August 12, 2010

Fasting broke this woman's stronghold

It was an ordinary evening service but at the end of it, a woman came to the front and gave a testimony. This was the same woman who had come often for prayers to be delivered from one financial problem that became a heavy yoke on her neck.
She did not know how to pray much and one midnight prayer meeting she volunteered to pray. She took the mike and decided to sing a song. She spoke, “Abba, Father, I want to sing a song for You.” Then she sang the song of four stanzas over and over until the leader came and told her to stop. After the meeting she apologized and said she did not know how to pray and she felt she was out of line. But a prayer leader told her it was alright as the Lord had heard her ‘prayer’ (song). She came again to another midnight prayer meeting. Again she offered the same song to the Father in heaven. Again a prayer leader had to stop her as she was repeating the same stanzas a number of times. (Indeed, it was her heart-felt ‘prayer’ and God had heard her!)The testimony was powerful. She testified that she had been trying to sell her small food business but to no avail. The shop was making losses and she owed a large sum of money to the shop owner. When interested parties came to look at the shop they could only offer a price less that one-quarter of what she owed. Meanwhile she also had the problem of her own home being occupied by a group of men lodgers who refused to pay rent or move out.
She and her own family lived above her rented shop but was given the ultimatum by the shop owner to move out within that week and move all their stuff too in addition to repaying all her debt, a colossal sum she could not afford.
She fasted and prayed. On the third day, the shop landlord came and told her he would not postpone his eviction and demand of the full payment of her debt. He also knew that she had tried for a long time to sell her business but there was no taker. But she merely answered him that it was alright as her Father would help her. He said her father was dead and surely ‘he’ could no longer help her. But this woman said, “I have another Father in heaven who will definitely help me!”
The shop owner, an unbeliever, shook his head and went off to take his breakfast.
Later in the morning, he came back and told her he had decided to buy the business from her for the total sum she owed him, thus canceling all her debts!
In the same evening she went home to see if she could clear a space to put one of her rather large cupboard (from the shop) and found that her house was totally empty of lodgers. The next door neighbors told her that in the middle of the night before, they suddenly moved out, everyone of them in a hurry!
The woman was overjoyed as her Father in heaven indeed helped her mightily and all within the third day of her fasting and praying! (A modern day Esther story. Her enemies were annihilated!)

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