Answers

Last night I sat in a living room with 8 other people. Honestly, no one took notice of us. No one noticed a few extra cars outside Chris's driveway. We gathered together, as people of not authority and no acclaim. The 9 of us formed what three weeks ago became Union Church. We are small. We are young. We are poor. We are nothing. But yet we gathered because God is Big. God is eternal. God is rich. God is everything.

We have been a church for three weeks. And for three weeks we have gathered each Tuesday night to pray. Last night was no different. And yet last night was something different all together. We gathered on Juneteenth in the shadow of a freedom proclamation. Yet we gathered in the shadow of a deeper slavery. We gathered knowing that thought we celebrate a nation saying that all men are free, it takes more than a country to free us.

Driving to our little prayer meeting I could not escape the image of a three year old girl weeping at the feet of her mother. It was a picture that I had seen earlier that day while reading how children were being stolen from their parents, parents who crossed the boarder for the fool's hope that maybe their children would not die. This particular picture was taken in McAllen, Tx. This picture was taken in the very city that I take teams to sleep when we cross the boarder and do mission work in Mexico. This picture was taken across the boarder from my friends. This picture was taken miles from where my sister was born. This picture was taken of a beautiful little girl. This picture should have been my sister. And that meant that this picture was of my family.

As we gathered together to pray we began to pray for the families who were being ripped from each other. As we prayed I could hear the sound of those who weep. Not only because of the video of these children that could be nothing but burned into my soul, but because those of us who gathered dared to truly pray. And in true prayer, the Holy Spirit broke us. And when He did, we wept. We stayed in that room longer than we had planned and we prayed with voices raised and eyes wet.

We prayed that the Holy Spirit would give us faith to pray. He did. We asked that He would move. And He did.

Today the president of the United States signed an executive order that no children would be stolen from their family. He signed into law the very thing that we prayed for.

There are 1,000 ways to look at this. But for me, I think that sometimes the closest dots are the ones that should be connected. We prayed. Abba answered. And my faith is larger tonight than it was this morning.

So I call each of you to pray. Let your heart flow out at the throne of grace. Let the damn behind your eyes break forth and allow yourself to weep. Call out to God, and ask Him to do that which only He can. Last night I did, and today He did.

So wherever you find yourself in this world, I invite you to pray. And if you are in east Alabama, I invite you to join me next Tuesday night for the same. And if you come, I invite you to join me next Wednesday as well. For I expect to be celebrating yet another answer.