The Madness of Hope

Prayer and Planning

In a previous post I mentioned how God had laid on my heart a vision for ministering to the women of Africa, and how that had materialized into a conference on “Training Women for Effective Ministry” to be held in Zimbabwe.

Through a childhood friend in Johannesburg. and Emilene, a blogger in Cape Town, I was invited to come speak to the women in South Africa as well. I introduced Emilene to Tracy who writes at My Daily Walk in His Grace. They met and are now planning together for the event in Cape Town.

I am so humbled that God has opened these doors and entrusted me with such an awesome opportunity.

I began to pray immediately for God to lay on my heart women from my church to take with me. We now are a team of seven and you will hear more of them in the coming months as we prepare for October.

In the meantime, as all are pressing for concrete plans, God has been telling me to just pray. This is hard for me as I am a planner but He says, “You have seven months. Give me one!”

A.J. Gordon said, “You can do more than pray after you have prayed. But you can never do more than pray until you have prayed.”

I have been praying for opportunities to minister to the women of Africa for one and a half years and the plans are just now materializing. God worked in me as He humbled me, stretched me, grew me, and more who He wanted. There were times I was anxious and impatient but I can see now how He was at busy all during that time. He also worked through my blog (where one invitation came from). In fact, when I began thinking about this ministry, I didn’t even have a blog!

So, I can put aside the planning and pray for a bit longer. This time I am praying for specifics regarding the South African events. While there is pressure to have it planned now, I will remain true to God’s prompting to pray a little more.

I will rest on His promise that if I seek Him first, then He will lead the way. (Matt. 6:33)

This is what God has laid on my heart today. On Your Heart Tuesday link is open. I would love you to link your post and take a moment to read at least one other post as we share our hearts and encourage one another.