Friday, January 17, 2014
Day 18
Keep Circling
"On the seventh day,
march around the city seven times."
Joshua 6:4
Here are 4 key statements/thoughts that I took from today's challenge:
- Prayer is the difference between us fighting for God and God fighting for us.
- If your cause is ordained by God, the battle belongs to the Lord. It's his victory to win, not yours.
- You've got to praise God if the answer is yes and trust Him if the answer is no. If the answer is not yet, you've got to keep circling. It is always to too soon to give up!
- If the Israelites had stopped circling Jericho, they would have forfeited their first victory in the Promised Land. But there was much more at stake than that. They would have forfeited the Promised Land altogether. But they didn't stop. They kept circling. And if you keep circling, the walls will come down. If you pray through, the breakdown is inevitable. Go ahead. Keep Circling.
This is a picture of the team that went to Zambia in 2013. The young man in the wheel chair is Kennedy Phiri. He started the Ndola Youth Soccer Academy and we had the privilege to see Kennedy and NYSA in action. Kennedy has one of the most amazing testimonies and I just keep thinking about how he is "circling" his community in Ndola. Here are 2 recent emails from Kennedy.
"Things are well though a few challenges here & there. NYSA was formed 10 years ago. This was a few years after my acquired disability on 25th December,2000. Over the years, we have depended on well-wishers for the Academy's sustainance. At the moment we don't have Official sponsors. By the grace of God, we'v grown & we now have four Teams. The Teams are in ages of 10, 14, 17 & 20. Running a Sports Academy with limited resources is not that easy,more so , for us who are using Sport as a vehicle for Evangelism & Social change. Some of the needs for the Academy include: Bibles, Balls, Uniforms, Cones & Discs, Shoes/Boots, Goal Nets. The needs for me & the Coaches include: Training Kit & transport. The major one of all is the issue of Transport. Owing to this,sometimes we even fail to fulfill fixtures. We also look forward to a day when we will start appreciating the Coaches who are volunteering with us with monetary incentives. I strongly believe with this Patnership, we will be better placed to take the Gospel of Christ to the ends of the earth. Keep praying for me & the Working Team here. God bless you & the Working Team that side!!!
What would it look like if we were to "circle" Kennedy and his NYSA ministry?
We are all in perfect & sound health here. Must confess that our good Lord has been gracious enough to me, my ministry & the rest of the team. It has been one of those challenging years but Jehovah once again saw us through. May I testify to the Glory of God that some prayer items I shared to you have been answered; the Local Authorities have granted me land. a 20m by 30m for my house & a 40m by 70m for 'THE KENNEDY PHIRI FOUNDATION.' Another 3 hecters for NYSA is yet to be handed over. I need to construct a chicken-run so I can start a chicken-raring project with the procedes being used to build my house & also support the Academy & the 'needy' school going children. Please keep standing with us in prayer & also feel free to share what God is doing here to individuals & organisations that share the same passion with us. The greatest challenge for me is SHELTER & the OVC's who are out of school. Keep standing with us."
"None of my dreams have happened quickly or easily. There was nothing glamorous or glorious about the early days of our church plant adventure. There were certainly moments when I felt like quitting, when I was tempted to think all of our efforts wouldn't make much difference. After all, our average attendance was 25 people-and those 25 could have found a much better church to attend. But I was thinking in present-tense terms. When you quit circling, you don't just compromise the present. Every promise, every miracle, every blessing in your future is forfeited. If I had called it quits, I would have bailed not only on the 25 people I was pastoring at the time; I would have bailed on the thousands we're influencing now and the tens of thousands we'll influence in the future!
If the Israelites had stopped circling Jericho, they would have forfeited their first victory in the Promised Land. But there was much more at stake than that. They would have forfeited the Promised Land altogether. But they didn't stop. They kept circling. And if you keep circling, the walls will come down. If you pray through, the breakthrough is inevitable."
Mark Batterson-Draw the Circle
