back the flood of dark.
We will be brave. Because our bravery wins a thousand battles we can’t see because our bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too.
our bravery wins a thousand battles we can’t see because our bravery strengthens a thousand others to win their battles too.
We will be strong and courageous and not pray for the hard to go away but we will pray for a Brave Faith Bigger than the hard to come.
Make us strong and courageous to do that one next step that seems impossible — because that’s who we are: The ImpossABLES.
Make us strong and courageous to do that one next step that seems impossible — because that’s who we are: The ImpossABLES.
We will be strong and courageous and brave, because there are angels are closer than we know.
And all the Brave & Courageous & the Never-Give-Uppers who cling to the Bravest One and Only One who ever loved us to death & saved us back to the realest & forever life,
We all believe angels are close now and He Himself will carry us out of here to take the land —
all of us, we all, said Amen.
How to Carry The Courageous Prayer With You
(The audio of the prayer is downloadable and we’ve included a tutorial on how to add it to your iTunes playlist so you can attach it to an alarm to play everyday on your phone. And we’ve also created a bookmark of The Courageous Prayer for your Bible. So no matter where you go, you’ve got a mobile prayer sword of COURAGE.)1. Download The Courageous Prayer (The little downward arrow underneath in top right corner of the recording, under ‘souncloud’)[soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/190291991″ params=”color=00aabb&auto_play=false&hide_related=false&show_comments=true&show_user=true&show_reposts=false” width=”100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]2. Move the downloaded audio file of The Courageous Take The Land Prayer to your iTunes following this 1 minute tutorial:3. Then simply set an alarm on your iPhone and then edit that alarm, setting that alarm’s ringtone from your iTunes “songs” selections on your iPhone to be the actual Courageous Prayer — so come 7:03 or 10:59, when that alarm goes off on your phone, it will start automatically playing the Courageous Prayer: IFPRAY7034. Download the printable bookmark by signing up for it right here (you will then find it in our library of free resources) — and then we can track with you & make sure we get into your hands all the free resources for 2015: Lent to Repent and Revive. Tuck The Courage Prayer bookmark in your Bible. Pray Courage every morning at 7:o3Subscribe/Sign-up here for immediate access to the whole library of free printables, framables & free tools!5. If you drop in your email above, not only we will make sure that you get The Courage Bookmark printable, but we’ll also be able to get all the free resources coming next week for 2015: Lent to Repent and Revive — so God can heal our hearts, heal our families, heal our lands.
Photo credits: Julie Cannon, Melissa Emma, Hannahmaysonpark, Mandyliptak, Jolene Underwood, Sara Garza, Erin Lockhart , IFgrSE, Abigail Eernisse, Sarah Connatser, Katie Mumper, Jackie Sill, Kelly Portnoy
