Recently, I was at a meeting with a team of us who will be headed to Costa Rica for a mission trip this summer and we were all sharing our testimonies.  Kyndell is a beautiful, sweet spirited, young woman who told us about how she grew up in a Christian home and how she thinks she's probably weird because she prays about everything and for everyone.  She teared up as she spoke and you could sense the passion within her.  She went on to say that she was hoping that the mission trip would help her to identify God's purpose for her life.  I couldn't help but smile at the gift of intercession that I see in her.  That little experience made me think about the importance of calling forth and nurturing the gifts that we see in those around us--especially in our young people.  I for one will be lifting up this young women in prayer and I'm looking forward to getting to know her better on our mission trip.

I remember an older woman in my church when I was a teenager who took a special interest in me after I made my profession of faith.  She gave me a cross necklace and promised to pray for me.  I can't tell you how much that meant to me--especially since I did not have parents or any family members who were Christians.

How about you, is there a teen that you can encourage, bless, and help bring forth the giftings that God has placed in them?

Whenever she opened the closet door, she imagined stepping into another world. It felt safe there. It was one of the few places that she ever felt safe. To most people this room would have had no appeal. The floor was covered with cracked, dirty linoleum, but she imagined a fine, plush, golden carpet. The air was filled with dust and the smell of moth balls, but she imagined spring flowers and fresh air. The walls were made of a pale, pink plaster which was cracked and peeling. But she imagined that there were no walls. The only companions in this room were the raincoats and the sweaters which were in storage, but she imagined that she was surrounded by God and his angels, and every time she entered this closet, they would be there to meet with her. He would reach down to pick her up and hold her, the way that she saw other kid’s parents pick them up. He would whisper in her ear that He loved her and that it wouldn’t be long before He gave her a new home. He told her that one day she would be free to run and play like the other kids and that she would have a Mom and Dad to love her. She showed Him her scars from her beatings, and imagined that He showed her His.

The paragraph above is a snapshot of my early childhood and of the spiritual formation that was taking place in me, even in the midst of some very traumatic and painful circumstances. God revealed Himself to me at a very young age, even before I had any exposure to church or Sunday School. I knew that God was there with me and I talked to Him often.

In this prayer closet, I learned to believe in what I could not see; to listen for His voice, no matter how quiet or still; to sing to Him with the voice my heart gives; to receive comfort & hope from His presence, and to allow Him to heal my heart. I asked Him to remove me from this home and He did. Two days before my seventh birthday,my prayers were answered and He rescued me from years of abuse and neglect. The years that followed were not easy, but God’s presence and protection remained with me, and though I never returned to this prayer closet, I discovered my own “Portable Sanctuary of the Heart” (Reference from Celebration of Discipline—Richard Foster).

“Yet you brought me out of the womb; you made me trust in you even at my mother’s breast. From birth I was cast upon you; from my mother’s womb you have been my God.”    Psalm 22:9-10

Last week I was meeting with one of our pastors about my passion for Discipleship.  In a prior meeting, I had shared some things with him that caused him to go away with a check in his spirit about whether I would be okay with the leadership structure at my church, so he brought that up and we discussed it.  I was open and honest about some trust issues that I have because of abuse of authority in other churches  and acknowledged that there was some healing that yet needed to be done.  I thought the conversation went well.  I didn't feel defensive and I really wasn't worried about the issue, until I was driving home that night.  I wrestled with that and other issues for 3 or 4 days and was tempted to give up on any desires to be involved in Discipleship at my church.  After some concentrated time in prayer last weekend, I believe that God helped me to address this issue and to come to a level of peace that I did not have before.  I enjoy journaling prayer but I don't particularly enjoy poetry.  Yet I recently realized that God seems to give me a poem when I'm struggling with something that I cannot quite resolve in traditional prayer.  When I shared this with a friend, he told me that I should post the poem somewhere.  So here it is, maybe you can relate...

Into Your Refining Fire

I choose to go

How I'll turn out

I do not know

Mold me and make me

Fit for your plan

Even if it means

I must submit to a man

Re-direct and protect me

From those who'd abuse

Help me see clearly

How to serve those you choose

Your purposes are so much greater

Than all my fear and pain

Help me serve you freely

And bring honor to Your name

You've given me a vision

And you've mapped out a plan

To go and make disciples

Who will do all that You command

Obedience, Surrender,

Your will is my desire

So consume me, then fill me

And release me with fire

---Jenni Biegler (February 9, 2011)

I don't know about you, but I'm on a quest to become a more self-less pray-er, so I have been looking for something that would be sort of an "Intercessory Prayer for Dummies." My search led me to one of the Classic Christian authors on Prayer, Andrew Murray, and to his book, "The Ministry of Intercession".

Not everyone as we know, is into prayer, much less Intercessory Prayer. I've been asking myself why some are such strong and persistent prayer warriors while others are not. Andrew Murray's book shed some light on this for me the other day. In one chapter, he is extracting "the marks of an Intercessor" from Jesus' teaching on prayer in Luke 11.

He says, "...the marks of the true intercessors as the parable taught us" are:

1) A sense of the need of souls

2) A consciousness of personal impotence

3) Faith in the power of prayer

4) Courage to persevere inspite of refusal

5) The assurance of abundant reward

When I evaluate these marks in my own life, I see myself lacking, especially when it comes to "courage to persevere inspite of refusal". I'm persistent all right, but not necessarily in prayer. I guess I wonder if persistence is a matter of continuing to to ask for something to happen, how many times do you ask? I do not see God as being forgetful so I wonder why persistence is needed. Could it be that the persistence has to do with the process of refining our requests or growing our faith?

As I was finishing this chapter, I was struck by the following quote, "Shall men of the world sacrifice ease and pleasure in their pursuits, and shall we be such cowards and sluggards as not to fight our way through to the place where we can find liberty for the captive and salvation for the perishing?" Perhaps the answer to my question regarding persistence is here.

For approximately four years, a church which I attended was trying to develop a Discipleship Training Center. During our beginning stages, we polled the congregation to see what their experiences had been with Discipleship. To our surprise, the majority of them had no idea what discipleship was and the rest thought that Discipleship was synonymous with Evangelism. This misunderstanding was as prevalent among church leaders as it was among the laity.

For so many years there was a great emphasis on preaching the gospel and getting people saved but few were discipling those who got saved. Who of us would expect a newborn baby to raise itself? Yet we've expected new believers to become mature Christians without giving them the resources and support needed to succeed. No wonder there's so much confusion and spiritual immaturity in the Body of Christ.

I have been blessed to have a variety of discipleship experiences in my own life. I became a Christian and received some great discipleship through AWANA clubs. I had key individuals that would sit down with me one to one and walk through various topics of interest and/or need. I had another that fed me Scripture about things that were relevant to my life at the time. I went through a lot of Navigators material as a teenager and a young adult, and later in life, I went through some Campus Crusade materials. In discipling others, I have used various materials but most recently the Bill Bright's, "Ten Steps to Christian Maturity."

Personally, I think that we never outgrow the need for being discipled but if Discipleship is working correctly, it will lead to us discipling others.

I'm curious about the experiences that others have had in being discipled or discipling others. Will you share your story?

One year I received a Christmas card from a mentor of mine, he signed the card, "May You Become Pregnant With the Purposes of God. He knew that part of my history involved issues with infertility but he also knew that my heart longed to be involved in some sort of ministry. God always seemed to speak to me through this friend and so I began to pray about his message to me. Instead of praying for more children, I simply prayed that God would indeed let me become pregnant with His purposes and to make them clear to me.

Since I am trained as a therapist, my first inclination was to use my professional skills to provide Parenting classes and workshops. So for the next several months, I worked diligently to market my classes/workshops. I can't even tell you how many letters were sent to daycares, schools, churches, and parents in the community. But I had little response. Then one day, God began to show me that it wasn't parenting classes and workshops that he wanted me involved in, it was spiritual parenting--Disipleship. He began to open doors that I never would have opened myself and He placed me in a position where I had the privilege of discipling approximately 45 of the 80 member congregation that I was in.

Most of these members were senior citizens who had been in the church all their lives, but somehow they missed being taught the basics of Christianity. How precious it was to see person after person between the ages of 60 & 80 come to me with tears in their eyes, thanking me for helping them to finally understand their Bible or teaching them to pray. I can honestly say that I've never experienced anything more satisfying than when I've been involved in discipling others.

My mentoring friend passed away before I had a chance to share how his words impacted my life but he would have rejoiced with me in all of the spiritual children God blessed me with.

Jenni B.