DAY 11 - PERSEVERANCE PRODUCES HOPE

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Day 11 - begins at sundown Thursday

Good things come to those who wait...upon the Lord.

Thursday night is usually the night that we gather to pray together as a group and I missed that chance to see my brothers tonight. It was the finale to the VBS  outreach this week at Covenant Family. 
Brothers and sisters, we are one-fourth of the way, traveling on this journey of 40 days of repentance and returning. On the 30th day, we take our trek to the headwaters of the Blue Earth River and there participate with the Holy Spirit in a prophetic declaration of  Peace and Hope to a region that is troubled and has suffered tribulation. I have been told that one of the strongholds of this region is hopelessness, followed by despair.

But the Scripture says...
They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength
they shall mount with wings like eagles
they shall run and not grow weary,
they shall walk and not faint.
Isaiah 40:31

The following story is not one of despair but of how quickly we can move out of peace.

We shot video footage of the Thursday night prayer group in action last week. We shot interviews with three members of the group in order to put together a couple pieces to share with the congregation.

I had hoped to show the first interview this Sunday at our home congregation.  We want to see intercessors raised up in the local gathering and across the city.   In order to unveil intercessory prayer to our congregation, show them who we are and what we have been doing over the last five years. To introduce what we are involved in during these present 40 days. 

My son and I both are experienced in video production and post-production, but these last three days we have encountered numerous technical difficulties. We had two different professional editing systems fail after they began to process the video clips they decided to freeze up and then quit altogether; one system lost a critical file in an obscure folder overnight with the computer turned off....the The program wouldn't start without finding that folder. Can anyone say warfare? We wrestle not against flesh and blood. 

Last night we spent three hours and got the music track laid and one successful edit saved, it was only five seconds in length! 
This afternoon we began again where we left off, after four hours we had nothing, not even a single edit. Just 6 days ago we used this same exact set-up and successfully produced a 6-minute testimony on video. 

What is going on?

Perseverance Produces Hope

We switched hardware,
we prayed,
We switched software,
we prayed, 
We reduced the resolution of the video
we prayed
We switched software again
and we prayed again

Gone are the expensive professional editing programs, gone is the Professional Mac Computer. The 28-second montage of video images we produced in five hours was completed using a free program, on a seven-year-old desktop computer!  

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me"

..At the five hour mark I can truly say with resolve I have great hope
"In all things we are more than conquerors through Christ Jesus our Lord."

I don't know about you, but these last ten days as we have been focusing on prayer, there is something in my Spirit that is becoming stirred up, Joy and Hope and a forward looking anticipation is growing inside me, it has changed my outlook on the mundane details of daily life. In the face of difficulties like the scenario above, I have a deeper peace, an anchor that holds in the storm. I just shared how 60 minutes ago I was feeling, can I say it, hopeless, yes it was in only one area of life and only lasted for few hours. 

But I am feeling wonderful, refilled with hope and faith. Maybe you are experiencing the same joy and strength I am today in the Lord .... or maybe not.  Maybe you are having the kind of frustration that I just shared about trying to work on this video. 

Have you have had a difficult day - Pray
Have things not gone your way - Pray
Are you sensing hopelessness creeping in because nothing is working - Pray

Maybe you have been praying and carrying the sins of our fathers to the foot of the cross for the last ten days and you are wondering to yourself,  "is this really going to change anything?"
- Pray my friend, good things come to those who wait...on the Lord. 
And in the meantime there is much to be thankful for...

Faith Triumphs in Trouble

5 Therefore, having been justified by faith, 
we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, 2 through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which 
we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God. 

3 And not only that, but 
we also glory in tribulations, 
knowing that tribulation produces perseverance; 
4 and perseverance, character; 
and character, hope. 
5 Now hope does not disappoint, because 
the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by 
the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Rejoice! and again I say Rejoice!