I couldn’t believe what I heard. The owner of the building that our church, Redemption City Church, was leasing, said that he wanted to sell the building he was leasing to us. Not only that, our conversation happened to be just a few days before I was going away with my family for a month long sabbatical, that was gifted to us by our church. I was supposed to “totally disengage,” but it was going to be hard to do that with the possibility of a move on the horizon.
Having been given an 8 day notice and a 23 day notice from previous location owners, I’d learned to handle these with some level of faith and prayer. I prayed my problems with specificity and trusted God to do what’s best with my request, as I wrote in, 21 Days to Childlike Prayer. But I sure wish I didn’t get that phone call.
Thankfully, the owner said he wasn’t in a rush. He promised that he wouldn’t kick us out. We planned to talk when I got back in town a month later.
Fast forward a month. When I returned from the trip, I had a couple of scenarios that I was going to pitch to him. I felt pretty good about both of them. Neither were accepted.
The owner told me that he was talking to a potential buyer, but that they wanted to work with us. Although it was kind of him to think of us in this way, and it really was, we explored contingencies. We got really close on a place, but it strangely fell through.
We kept doing our best to be a “preview of the future Redemption City” at Redemption City Church, and kept praying about our location situation.
I’ll never forget where I was when I got the phone call from the owner. I can see it all playing out in my head as I write this post. I didn’t answer the call. I didn’t think it would be wise to talk to him in a place of fear. So I started praying throughout the day, that God might allow us to stay in our place.
With fear and trepidation, I called the owner. He wanted to give the church the 2 year lease I asked him for back in August! He had never given a 2 year lease in all his years of renting the building to churches. Amazing!
Not only that, but the week I received this great news, I happened to be preaching on “Persistent Prayer” from the Sermon on the Mount! You better believe all of this story made its way into the sermon and was met with applause.
Specificity leads to visibility. By getting specific, the invisible God became visible, he became unmistakably present (of course he is always present, but our awareness of his presence isn’t always great).
What specific prayers do you need to start praying? What specific prayers do you need to be encouraged to continue to start praying?
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