“Lord, Do Things We’re Not Used To”

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I made it to my motel late last night after spending all day flying from Spokane to Salt Lake City to Atlanta and then to Lynchburg where Benny Mathews met me at the airport. Benny is the Executive Director of Alpha Ministries, the sponsoring organization for the AWE conference that runs Sunday-Wednesday at Temple Baptist Church in nearby Madison Heights. Yesterday Ben Manis shared his vision for reaching the lost, and Dr. Harold Wilmington from Liberty University spoke about the need to be bold in our gospel proclamation. I’m preaching tonight and again on Wednesday night. Damaris Carbaugh will minister her beautiful music on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. We’ve known Damaris and her husband Rod since we first met them at Mt. Hermon a few years. And their schedule and mine seems to overlap at least once every year or so.

When I asked Benny what he was praying about for this conference, he said, “I’m asking God to awaken a new passion in every heart, including my own.” That struck me as a fine way to pray. It’s always easy for us to say, “Lord, wake up those other people,” and forget about our own need. So that’s how I’m praying, “Lord, speak to me. Open the eyes of my heart.” And I remembered the prayer I learned from Robert Odom, “Lord, help me to preach the sermon I need to hear."

So that’s where I will begin tonight—with that “dangerous prayer” that more or less got me started on this road almost four years ago, “Lord, do things we’re not used to.” I have found in many different ways that God always answers that prayer if we are brave enough to pray it.

Would you join me in asking God to awaken new passion in your own heart this week? And pray that here in Lynchburg, and wherever you happen to be, that God will do things we’re not used to.