Learning in Leadership

What God taught me through unanswered prayer

Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (1 Peter 5:6-7). During university, I became friends with a man named Louis. He was an inventor and one of my heroes of faith. He was an incredible inspiration to me and others. After receiving a dream from God, he built a frequencer that helps reduce the phlegm build-up that occurs in the lungs of people with cystic fibrosis.

Louis also had cystic fibrosis. He had a lung transplant, but those lungs began to decay and be rejected by his body. He was in line to receive a second transplant, but it’s very rare for people with cystic fibrosis to live long enough to see a second surgery.

I prayed, his friends prayed, his wife and family prayed. We all prayed. We asked God to heal Louis, but he wasn’t healed. After his death, I asked myself, “How could this be?” If, even through his suffering, this man invented something to alleviate the suffering of others, what better candidate was there for a miracle?

But God did not heal him on earth. The heartache and pain in his immediate community was great. This led me to many discussions with God. Oh, I was not happy. “Are you not the God who heals? Are you not the God who restores? Are you not the God who gives destiny?”

Finally, when I stopped talking and started listening, God spoke through His Word. God’s reply was:

“Do I not know this day from the next?” (Psalms 139:16).

“Do I not know all the names of the stars?” (Psalms 147:4).

“Did I not know you before you were formed in your mother’s womb?” (Jeremiah 1:5).

“Do I cause it to rain in one place and not in another?” (Amos 4:7).

“Is there anything that’s hidden from me?” (Hebrews 4:13).

“Is there anything that is impossible for me?” (Luke 1:37). “I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us” (Romans 8:18) – or basically, “Wait until you see the masterpiece I am revealing through your present suffering.” Then, like a skateboard to the shins, it hit me. I was in direct conversation with Yahweh and He was speaking to me. I had a hotline with the maker and knower of all things. He challenged me. Was I wanting my plan to come to fruition or the will of God to be accomplished? Jesus asked God the same question in the Garden of Gethsemane, even though He already knew the answer. I think of His prayer like this: “God, please take this suffering away from me. But if this suffering is a part of the masterpiece, then make me a part of the masterpiece.”

God shifted my perspective to His response. In my request, I asked for Louis to be healed, that he would miraculously have brand new lungs, and that there would be no more suffering. At the end of Louis’s race he heard the upward call of Christ and is now standing in the presence of perfection as a perfect and complete human. My prayer request was answered. Oswald Chambers said, “If through a broken heart God can bring His purposes to pass in the world, then thank Him for breaking your heart.” The result of my prayer was this: although the situation around me never changed, I became unrecognizable to myself and those around me. I see hope when others see the end. I see light when darkness surrounds. I see threads in the hands of the grand weaver. Prayer penetrated my heart and revealed God’s purpose by positioning me with the correct perspective. When we pray, we are in distant yet free connection with Yahweh. We are aware of the source of all things. He cares for us and His ultimate will is for us is to be with Him in perfection.

I see light when darkness surrounds. I see threads in the hands of the grand weaver.

Prayer is free, but it’s anything but passive. I argue it’s the deadliest weapon we’ll ever receive. It terrifies demons and destroys the darkest powers of the universe. Amazing.

Breathtaking.

But I have trouble getting there some days. In fact, my battlefield is ridden with false leaps of faith that burned out after the second or third storm ripped through.

Just shy of my nineteenth birthday my doctor told me I’d probably never have children. A few years later I found out I’d probably never work outside the home again.

The enemy comes to steal, kill, and destroy. I know this, and yet I’m still shocked when the accusations hit heavy all day. I know they are probably lies, but they cut anyway: “You’re pathetic. It’s all in your head. Life isn’t that hard, you’re just weak.”

So, here I am in the present with no children. My career is over, and I hardly leave the home for anything other than medical appointments. The fight against shame, fear, and doubt is never-ending. Exhaustion hangs like a heavy fog, with colours of stress and disappointment. Why won’t you help me, Jesus? I hear Him whisper back, “Why won’t you use the weapons I died to give you?”

I cry out, “I can’t do anything unless You heal me!”

But what if my healing isn’t meant for this lifetime? When I first considered God had a bigger plan that didn’t include winning the war against chronic pain, I cried and cried. Why wouldn’t the God who “works all things for the good of those who love Him” (Romans 8:28) use His power to heal me? But these questions came from my human understanding. I can only see part of the picture for now.

“Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely” (1 Corinthians 13:12).

I’ve realized I have to set aside space to know my Creator intimately, rather than just expecting answers to prayer. I don’t have all my answers yet, but as I learn more of His truth, I’m beginning to understand His ways.

“For God knew his people in advance, and he chose them to become like his Son, so that his Son would be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. And having chosen them, he called them to come to him. And having called them, he gave them right standing with himself. And having given them right standing, he gave them his glory” (Romans 8:29 Through prayer and reading my Bible this is what I’m learning about my Creator and His gifts:

Hope is the wellspring of life that flies like a flaming arrow, shattering the darkness! God can heal all brokenness, and He will. In His time.

Grace flows like a refreshing brook, watering my parched soul. He’s not finished with me yet.

God is so good. His ways are far above anything I’ll ever understand. And I trust His goodness.

His joy is like a thundering waterfall, soaking His kingdom!

These are our weapons of intimacy that bring us into His presence anytime we come to Him in prayer. It’s time I learn to search for these treasures first instead of wasting hours, days, and years looking for fulfillment in this world.

We aren’t in this battle alone. Sometimes we don’t realize how strong we can be through Him until everything else is taken away from us. “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light” (1 Peter 2:9).

Why won’t you use the weapons I died to give you

B“ ut he answered them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ … Taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to his disciples to set before the people; and he divided the two fish among them all” (Mark 6:35-44).

Entering into prayer, in my mind’s eye I watch the beauty of earnest people helping each other during this pandemic. I see their compassion. Their attitude to sacrificially love their neighbours originated from Jesus Christ. A couple of years ago, I heard Os Guinness describe our generation’s prevailing value system as “cut flowers.” We enjoy the pillars of JudeoChristian values, but we have cut off their roots by denying God is the source. Without the source, the values will weaken and die, as cut flowers do. He talks more about this in his book Impossible People (Intervarsity, 2016).

The people who trust in these values to save them will find them lacking in the end—indeed, these people don’t even think they need saving. I held this humanistic worldview myself until my late twenties, and it is still the belief system of my dearest friends.

As I pray, tears come, and I’m earnest for blind eyes to see.

I become aware that God wants to renew me by stirring up two things: my earnest concern for them and my faith in Him.

I’m reminded of the miraculous feeding of the five thousand. Before He did the miracle, Jesus changed the posture of the disciples by telling them to feed the crowd. First, He got them thinking about doing it themselves (even if they didn’t have a solution, they had to take some ownership of the problem), then He did the miracle. The disciples had five loaves, two fish—and Jesus—to feed the crowd.

Today, the crowds trusting in cut flowers need a miracle of the Holy Spirit. They aren’t asking for the miracle.

But as we are renewed, we are asking, with earnest concern and with faith. We Christ-followers in this generation must ask. This will bring glory to our Father (John 15:8).

Without the source , values Weaken and die , as cut Flowers do.

When I was a teenager, I went to big house parties and pit parties. Pit parties were held in unused gravel pits where we could light huge fires at night without getting caught.

Amid all the chaos of these parties, there were several occasions where an overwhelming feeling came over my body that I had to leave. I would grab a friend and get out of there, certain something was going to happen. When I got that feeling, something usually did go wrong: someone would get hurt, the cops would come, or people would get charged or fined. I know now it was the Holy Spirit protecting me.

Years went by. My life took a dark road, without anything life-giving. I made a lot of bad choices. I was a drug dealer, a scammer, and a player. I even had guns pulled on me by someone wanting me out of the way.

Then, I met this amazing Christian girl in high school. She prayed for me all the time and introduced me to her family who prayed for me also. We ended up getting married. Nine years later— through the prayers of my wife, her family, and their church—I accepted Christ into my heart. I asked the Holy

Spirit what this new life in Christ and being reborn was all about.

One night, I was on my knees in my wood workshop. I was in despair because I wanted to get baptized but I was covered in all these dark tattoos, even ones depicting the devil. Then BANG Jesus was standing in front of me. He said very firmly, “Are you coming with me, or not?” I was floored and started to cry. “Yes, I am coming. I owe you my life, Lord.”

I remember His robe was like a light. It was so bright that all you could see was the Holy Spirit shining, gleaming like how snow sparkles when it changes colour. His beard glistening (with olive oil?). He had a smile of hope and a twinkle in his eye because He knew the fear of His Father.

God can save lives, especially the ones who call out to Him. Sometimes it takes devastation, fear, anger, and loss of life. This story is about the power of prayer and the power and strength of the Holy Spirit. It is a small clip of my life in prayer and listening to the call Jesus put on my life.

I am now in youth ministry, prison ministry, and mission work. I pray constantly to the Holy Spirit for everything. God is there wherever we go. Prayer is our conversation time with God, and it is best spent alone. Colossians 4:2 says, “Devote yourself to prayer with an alert mind and a thankful heart.” I pray each of you reading this will call on God.

“Are you coming with me, or not?”