Telling the Truth for Women

Jill Briscoe: Were you ever on your knees praying for a specific thing to happen? God always answers every prayer we pray. Now, as we've been thinking about Elijah and Elisha, I want to take you a little further from Elijah's story into the story of Elisha today. And we're going to be in 2 Kings instead of 1 Kings, 2 Kings, chapter 4. A favorite story of mine, but I'm going to take a little bit different angle on it today: the story of the widow and the little pot of oil.

I've brought my little pot here, that is the little pot of oil, very, very similar. Got it in the Holy Land. To the little pots of oil that we used in the Old Testament times and the New Testament times to contain oil. There were bigger pots, of course, and jars of oil that were stored in the house, but there was always a little pot just kept handy for topping up the candlelight or a little bit of extra for cooking or whatever it was used for. And that is the little pot of oil we're going to be talking about today.

Now, let me give you a little bit of background. The story of Elijah is over. He's burst on the scene of history. He's confronted the King of Israel with his apostasy. He has called the whole of Israel to Mount Carmel to see which God is really God: Baal or El, the Creator. El-Yah, Jehovah, and the Creator God after whom Elijah is named. He has proved he's God because the fire has fallen and consumed the offering and all of that. And so Israel is ready to return to the God that Israel has left.

So, Elijah goes up to the top of the mountain, prays that the rain that has been withheld in judgment for three years be given again, and the little cloud arises out of the sea no bigger than a man's hand. And soon there's a rainstorm. Ahab gets in his chariot, and Elijah runs ahead of him to the gates of Jezreel, the gates of the city where Jezebel is waiting to see what it's all about. And Ahab tells his wife that I'm afraid she's 450 prophets less than the day before, and she's not very pleased about that.

And she sends a message to Elijah to run for his life, which he does. This is the lowest point of Elijah's life, and he ends up flat on his face under a broom tree in the desert wanting to die. "I've had enough, Lord," he says. "I'm no better than my fathers. I've failed." However, the Angel of the Lord, a theophany, a self-revelation of God, Jesus before Bethlehem, Jesus Himself, Second Person of the Trinity, meets him at that low point. Actually cooks him breakfast.

Touches him and says, "The journey is too great for thee. Just lie down, sleep and rest, arise and eat." And nurtured and nourished by that food—and I've always wondered what it tasted like, but certainly with heavenly properties in it—he traveled 40 days and 40 nights without stopping to a cave on Mount Horeb. He goes into the cave, and God's still, small voice begins to deal with him. "What you doing here, Elijah? What you doing here, Elijah? You shouldn't be here. You should be there."

Elijah makes his defense. "Well, they're out to kill me, and I'm frightened for my life," and all of that. God totally ignores that, reminds him that his life is in His hands, and sends him back down the mountain into service. He only does a few more things in his life before God sends the fiery chariot in his direction. One of the things he does is commission and call a new servant. Now, when he ran into the desert, it says in 1 Kings, chapter 19, that he left his servant at Beersheba.

Now, I don't know why he left his servant behind. Probably the poor guy was totally exhausted, having run with Elijah in front of the chariot and all the rest, and collapsed in a heap. But anyway, he left his servant behind. We don't know the name of that servant, but he left him there. He didn't have anyone to help him. Most of the prophets of the Old Testament had a companion, a helper, a second in command, somebody to minister to them. Moses had Joshua. Later Joshua had Caleb. And Elijah had Elisha.

He goes down the mountain, and he finds this man. And at the beginning of the book of 2 Kings, he casts his cloak over him, which is a symbolic gesture that he is calling him to leave everything. And he seemed to be pretty wealthy. He had oxen, and he was plowing with his men and employees, and he calls Elisha to leave his world, his life, and come with him and be involved in ministry. Together, Elijah and Elisha establish the schools of the prophets.

Schools of the prophets were places, the very first ones we read about in the scriptures, which were sort of like seminaries or Bible schools, or places where they could learn to be trained to be prophets and preachers and prayers and teachers and preserve the treasure of the history of Israel, etc. And so, Elijah and Elisha gather in different places, different towns, different cities, these young men and their wives and families. And they gather them in different places.

So, Elijah and Elisha begin this work and consolidate it, apparently even though the prophets of Baal have been killed and Jezebel is mad, she is now not killing off prophets anymore, and it seems to be safe to establish these communities of truly believing men and women of Israel. And so, they're doing this, and very soon into the second book of Kings, the chronicler who has written this book of history about Elijah and Elisha gives the account of Elijah's death.

And it's very dramatic, and you can read it yourself, but it's really wonderful. In fact, until I started digging into it again, I have always thought that Elijah went to heaven in a fiery chariot, haven't you? But he didn't. He was talking to Elisha, and the fiery chariot arrived, but it went in between them and separated the two of them. And then, it says, Elijah went up to heaven in a whirlwind. So, he didn't go in the fiery chariot. He went in a whirlwind, which was interesting.

However, the fiery chariot certainly was involved. And so, Elijah is taken up. And just before he's taken up, Elisha says to him, "I want one thing. I want one thing." And Elijah says, "What can I do for you?" And he says, "I want a double portion of your spirit. I want to know God like you know God. I want to be used of God like you've been used of God, but I want to be used of God more than you've been used of God. I want more." I love this boldness, this incredible sense of coming before God and saying, "I want more. I want more of You. And I want You to have more of me."

Now, that's the sort of person that God is going to use, not only to preach and to prophesy but to pray and to make a mark on this poor world. And so Elijah says, "Well, I don't know if I can promise you that, but if you see me go, then I think that's what's going to happen." And he does see him go. And as he picks up Elijah's cloak, which he has dropped on the way to glory, he holds it in his hand, walks back to the river, and the prophets from that particular Bible school are waiting and watching all this on the other side of the river.

And he takes the cloak of Elijah, and he calls on the God of Elijah, and he says, "Let this river part." And he hits the water with the cloak, and the river parts. And the young prophets, he gains credibility in their eyes, and they say, "The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha." And through this first miracle, Elisha bursts on the scene of biblical history. Now, shortly after that, a couple of things happen, a couple of events. A miracle: he goes into the town where the prophets are, and they're in big trouble in this little town because the wells are polluted and the water is bad.

And seeing that's the only water there is, they're in really big trouble. It's been like that for years and years and years, and they've had to carry water from other communities. And so, they come to the prophet, and they say to him, "The water's bad," and he, through God's grace and power, makes the water good in this city. Shortly after that, we get the story of the widow and her little pot of oil in chapter 4. The wife of a man from the company of the prophets cried out to Elisha, "Your servant, my husband, is dead, and you know that he revered the Lord. Now his creditor is coming to take my two boys as slaves."

Elisha said to her, "How can I help you? Tell me, what do you have in your house?" "Your servant's nothing there at all," she said, "except a little oil." Elisha said, "Go around, ask all your neighbors for empty jars. Don't ask for just a few. Go inside, shut the door on you and your sons, and pour oil into all the jars. And as each is filled, put it to one side." So she left him, and afterwards shut the door behind her and her sons. And they brought the jars to her, and she kept pouring. And when all the jars were full, she said to her son, "Bring me another one."

But he replied, "There isn't another one left." Then the oil stopped flowing. So she went and told the man of God, and he said, "Go sell the oil, pay your debts. You and your sons can live on what is left." This is one of my favorite passages of scripture. Many, many, many times I've come back to this like that little sheep grazing a familiar pasture, and God's grass grows overnight, and there is always some new nourishment for me in this story. It is incredible. I remember for years coming to this story, and those three little words—"she kept pouring"—being an incentive to me as God has taken me around the world: "Just keep pouring, keep pouring. As I pour out, He pours in. As I pour out, He pours in."

It's the principle of the Christian life. You be obedient. You do it. And as you are obedient and as you are serving the Lord, the Holy Spirit will pour in all that you need in order that you can pour out. There's many, many things in this story that make me hesitate to even move away from the things that God has taught me in the past that I could have reiterated to you today. But I want to take the emphasis into prayer today as we look at this story. Now, Donald Coggan, was a famous Archbishop of Canterbury in England, tells of the preacher who began his doctrinal sermon by saying, "I want to speak to you about the Paraclete," whereupon a member of the congregation whispered to his neighbor, "Why does he want to preach about that bird?"

Sorry, but I think that's rather funny. I want to speak to you today about the Paraclete. Now, the Paraclete is not the parakeet. The Paraclete is a name for the Holy Spirit. It's a biblical name in the biblical language for the Holy Spirit. And it really means the Helper, one called alongside to help, the Counselor, the Helper, the Teacher. And I want to talk to you today about the Paraclete. People in church really don't know much about the Holy Spirit and His part in prayer, and that's what we're going to be talking about.

When I was a teenager, I used to say the Apostles' Creed: "I believe in the Holy Ghost. I believe in the Holy Ghost." And I had this idea of a sheet-shrouded spook that haunted old English graveyards. Who is this Holy Ghost? It was old language, but I certainly never gave it much thought. I didn't know who the Holy Ghost was. I had no idea. In fact, I thought of the Holy Ghost as an "it," as some sort of grace from God, or not as a person, not with a personality. The Holy Spirit was not like Jesus; the Holy Spirit was not like God in my mind.

And yet, when I became a Christian and began to open the revelation of God which tells me all about Himself, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, I learned that He wasn't an "it." He is indeed a "he." Jesus, talking to His disciples, said, "I will ask the Father, and He will give you another counselor. I have been your counselor, but He's going to give you another counselor." And the word means exactly the same as me, one exactly the same as me, to be with you forever. He will be the Spirit of Truth. That's John 14.

"When He comes, He will guide you into all truth." And you need to read around John 16:13 following to figure out all about the Holy Spirit. There's a great little synopsis of who He is and what He does in those verses. He is divine, He's co-equal with the Godhead, and He is on the same level. Yes, they have different functions, but they are God in all His God-ness. The Holy Spirit is God. He is divine, called by divine titles in the Bible, displayed divine attributes in the Bible, performs divine tasks in the Bible. He participated in divine events in the Bible.

In the Creation, He brooded over the waters and things began to form. He was involved in the creation of the world. In the Incarnation, Mary was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. "The Holy Spirit will come upon you," and the same word is used in Genesis 1. The Holy Spirit will brood over you. That holy thing that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God. And so here we have Him participating in mighty, incredible events of scripture. Temptation: Jesus, full of the Spirit, was led of the Spirit to overcome the devil in the desert, in His temptations.

He went looking for the devil. Doesn't mean that He was wandering around the wilderness and looking over His shoulder because Satan was this horrible great big shadow and said, "Now I've got him." In fact, most people believe Satan didn't want to meet Jesus in the desert. He was trying to get away from Him. But Jesus, full of the Spirit, in the power of the Spirit, took off to look for the devil and force him into a confrontation and overcome him. How did He do that? In the power of the Holy Spirit. He was involved in Creation, Incarnation, Temptation, Crucifixion. Christ, through the eternal Spirit, offered Himself.

Christ through the eternal Spirit—how did Jesus die for us? How did He stay on the cross when He could have come down? Had the power to come down. How did He do that? Through the Holy Spirit. Crucifixion, Resurrection. "The Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead," how did Jesus get raised from the dead? Through the Spirit. "...dwells in you." Wow. The Spirit of Him that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you. Not a little bit of the Spirit; you can't receive a bit of a person. All of the Spirit lives in you. Now, He doesn't have all of you, perhaps, but you have all of Him.

And I remember the day that I was converted. The girl that led me to Christ said, "You lie in bed tonight," first night of my conversion, my new life in Christ, born from above, new believer. She said, "I just want you to say these words: 'All of God in all of me, all of God in all of me.'" And the first day I was converted, I learned this truth: that I had all I was going to get. He needed to have all of me. And in the measure He has all of me, that's the measure of my effectiveness as a believer, as a Christian, as a mother, as a wife, as a grandmother, as a speaker, as a teacher, as a friend, and all the rest.

So, the Holy Spirit is a person. Men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. How did Elijah run 18 miles in front of Ahab's chariot with four horses pulling it? In front of it? How did he do that? It says the Spirit of God came on him. How did Elisha in the chapter before this story prophesy correctly that the two kings, Israel and Judah, should go to war against Moab? How did he know to tell them that that was the right thing to do? It says the Spirit of God came on him.

And holy men of God spoke as they were carried along by the Spirit of God. They wrote the Bible, it says. Holy men of God wrote these scriptures as they were inspired. By whom? By the Holy Spirit; He's the Spirit of Truth. Now the incredible thing about the Christian life is those who have received Christ, those who have been born again, those who have said, "Lord Jesus, come into my heart," have come to faith—whatever language your particular denominational, scriptural background gives you—those of you that have opened yourself up and said, "I'm a sinner, Jesus died to save. Come into my heart, Lord Jesus."

What has happened? The Holy Spirit has come into your life, and He that raised Christ from the dead dwells in you. He is the indwelling Christ. Christ is made over to you by the Holy Spirit. "I will send you another counselor," says Jesus, "one exactly the same as me. He has been with you; He will be in you." Read John 14, 15, 16, 17 over and over again, and Jesus says it over and over again. "He has been with you; I've been with you. I'm going to be in you." I often wonder about Mary, you know, His mother. She sort of received Christ twice. First she bore Him. And there she was in the upper room on the sun of her Spirit was given to all who were there. We haven't born Him, but we can receive Him as surely as Mary and the 120 did on the Day of Pentecost.

He is also the Spirit of prayer. He is the Spirit of supplication, the Spirit of wisdom, understanding, counsel, power, knowledge, fear of the Lord. He's called all these names. He takes the things of Jesus and makes it make sense to us. He searches the deep things of God. He knows the mind of Christ, and He's living in you, and He's living in me. He is called the one who helps our weaknesses. We do not know what we ought to pray, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groans that words cannot express.

He's praying for us. "He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit," that's God, "He who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit," because the Trinity know each other totally and completely, "because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to God's will." And so here you have the Trinity involved in us in the matter of prayer. This takes prayer out of the realm of Christopher Robin. The Holy Spirit, the Spirit of prayer, is praying. Now what is He praying? Well, He is focusing on Jesus. That's His job. He speaks not of Himself; He puts the spotlight on Christ.

I love this quote: "Where is He praying? In my heart. True prayer is God the Holy Spirit talking to God the Father in the name of God the Son, and the believer's heart is the prayer room." Let me give you that again. True prayer is God the Holy Spirit talking to God the Father in the name of God the Son, and the believer's heart is the prayer room. Zuma says the Holy Spirit expresses the inutterable. He intercedes in us, for us, through us, with a tenderness exactly in accordance with the mind of God, if we ask.

So what we do in prayer is ask to be involved in this wonderful thing that's going on within ourselves. Give me the mind, dear Holy Spirit, to pray what I should be praying because He knows what we should be praying. If we don't know how or what to pray, it doesn't matter, this is a modern translation. He does our praying for us, making prayers out of our wordless sighs and aching groans. He knows us far better than we know ourselves, and He keeps us present before God. Now this should be incredible comfort to you. The Holy Spirit helps us in our prayer distress.

And it doesn't matter how inadequate you feel you are. It doesn't matter what you feel about your prayer life. The Holy Spirit has come in not only to be your teacher and counselor and friend and make Christ real within your heart, He has come in to help you learn to be a prayer warrior. A prayer warrior. Our praying should be to the end that the world's focus is on Christ. That's what the Holy Spirit is trying to get us to pray. The Spirit's work is to keep the spotlight on Christ. Catherine Marshall says, "Christ is in the spotlight that is held by the Holy Spirit, the Helper.

It follows that the Holy Spirit will involve us in his work of looking after Jesus Christ's interests and focusing the world's attention on Him." And I have been listening to my own prayers lately as I have done this study. And I'm trying to figure out how much praying I do for myself and my immediate family and how much praying I do for the world. Am I, in my prayer life, focusing through prayer people's attention on Christ? Prayer and evangelism is the natural thing that goes together for the spiritual person. Pray, pray, pray. Those are the three most important things.

So it's sort of exciting. It's about bringing God back to His people and His world. That's what prayer should be doing. And you'll know if your prayers are God prayers, if they're to do with God things: God's will, God's glory, God's name. So the Holy Spirit helps us pray what God wants us to pray. "If we ask anything according to His will, we know He hears us. If we know He hears us, we know we have the requests that we ask of Him," it says. "If we ask anything according to His will." We don't need to sit there thinking, "What's His will?"

The Holy Spirit will tell us. Just get still before God. Just get into your Bible. You'll see what God's will is. And then you'll find yourself praying according to the Spirit of God, according to the will of God. He knows the mind of God. He knows the will of God. And we don't know, but He does. And He will let us know. He will let us know. It's a question of helplessness. It's a question of abandonment. It's a question of surrender in prayer. It's a question of just coming into His presence. Just coming into His presence and focusing on Him in worship.

And as that happens, then you will be impressed by the Holy Spirit what you should be praying for. We know that His job, the Holy Spirit's, is to convict and convince and convert. And you'll find yourself praying, "Lord, convict this person about such a thing. And Lord, convince them that Christ is the answer. And Lord, convert them to You." You'll find your prayers going in that direction. And those are the prayers that are going to get answered. That's according to the will of God. And if we know that we ask according to the will of God, we know we have those things.

So when you've prayed those things, you can start thanking Him. Thanking Him in advance. How much of that do you do in your prayer life? You pray and you pray and you pray, then I hope you always end your prayers with, "And thank you in advance. Thank you it's going to come. Thank you, Lord. Help me to recognize it when it does, and I don't know when and I don't know how and that's not my business, that's Yours. But Lord, thank You. Thank You." I served a mission, and that was the sort of key thought in that mission: Whenever you prayed, you always thanked Him in advance for the answer.

And that's a very good, healthy mindset to get into. So, intercession. You know the spirit of prayer is at work when you pray more about others than yourself and your family. Yes, of course you pray for your family, but there's never any time left to pray for the world, have you noticed? Intercession leaves you neither time nor inclination to pray for your own sad, sweet self. The thought of yourself is kept out. It's not there. You're completely and entirely identified with God's interest in other people's lives.

I have to keep my conscious life as a shrine of the Holy Spirit. Then as I bring the people before God, the Holy Spirit makes intercession for them. That's His testimony. As we really get down to being prayer warriors and making a difference, to use prayer to give God access to the unbelieving world, to the materialistic world, to the nominal Christian world, as we pray to give God access to that, we can get so caught up in this that you say, "Oh, and I need to pray for me, right at the end. God bless me. Little God bless on my little gold head."

And that comes right at the end if you've time. So as I put my prayer life over the grid that I'm talking about, I tell you it's very lacking, and I've been trying to work on this as I've learned these lessons myself. Can Jesus trust me with His prayer list? I mean, that's really what it's all about. Can Jesus trust me with His prayer list? Or does He look at me as I come into my prayer room with this humongous list of all the things that I, you know, I've got on my shopping list today? And does He stand there with His list in His hands and say, "Well, she's not going to have time for this today"?

Now, I think of the Holy Spirit's involvement in missions, for example. It says, "Pray that God would send out workers into His harvest," for example. Now how much praying have you done about that this year? Who's on the mission field because you prayed them out there this year? Who's on the mission field because I prayed them out there? I want you to know I'm really including myself in all of this. God's work by means of prayer: God does not call or send into the field without the work of prayer. That's what the scriptures teach.

"Pray ye therefore the Lord of the harvest that he will thrust out." There will be something happen if we get down on our knees and we pray people into the harvest field. I remember when my husband went to a very wise man who had been his mentor and friend in Manchester—we were living in Manchester—and he went for counsel and he said, "I have so much banking, I'm 26 years of age, I've just been offered the top job in the British bank, the biggest British bank. And I've also got so much preaching. Something's got to go."

And this man who had, 10 years before, said "Stay in the bank, stay in the business world," said to him, "It's time. Go for it. Go into ministry." And then he said, "I have been praying that God would thrust you out for 10 years. I have been praying that God would thrust you out for 10 years." God does not call or send into the field of work without prayer. Keswick Convention, very famous Keswick Convention, 11 people there for the first one, Amy Carmichael one of them. And 10 people in an Anglican vicar's home in Keswick seeking renewal, seeking the heart of God, prayed Amy Carmichael out to India.

They were her only means of support for the whole of her missionary career, Keswick Convention. And one of the things that always moves me when I go back to Keswick is that famous missionary meeting they have at the end—I don't know anything else like it in the whole world—where at the end of the missionary call, parents are asked to stand first, if they are willing to send their children to the mission field. And then young people are asked to stand if they are willing to go to the mission field.

And I have sat there in floods of tears as I have watched parents stand and their children sit, or I've watched parents sit and their children stand. But oh what joy when I have seen parents stand and their children stand by their side. And I know that it's the parents' prayers that's thrust them out. How much thrusting out have we done for our own children? Have we prayed diligently, "Lord, what a privilege if You would send our children into the harvest field"? How much of those prayers have we been doing, or have we been praying, "Lord, protect them, don't let anything happen to them, keep them healthy, wealthy, and wise"?

What have we been praying for our children? And as we looked at this little story, the picture comes to my mind so vividly, and I just want to cap what I've been saying with this. Here's this little woman, really in trouble. She's lost her husband; she's a young widow. She's sold everything; she's nothing in the house. And she comes to Elijah and he says, "What have you got in the house?" and she says, "Nothing. I've sold everything. Now they're coming to take my boys as payment for the groceries, if you like, as slaves."

And Elisha says, "You go into your house," and he reminds her of something that she had that she'd forgotten: the little pot of oil. And she'd forgotten it in her extremity that she had all that she needed, all that she needed in her extremity. And oil in the scriptures, as many other symbols are used, is used as a symbol of the Holy Spirit. And I would like to use it as that picture now. And he says to her, "Now what you need to do is go and forget your own empty life, think about all the other empty lives around you. You've got empty vessels of your neighbor."

And it's just that little picture that I have in my mind. Think of your neighbors. Know anybody that's empty? All sorts of reasons, without God, without Christ, without hope maybe, without purpose. Maybe they know the Lord, but they're empty. And he says, "Gather them into your house, shut the door, and you start and pour out into their lives. Pour out into their lives." And of course, the wonderful miracle happens.

And as I thought about this story in relation to the prayer and the Holy Spirit as I've been speaking, I thought about Elisha and his part. And we need to be Elishas for other people. We need to be saying to people, "How can I help you?" We need to be available or we need to be accessible as he was. We need to be reminding them of their spiritual resource. You have all that you need for all that it takes. However empty your own life seems to be, the Holy Spirit can fill your life and you can become a means of blessing for others.

We need to help the people to go in and shut the door. It needs to be their miracle. They mustn't depend on us. You know, the little widow, I'm sure she said, "Well, come with me! If you come, then the oil will flow!" But then it would have been Elijah's miracle. He said, "No, no, no. You can just be a little widow with nothing in the house. I want you to know that you have as much power with God as the mighty Elijah." We need to do that for people. Needs to be their miracle.

Needs to be their miracle. And she had to shut the door on her and her boys. Had to be a secret. She had to trust God in secret. Something else I've been doing lately. I share many of my deep prayer requests with my prayer circle, my friends. But God said to me just at the beginning of this year, "What have you done lately that only you and I know about?" And there happened to be rather a big thing I needed Him to do for me. And I said, "Well, I think this is so big, Lord, that I need my prayer partners."

And then I realized what I'd been doing. He said, "No, no, no. Let this be yours and mine. Just yours and mine. Am I bigger than your prayer partners? Do you need them to support me in order that I might answer this prayer? Let's it be secret." And I've been having secrets with God this year and it's been so wonderful: trusting God, not trusting Elijah, not trusting Elisha. Yes, there are times, most times, when corporate prayer is God's graceful gift to us, but there are times when we have to say, "Where's my faith? Do I believe that God is able to do this?"

Shut the door. Go in. Start demanding of God, as Elisha did, more. You are coming to a king large petitions with you bring. Then intentionally give yourself to do this work. Intentionally give yourself to do this work. Get on your knees. Carve out time. I don't care where, how, early, late, middle. Go away somewhere if you need to do it. Put it on your calendar. Go down to the—I have a friend, one of the pastors of one of our daughters' churches, that every month she has a little place down at the retreat center that the Roman Catholic people run. Beautiful little place. You get your little own room and your it's right on the lake and it's absolutely wonderful. And she goes there.

And she goes there to intentionally give herself to God to do this work. That's what we've got to do. And then, gather your neighbor's empty vessels into your house, to you, and pour. Start pouring out. You say, "Who is my neighbor?" Well, you know the answer to that. And then live off the blessings. Sell the oil and live off the blessings, said Elijah. And the wealth of answered prayer that God will give you, thieves cannot break through and steal. You will live off that. Really live off that. Your life will be full; your life will be rich.

I was living in a little tiny house in the grounds of Capernwray with a farm next to me. She was my neighbor. Her name was Annette. Picked her up on the way to shopping one day. She was walking the four miles to the shops and got to know her a little bit. And the thought went through my mind, never in 20 years is this girl going to even listen to me, never mind come to Christ. So, I just began to get to know her. And she was empty. Sounded as if she was full. She was full of life, she was full of pleasures, but as I got to know her, she was empty.

And so, I began to have her over. "Come and have a cup of coffee with me," and she began to come. And I thought, "Now I have to go slow." You know, a little bit of this and a little bit of that. One day she looked up at me and she said, "When are you going to lead me to Christ?" And I said, "You're not ready yet!" And she said, "How do you know?" And I was just speechless. And she said, "I've been praying for weeks that you'd have the courage to help me."

And so, I took my little pot of oil, and I began to pour out into Annette's life. And she came thoroughly, totally, utterly to Christ. And she went home that night, and the next day her husband called me and he said, "Do you have another Bible like the one you gave my wife?" He said, "I can really understand it." It was the Living Bible. He said, "I've got a Bible, but it's sort of a little difficult to understand." And I said I'd love to bring it. And I said, "Why do you want it?"

And he said, "Well, my wife came home last night and she told me what you'd helped her to do," and he said, "she helped me to do it too." First night. And he said, "I want to know more." And so, I began meeting with these two, and we all started pouring out and pouring out. And in the end, he said, "I want to give my barn to you for all these kids that you're dealing with. Would you like it?" And I said, "I'd love it!" For a youth center? "Yeah." I said, "What about the cows?" He said, "Oh, I can put them out." Okay, put them out.

And you can do what you like. We'll whitewash it up again, and we'll put straw on the floor, and we'll get beer barrels—he'd got plenty of those, I might say—and we'll put them all around and paint them and make them seats and tables. And so, that's what we did. And then we gathered all the empty vessels of the kids in that neighborhood over the next 10 years—well, five years there—until the barn was full. Until the barn was full. And we lived off the good of it.

I was sort of pretty poor in those days. We were living on a missionary stipend that was under the poverty level. But I was rich. I was rich. You live off the good of it, because a man's life does not consist in the things that he possesses, but in spiritual wealth where thieves cannot break through and steal.

Pray with me. Heavenly Father, thank you for Your scripture, thank You for Your truth, and thank You today for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit of prayer. And Lord, He wants to be our teacher, He wants to be our instructor. He knows how to pray. He is a prayer. And God, I pray that as we try to absorb what we've listened to, as we try to absorb what we're learning, that the Spirit of Him who raised Christ from the dead, who dwells in us, may really have all of us in order to focus the attention on Christ through prayer. Lord, this is a far cry from saying a prayer or Christopher Robin stuff. Grow us up. Don't let us get to the end of our lives without being mature in prayer, understanding it, enjoying it, using it as the place where God meets us and uses us in intercession. We ask it for Christ's sake, and in His name we pray. Amen.