My heart and my prayer…

These last two mornings, I’ve begun my day reading news reports on Haiti and feeling my heart break. So many lives lost. So many more lives changed forever.

To a small extent, I know what the people there are going through, for Hurricane Charley, the first of the eight hurricanes to strike Florida in ’04 & ’05, passed right over our home and destroyed much with its almost-Category-5 winds.

But that was nothing compared to what they’re going through in Haiti.

With Charley, we had no power and no water…but enough roads were clear that we could drive to where there was power and water and food.

With Charley, power lines were down everywhere, laying across roads that were now unrecognizable and now also un-signed…but power crews from other states were still able to drive to us to help rebuild an entire power grid in a remarkable 21 days. Haiti is surrounded by ocean.

With Charley, 90% of houses were destroyed where the eye passed…but that area was quite small, and even there, most were destroyed slowly by water that fell in, not destroyed in 30 seconds before anyone could get out.

In short, the devastation there, and the permanence of it, is the sort of thing that I wish only existed in books and movies. Yet it has happened over and over again throughout history. It is folly to think that it cannot happen today, no matter what country you live in. New Orleans is proof of that.

This morning, as I read of planes full of supplies that cannot land and ships full of help that cannot dock, I saw how inadequate even the best-intentioned help of man often is. For those people suffering in the streets have no idea that there is food and water just miles away, that cannot get to them. They do not see the help and love swarming through Twitter and the millions already collected through a crazy little 140-character communication source that didn’t exist a year ago. They feel abandoned because the help and compassion stirred in the world cannot reach them where they are at.

And that leads me to what stirred my heart this morning.

Jesus once found himself in a situation where possibly as many as 15,000 people were hungry, in a place where there was no food. He wasn’t a world away, He was right there in the middle of the same situation they were in.

There are something like 3 million people down there right now needing the food and water that cannot get to them.

And Jesus said that we would do greater things than He had done.

Do you see what thoughts are stirring inside of me? Hopefully, there are some submitted-and-connected-to-Him servants of God in Port-au-Prince. If there are, is there any chance that feeding the 3 million around them might be one of the greater things they are called to do?

What about the wounded and dying? If Jesus walked through Port-au-Price today, He would be hearing from His Father perfectly, and I can’t help thinking that His compassion and the Father’s would lead Him to reach out and touch many along the roadsides, healing in an instant, and sharing the love of the Father. Perhaps the Father would even be giving Him direction in where and how to find those still living, buried in the rubble.

The thought is astounding…perhaps moreso because, at this point in my life, after everything God has shown me in the last year, I cannot simply say that “those things don’t happen nowadays.” Because they do, and they can.

Father, God, I am not there. You did not see fit to place me in Haiti two days ago, and what I do in the natural is so vastly inadequate. So Lord, I will join Your workers in the spiritual. I ask, Father, that You pour forth your Spirit and Your power upon Your servants who are there. We are so inadequate and so far from what Your word says You have called us to do. Yet You are more than capable of feeding 3 million people. You know the locations of any who are buried but still alive. I ask You to move in Your servants in ways that they never anticipated, that Your glory and Your power and Your love will be poured out upon this nation, that there will be a rich harvest of souls who meet the only One who can provide for both their material needs and even more importantly, the needs of their hearts.

In Jesus’ name I come against the spirits of anger and despair. They shall not have control of this city or this nation, for I join my prayers with any and all of those around the world who know that we have the authority over those spirits. I ask, Father, that You send forth Your Spirit to flood that city with hope.

And Father I also pray for myself, for those reading this blog, and for all of us around the globe who are seeking You truly. Prepare us for whatever might be in our future, and in the future of those around us. I ask that, if the day comes that we find ourselves again in a disaster, that we would be well prepared to do Your bidding on that day. Nothing more and nothing less, for we do not presume to know perfectly what Your will is, or to know how You see things, or what might be part of Your plan, unless You show us.

All I ask, Father, is that a day would come when the world would see again that there is a God who can multiply food. A God who does not need doctors and hospitals to heal. A God knows all things and loves more deeply than any human is capable of. A God who is You as You really are, not as man thinks You are.

For You alone deserve all glory and honor and praise, and You alone are the Answer, our Hope, our Peace, our Joy, and the One who never leaves us, never forsakes us. For You cannot be surprised, You can never be stolen from us, and You hold is always in the palm of Your hand.