It is going to happen!

One of the high school football teams that I played on was simply atrocious. The name of our school was New Hope High School and the opposing teams would chant, “No hope for New Hope”. We resented that, but the truth is that they were right; we stunk! I watched a movie the other night about a similar team. It is called “Facing the Giants”. It is an excellent movie and I highly recommend that you watch it if you have not already done so.

The theme of the movie was about a football team that was just terrible and had been terrible for several years. Their coach was about to be fired and had numerous other personal problems. Finally he sought God, or maybe God sought him.

Someone told him that when he prayed he should do so as though his prayer was GOING to be answered. They used an analogy of a farmer who prayed for rain during a drought and then fully expecting it to happen he went ahead and prepared his fields in full anticipation of the rain coming down right on schedule. It did.

The coach took the talk to heart and his mantra became that they would praise God when they win and praise God when they lose, and with God’s help they would give it their utmost to the team member. The team bought into it and they started preparing as though their pitiful winless team could and would do the impossible and actually win the state championship.

They knew that the only way it could happen was provided that every single one of them would give it their absolute best. In spite of all odds that is exactly what they did. The real miracle was in teaching all of those young men to see how they can tap into the amazing strength of God through prayer and more importantly faith.

God will answer prayer, but He wants us to believe in Him and in prayer. The other thing is that every single member of the team had to give it literally all they had. They were smaller. Their school was also very small and they did not have near as many players as opposing teams. What they had was a heart as big as Texas and a God bigger than imagination. What more could one ask for?

It is when this coach and this team gave up on themselves and bought into their God that they turned things around and won. Come to think of it, that is exactly how I turned my life around.

Our church recently bought a magnificent beautiful piece of property. We have a tiny church with not many members and yet we paid off the $1.3 million dollars for the 8 acres of property in record time. We are now in the midst of a battle in trying to get permits to build our church on it.

In the ecologically sensitive area of the Florida Keys that is not easy. Every tree hugger pauses from their dinner of wild berries, assorted leaves, nuts and coconut juice and comes down out of their tree hut to oppose any clearing of even one bush anywhere in the Keys, even if it is for a church, and it takes a miracle to get a permit to build anything in the Keys. Simultaneously we are trying to raise several million dollars to build the church. (Have you heard the economy is bad?)

Oh my goodness how can we possibly raise even more money to pay for building the church and fight our way through the permitting process?

I recently had a discussion with someone from church about our plight and he was rather overwhelmed with the enormity of the task. He was frustrated from fighting with the taxpayer paid obstructionists who issue permits, (our government’s finest), and he wondered aloud if our tiny church is up to the fight. Hmmm do you suppose that satan liked the sound of that question?

It is my belief that God wants His church built “now”, right smack dab in the middle of this troubled economy, and Florida Keys hammock and that we should pray for His divine assistance clearing these last remaining obstacles just like He assisted us in clearing the obstacle of the near impossible task of even finding a piece of property in the Keys that was large enough to build a church of the size that we need and still provide room for the parking and to pay for it in record time.

Next we need to act as though God has already answered that prayer and start preparing for building it. If the entire church will come together like the “Facing the Giants” football team, then we will breeze through these remaining obstacles like skis cutting through freshly powdered snow.

I am happy to see our building committee acting as though God has already given us the permits and the funding that we need. Currently they are looking at plans and getting an architect to fine tune our new church drawings to our specific needs. We cannot build without plans; amen?

I am convinced that we are within God’s will with this prayer request, and I am equally convinced that God will provide the resources that we need to prevail. No doubt he wants us, (all of us), to do our part and provide the blood, sweat, and tears to make it happen, but it is going to happen, just you wait and see.

And when it does we will give Him all of the praise and glory, just like in the movie,”Facing the Giants”. We are weak but He is strong and He is made even stronger through our weakness. We need to trust and obey, and know in our heart of hearts that we cannot fail because God is going to bless us in a mighty way.

If it is not to be, then we will give God all of the praise and know that He has a bigger even more wonderful plan in store for us. Either way we will give Him all of our praise.

If you have needs today, you too can take advantage of God’s limitless resources. Pray that what you are asking of Him is within His will for your life and trust in Him to deliver at a time of His choosing. You serve a mighty God and you just gotta believe with all of your fiber that He loves you with all of His heart and is going to give you your miracle. In fact go ahead and count on it. Put it in the books and start the celebrating!

Have a GR-R-R-R-r-r-r-r-reat day today!

Romans 8:31
What then shall we say to these
things? If God is for us, who can
be against us?