Spiritual Defiance

I read this quote on a friend,s Facebook page recently,

"Prayer is an act of spiritual defiance of what is, in response to what God has promised. The shape of the future will be determined by those who can survey all its possibilities and by faith grasp one as possible. History belongs to the intercessors, those who believe the future into being. " Walter Wink

Operating in the gift of intercessory prayer I found this quote powerful and enlightening and wanted to use it so I went on a bunny trail last night to find the author. The bunny trail led me to a blog that had several videos posted including this one by Sunder Krishnan called Pray Big and Pray Bold. http://vimeo.com/8467883

I wanted to take this statement apart and look at all of the ideas that the author has expressed. I needed to do this for my own sake knowing my prayer life has suffered tremendously this past year. I knew God wanted to open my understanding the minute I read this short paragraph because it was pregnant with spiritual truths God needed to remind me of! I had been stomach punched so often by the enemy over the past two years I am just now getting my equilibrium back.I don't want to feel like a prisioner ever again to defeated mindset.

"Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars." Frederick Langbridge

"I became acquainted with those martyrs whose behavior in camp, whose suffering and death, bore witness to the fact that the last inner freedom cannot be lost."Viktor E. Frankl

"Prayer is an act of spiritual defiance, " There is a rebelliousness in the human flesh that we are born with. As a kid I was the " I may be sittinging on the outside, but I'm standing on the inside" type of rebel. I was rebellious at heart but not confident in my convictions. Sort of a rebel without a cause until God really got ahold of me.

But Mr. Wink goes on to say that "Prayer is an act of spiritual defiance "in response to what God has promised." How do I know, how do you know what God has promised? In a word the answer to that question is the Bible. "God's word is God's will." There are times God has spoken to me mightily and personally from his word, there are times He has whispered something directly to my spirit but NEVER has he contradicted his word. God's promise are sure. God cannot lie, there is no darkness in Him at all. Scripture tells us Satan is the author of ALL lies, he has always been a liar and will always be a liar. Anything God tell us through His word is...yes and amen! We can go to our grave knowing God will NEVER leave us or forsake us. We can move forward in the promises of God with full confidence that what He started in us He will complete.We cannot allow the enemy to discourage us or cast a shadow on the character of God!

"The shape of the future will be determined by those who can survey the all its possibilities." Proverbs tells us that "where there is no vision, the people perish." God's people and intercessors in particular have to be people of vision. IF we set our focus on the things of earth and not the things of heaven we will at one point or another succumb to a depressed mind set! We loose our vision.

You cannot tailor make the situations in life, but you can tailor make the attitudes to fit those situations before they arise. Zig Ziglar

We cannot make the mistake of thinking of God like a super human. God is God and cannot be locked into a box. Don't make the mistake of believing that God will work within our limited expectations! Ask God to give you renewed vision. Ask Him to open your understanding to see beyond the walls of what you can see with your eyes! "and by FAITH grasp one as possible."

As God gives you vision hold on to it! I cannot tell you the number of promises, personal promises God has given me for the future. None of them line up with the circumstances of the present but I have grasped the vision and it sustains me through the tough stuff of life!

"History belongs to the intercessors, those who believe the future into being." I DO believe prayer makes all the difference. I believe the enemy's sole purpose in discouraging us is to cause us to release our hold on the vision God has given us and to make us despondent enough to quit praying. If he cannot keep us from salvation he wants to make us ineffectual as a role as Spiritually defiant men and women that storm the gates of hell and take back the things the Strongman has stolen from us.

Ask God for vision, BIG VISION. Ask Him to open up your understanding to ALL He has purposed for your life! Ask Him to give you the vision to see beyond the circumstances of life and show you how to see the spiritual amidst the physical, the divine amidst the mundane. Defy what is- and pray beyond what you can see with your human eyes! See the future through God's eyes! History is in the hands of the intercessors!

Blessings,