Labor in Prayer

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Dimas Salaberrios, Ministry Associate with Christian Union, is a dynamic teacher, speaker, and pastor. His bestselling memoir, Street God, was released in September 2015. Dimas holds a Master of Divinity degree from Alliance Theological Seminary and resides in the Bronx with his wife Tiffany and three daughters.

Transcript
A friend of mine had the opportunity to visit Billy Graham near the end of his life. And he asked Billy Graham, he said, "Listen, I'm an inspiring evangelist. I'm honored to meet you. What is the thing that you think I should focus on? Is there anything you can tell me?" And he said, Billy Graham grabbed his arm, looked him in the eye and said, 'Pray, pray, pray.'"

And when you think of that, that just blew me away, and it blew him away. He didn't tell him strategy or build a team, but he told him to seek the face of God. And one of the things that I love about the Bible is there's so many great examples. Particularly one that I like is Daniel, in Daniel chapter 10:12. Daniel describes in that chapter that he took his petition before the Lord, and he said in 10:12 12 that the angel showed up and gave him an answer. But it was 21 days later. And when this angel showed up, the angel said, "We heard your prayer from the very beginning, but I had to battle a principality by the name of the Prince of Persia in order to come here and share this message." And he said, "Now I have to go back and fight another principality—who Michael's fighting—so I could deliver this message."

I mean, this is some cosmic power battle that's going on when we enter into a prayer that's centered in the will of God. And Daniel was crying out to God, but God's message came to him 21 days later. What I love is—what the text doesn't show us—I believe Daniel was not faint at heart. It may have been day 30 and Daniel would have kept praying. It may have been day 40 and Daniel would have kept praying.

I love the way John Calvin says it. He says, "Prayers dig up the treasures." The things that we need are dug up when we pray and when we cry out to God and when we seek His face." So I want to encourage you in this time of seeking God day and night: go hard after God. Hold on to those prayers. Pray them over and over again. Take your faith and put it into action. That you're not going to stop praying until God starts to move these things.

Or God is gracious and strong enough that He knows how to intervene and tell us "Stop praying about it." There are things that God has done very similar like that in my life, while I was praying for something and it's like just the desire to pray about it anymore was gone. It had stopped. It had ceased. God moved on to the next thing and my life was the better for it as well. So I want to encourage you, go after God. Seek Him with all your heart. Seek Him with all your mind. Seek Him with all your soul. God bless you.