Mobile Prayer Station: DAY 39

The only thing that motivated to be out on the street today was the fact that the only way that I could finish 40 days with the Mobile Prayer Station was to be out today. You see, I am preparing to leave in a few days to spend one year overseas. So today and tomorrow are the only real days left before I travel overseas. But, even so, the Lord is so gracious and though it was a battle to even be out today, the Lord drew near to me as I cried out for His presence and grace. 

What profoundly stood out today was the sense of loneliness in people. As they walked by, the Holy Spirit let me feel their loneliness and then moved me to ask the Lord to draw near to them. I believe one of life's true horrors is the feeling of loneliness because we were created by God for relationship. This is why hopeless gains such a quick foothold in a person's heart and life when loneliness grips them. We were created out of love, for love, to be loved and to give love. One of my favorite bible verses is 1 John 4:16: "And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them" (NIV). Really spend a minute to take this verse in. So amazing!

So even though I wanted to go home immediately after I got on the corner, God released grace to me and brought people for me to prayer with. First Jose and Crystal came by on their way to a youth night their church was throwing. I've gotten to talk and pray with Jose on a few occasions so it was nice to see him and pray with him again. But then God gave me a prophetic picture for his cousin Crystal which I shared with her and then prayed into. God has really brought these two through such tremendous trials which only speaks of such favor and incredible destinies on both their lives. God is so good! Next, I got to speak with a woman walking her dog who stopped to ask about dream interpretation (if you're interested on reading about my biblical grounding for dream interpretation read here). She couldn't remember any dreams and was a bit hesitant in receiving formal prayer from me, so I just spoke a blessing prayer over her as we talked. She was appreciative. Yes, I will sneak in a prayer even in conversation. 

One of the highlights of my day was praying for a dad Sergio and his stepdaughter Elisia. He kept his request general and asked for resolution to some issues happening within the family. The Holy Spirit guided my prayers and I respectfully touched on a few prayer points while still honoring the family. Next, I prayed for Elisia that God would bless her creativity and give her the courage to walk into her God given gifts and talents. It's funny, one of the first things Sergio said to me was that they were having a pretty weird day and well why not keep it going by asking me for some prayer. I love it! Rather than getting offended I just ran with the God given opportunity to pray for peace, healing, kindness and grace for this hurting family. Thank You Jesus for Your compassion, love and humility. Only by Your grace Lord!

Lastly, I got to talk and pray with Seneca, who came up to me and said that God had given him a vision sometime in the past of me and my prayer sign and told him he was to have me pray for him. Wow! Are you kidding me? So we held hands and prayed. Right when I started praying Seneca started praying in tongues. I prayed for many things for him from healing to deliverance to revelation. I won't go into too much detail, but I will say this, after Seneca left I literally heard the Lord say to my spirit that one of my prayers was the one He's been waiting for someone to pray. God is so amazing! Here I am not even wanting to be out praying with people and God releases such grace and revelation to me. Talk about a Divine appointment. Before Seneca left, he did pray for and bless me which was a bonus! I love God's amazing grace! 

Mobile Prayer Station: DAY 36

As you can see, my friend Nobuki visited the Mobile Prayer Station for the first hour today. While he was there, an old college friend of his just so happened to be in the area. Coincidence? I think not. From what I gathered, this friend hasn't met the new creation Nobuki, but only knew the old Nobuki who did drugs and partied. So, Nobuki had a chance to share about his new life in Jesus with this friend. Very cool! The timing couldn't have been better because Nobuki is currently on a "short-term" mission trip back to his old art school to visit friends and to share about his new life in Jesus. Prophetically speaking, I believe that this divinely appointed meeting was like a foretaste of what was to happen on this coming trip. 

Throughout the rest of the day, I talked and prayed with Cindy, who is becoming a friend; Matt, a Greenpeace volunteer who also gave me some encouragement; Cassandra, a social worker spending the summer in Chicago; as well as a dad and three kids. Each was a special moment because what I'm beginning to really understand is God's deep desire to be near His children (both lost and found). The more that I talk and pray with people while on the street, the more I'm impacted with the reality that God has such plans and purposes for each of His children. But, the sad reality is that sin and the evils of this world weigh people down from actually going after their destinies. In some instances they are completely blinded from actually even seeing God's destiny for their lives because satan, the god of this world has truly blinded their eyes from seeing their amazing destiny in Christ (2 Corinthians 4:4). So, if there's one thing that I love to do, it's to pray that God would set people free, open their eyes and reveal their God destiny to them. 

God has a wonderful plan for everyone's life. He has a wonderful plan for your life. There's a Scripture verse that has eternally impacted me: "'For I know the plans I have for you,' declares the LORD, 'plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart. I will be found by you,' declares the LORD" (Jeremiah 29:11-14a NIV). God has an amazing destiny for your life. I know that at times it may be hard to believe. But, it's in the rough patches of life that we need to all the more remind ourselves of this Truth: that "God has an amazing plan and destiny for my life." So, this is my prayer: that the Holy Spirit would ignite these words of truth in the very core of your being and release faith into your heart to believe and receive these words of grace, hope, truth and love. In Jesus Name, Amen.

Mobile Prayer Station: DAY 6

So, this is where I stood today, just outside the fencing around Wicker Park. It was a very overcast day. The forecast was for rain but not until later in the afternoon, so I setup around 1:00pm. It's interesting, right when I woke up this morning, I heard the Holy Spirit tell me that I needed to be out on the street today. So, after my morning meeting, I drove towards Wicker Park. I typically take the 'L' train but today I had access to a car so I drove. 

To be honest, I was hesitant in going, but there was this urgency that rose up inside of me and compelled me to drive to the park. Even after finding free parking less than half a block away (which was amazing) I sat in the car just waiting. I kept looking at the overcast sky and telling myself it's gonna rain, I should just go home. I did this for around 15 minutes, but after checking like two different weather sites on my iPhone and watching the sky in the distance. I grabbed the sign and headed towards the park. The thought came to my mind, even if I'm out here for only an hour, it's still worth it.

Not five minutes after I set up a guy comes up to me and asks, "So, how's this prayer thing work?" After some introductions, I told Ryle that "I'm out here offering prayer for people, can I pray for you?" He said "Yes" and started to walk away, but I stopped him and said "Can I pray for you now?" Again, he said "Yes." I could tell that he was kind of new to this whole prayer thing, but God's grace covered us and disarmed the awkwardness. So, I told him I could pray a blessing over him or for financial breakthrough and he said, "No, just a blessing would be good." So, I ended up praying for God to bless him and to give him favor and for God to reveal to Ryle His heart of goodness, love and delight towards him. When I was done, he said, "Thanks" and then headed off, coffee in hand.

Even though I was slow in getting going, having such good reception right from the start helped settle my heart and get me in the game, so to speak. I didn't do any Bible reading today, but rather just smiled and said hi to people walking by. Surprisingly, there were quite a few people out and everyone was pretty open and friendly. I think it was close to half past 2:00pm when Joshua came walking up and started asking me questions like, "So, what kind of prayer are you offering?" and "Who are you praying to?" I told him flat out that I am praying to God through Jesus Christ. His face lit up and he gave a double fist bump and said, "Alright, just making sure we're on the same page." He asked we where I attended church and said he attends Bill Winston's church Living Word Christian Center in Forest Park, IL. 

Now Joshua has a very interesting story, he feels called to be among the homeless. I didn't quite get all the details, but from what I gathered, he has spent the last 30 nights on the streets with the homeless. He feels called to be a light to them and help them in whatever way he can. Man, let me tell you God showed up and we had such an anointed conversation. Jesus was definitely in our midst. Personally, when he was talking, wisdom, discernment and prophetic insights were coming to me clear as day. So amazing. We talked for about a half hour and then I prayed for him. Have you ever had one of those moments where the clarity and direction of prayer was so evident? Well that's how the prayer time went. After I prayed, he prayed for me and everything he prayed for was exactly what the Holy Spirit was impressing on my heart in the past hour. Very cool.

Then it started raining and we said our good-byes and I packed up to go. But, before Joshua left he came over to me and literally poked me and said, "I just wanted to make sure you were real and not an angel because everything you said to me and prayed for me was exactly what I needed to hear from God." Now, I knew why the Holy Spirit told me right when I woke up this morning that I needed to be out on the street today. It was for Joshua. I gave him one of my personal 420 Prayer Movement cards hoping to further reinforce to him that I wasn't an angel, but a man just like him. I'm so glad that I got to meet Joshua today and I have a feeling (no, I know) that Jesus is going to great Kingdom things through Joshua because he has such a tender heart towards our Lord.