The most amazing thing happened today, and my view of prayer will never be the same because of it.
I found myself at Old Town Transit Center (as I normally take the bus and trolley to get to Impact 195). I left my bike overnight at the station so I went to see if it was still there. Sure enough it was but someone had stolen the seat! I was pretty upset at first and I just got angry at the person who did it and shouted 'what is wrong with people!' then right after that I felt conviction about it and then felt great compassion for that person. It hurt to think that someone had to steal a bike seat to survive. My heart went out to the person instead of resenting them. I said, "Lord, whoever took the seat, convict their heart and bring them closer to you through this." Then something told me to be more specific so I said, "Lord, cause the person to be bringing the bike seat back as I come up to it so I get a chance to witness to him and then he get saved."
So I arrived at school and got a chance to share what happened since everyone asks 'how you're doing this morning' and I would say 'Oh not too good. My bike seat was stolen last night!' Then I shared the prayer I prayed. I was talking to Roxanne and when I told her she said 'Wow, that's a really bold prayer!' And I remember thinking to myself as though the thought just overcame me, "Is there any other way to pray?!" It was like a revelation in my spirit.
Class ended and Mike, Volkmar, and Roxanne met with me at Von's to have some lunch. We were there for quite awhile then I left with Mike and Volkmar to be dropped off at the trolley. Mike and Volk prayed for me and my car situation and I was off to pick up my bike. I began walking at the station and I saw that the Trolley car was coming in. People started getting off and as I looked over there was a door that was open and I saw a bike sticking out. It was blue and I noticed it was a schwinn just like mine. Immediately I thought, "Could that be??" Then I thought that was foolish and that there was no way my bike could be stolen in the middle of the day. But something told me to look and see if there was a seat so I took a peak. Lo and behold, no seat! I definitely had to get on at this point!! So I walked in and took one look at the bike and after 10 seconds I knew it was mine. I looked up and saw a guy standing by the bike and I looked at him and said, "Hey, where did you get this bike bro." He looked at me in a bit of shock and said, "I bought it." I asked him how much he bought it for and he told me 20 bucks! That's when I looked him straight in the eye and told him, "Because I gotta let you know that this is my bike. I know without a doubt this is my bike. It was just locked up over here and it must have been taken not long from now." He basically froze! I didn't want to raise a conflict so I offered to pay him the 20 dollars for the bike since that's what he supposedly paid for it. He refused in a bit of a standoffish way but basically let me have my bike back. At that point the conversation opened up and I asked him where he was going. He said he was going to El Cajon and I told him that's where I was going too. So now I was stuck on the trolley for 40 minutes with this guy! We shared a few things about each other and I told him of the school I was going to and that it was through the Rock church. And as soon as I said that he vibrantly said, "Oh yeah, the Rock church, I used to go there when it was at SDSU." I said, " Oh have you been to the new church, it's really awesome and there is so many more ministries now that are making a huge impact on the community." He said he had never been there so I invited him to go this Sunday. He said he would like to go as we continued to talk. I asked him what he did and he told me he never had a job in his entire life. Also that he never even went to any form of school all his life, he was just hustling. I started to feel compassion for him and then he told me he had a wife and 2 kids. I was heartbroken when he said that. Then he looked at me with true conviction in his eyes and said, "Yeah, I've been doing the Devil's work and I know it. I'm deep in the Devil's work." I was shocked to say the least. Then slowly I realized he was saved as I asked him and he assured me that he was. He told me his name was 'Mackk' but later as he felt comfortable around me he said his real name was Cedric and that he didn't want people to know that. I guess I don't blame him! As we got off the trolley I told him I wanted to pray for him so we sat down at a bench and talked for another 15 minutes then prayed for him. We exchanged numbers and I told him I would give him a call about church and that we'll just hang out some time too, maybe get lunch. He was down so we parted ways, but then after a minute God spoke to me and told me to give him the 20 dollars (he told me this while I was on the trolley but I forgot!). So I went to the corner where I thought he might be and I didn't see him at first but then I saw him off in the distance down the road. As I was riding toward him I sensed the Lord was telling me to give him another 20 dollars and that he would have something for me to say. I rode up to him and waited as he was on the phone then it was clear to me what I had to say. I told him ,"I wanted to give you this 20 dollars and then I'm also gonna give you another 20 dollars and just to tell you that God has an amazing plan for your life, that's not about money. (In our trolley conversations we both expressed how money was a king in our lives and basically how we both made money an idle but in different ways and different reasons). He basically agreed with me and I remember as I was leaving he looked at me and shouted, "Thanks bro, so much, now I can finally buy something to eat," as though a big sigh of relief came over him. I rode off toward the mall then I went to Arby's by my house and wrote like 8 pages to capture the story. They had to kick me out of there I stayed so late!
I arrived at class the next day and began to tell everyone what had happened. I must have told like 3 or 4 people the whole story before class. I was excited to tell Roxanne since she knew specifically of the prayer so I walked up to her and said, "Hey Roxanne, you remember that prayer about my bike?" She said, "Yeah" And I looked at her with a big grin and just said, "Well, guess what?" She lit up saying, "Shut up, shuuuut up!" She couldn't believe it and her reaction was golden. She was literally in awe and I could see that she was immediately touched by the Holy Spirit. She was in awe of what God had done, and so was I!!
One thing I want to share from this experience is that God has done an amazing work in my heart concerning the issue of prayer. I see now that I used prayer as a tool to get what I wanted from the Lord and I was really building a life of self. My prayers were so weak and praying for others was an arduous task since I was so self focused. I never understood what it meant to have a desire to pray. Then after this incident the Lord stirred my heart radically and began cultivating a burning desire to pray. He kept reassuring me how powerful prayer is as I meditated on what happened. I then found myself praying for people on the bus and trolley as God just led me to them and they would start telling me of a problem then I would pray for them. God helped me to see that my prayers were focused on what I was going to get for me and I only prayed to someone else benefit as long as it benefited me. God sparked in me a heart of prayer for others and after this day my view of prayer was forever changed. He revealed to me that my prayers don't have to be long but just specific and to the point and that we should believe in all boldness that our prayers will be answered. As Jesus said in Matthew 17:20-21 "For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there' and it will move. And nothing will be impossible for you."
