What I’m Praying: Monthly Financial Breakthrough!

Continuing my What I’m Praying series, I’d like to share with you an urgent need that The Prayer Room is devoting the month of February to contend for. In 2017, our monthly finances took a $2000/month hit compared to 2016. We’ve been limping along for a while, but moving forward we can’t really limp much more without a serious financial breakthrough. We’re asking God to stir the hearts of His people (or the hearts of unbelievers; we’re not picky!) to commit to partner with us financially on a monthly basis. For some people, that might mean bigger numbers, but for others, that might mean even $5 or $10 each month.

It’s an amazing principle in the Kingdom of God that your heart follows your wallet. (“For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” Matthew 6:21) In the weeks before I graduated from IHOPU, I remember sitting around a kitchen floor with some fellow graduating seniors talking about the future and being emotional, and I’ll never forget what my friend Nathan said: “If you want to fall in love with each other for a lifetime, start partnering with each other financially.”

It’s so true. I have given special financial gifts to many of my classmates, and I partner monthly with a good friend from IHOPU who is now serving at another house of prayer a few hours away. My heart is so much more connected to them all now because I have a tangible investment in what God is doing through them. I know for a fact that the ones God brings to partner with us will end up more connected to the vision of night and day prayer and more invested in the story of what God is doing.

This blog post serves a dual purpose: first, to invite you to pray with us that God would send monthly financial partners, and second, to invite you to become the answer to your own prayer by going to The Prayer Room’s DONATE page and committing to give monthly at whatever dollar amount you like.

We’re spending the entire month of February focussing on this need as a community. We’re strategising and reaching out in as many ways as we can think of, but most importantly, we’re mobilising the community to pray.

In the book of Haggai, God gave a promise to Zerubbabel the governor of Judah and Joshua the high priest in the days of the rebuilding of the temple after the exile. This is His heart to build and supply for His house of prayer:

“And I will shake all nations, so that the treasures of all nations shall come in, and I will fill this house with glory, says the LORD of hosts. The silver is mine, and the gold is mine, declares the LORD of hosts.The latter glory of this house shall be greater than the former, says the LORD of hosts. And in this place I will give peace, declares the LORD of hosts.”
(Haggai 2:7-9)

We invite you to draw upon that promise with us in prayer. Below you can watch a five-minute clip of a 5am prayer meeting praying for financial breakthrough just a few days ago. (If the embedded video doesn’t work for any reason, visit it on our Facebook page.)

What I’m Praying: We Need A/C!

Continuing my What I’m Praying series, here’s a very specific prayer request that The Prayer Room has been joining together for this week: we need a new upstairs air conditioner! Several air conditioning units upstairs are in severely lackluster shape, but the one in our Daniel Academy preschool room is our chief concern right now. When school starts again next month, our little kiddos are going to BAKE in the Texas heat if we don’t get that thing replaced ASAP.

We’ve spent the past week and a half so far praying our rapid fire topic at the end of every set for God’s provision for a new air conditioner. It’s kind of amazing to stand in the prayer room that we prayed so long for and God provided so abundantly for and ask again for yet another financial breakthrough. It gives me so much faith that He who has been faithful will continue to be faithful.

One of the perks of being in a small house of prayer and praying for such specific and un-spiritual-sounding things is the great rapid fire choruses that our worship leaders come up with to sing the prayers. Shout out to Luke for singing something about “make Texas feel less like Texas” our first Sunday morning at 5am when we started the topic. Later on, Lisa sang “You own the cattle on a thousand hills, surely You own some air conditioners.” There have definitely been some lovely “let the wind blow” puns sung and prayed as well. I had to try really hard not to crack up the first time I tried to make a serious chorus about air conditioners. (Pro tip: it’s safer, though less fun, to sing generic stuff about provision.)

This is how we live, though. Every time we need something, we bring it to God as a community by making it a rapid fire topic, so that throughout the week, across every single prayer set, we’re all praying for the same thing at the end of every two hours. It’s a great way to be unified as a community and stay focussed on contending for breakthrough for the need. We have years of history showing that God really responds to rapid fire prayer.

The verse I keep thinking of is Psalm 69:9, which says “For zeal for your house has consumed me,” which John 2:17 applies to Jesus. He’s so, so invested in the details of keeping the fire on the altar in His house. That includes functioning air conditioners!

I invite you to pray with us that God would break in and send someone to write us a check for the air conditioner unit in our Daniel Academy room, and that He would give wisdom and favour regarding the purchasing of that unit.

God, please provide for us to buy a new A/C for our Daniel Academy room. Bring dramatic financial donations again like You’ve done so many times before!

PS – If you’d like to be part of the answer to this prayer, go to theprayerroomdfw.com/donate and add a note to your gift designating it for the A/C.