A Promise Revisited

It was a normal Phoenix afternoon on August 28, 1998. I was preparing dinner in the kitchen with Dillon, age 5, and Derek, age 3, running circles around me and sliding on the Saltillo tile and my 4-month-old Caleb sitting in his bouncy seat on the counter. Glancing up at my scripture-a-day calendar, the words of Isaiah 43:18-19 seemed to come off the page at me: “Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing! Now it springs up; do you not perceive it? I am making a way in the wilderness and streams in the wasteland.” My heart leapt within me — I knew that God was telling me that He wanted to bring revival to our city. I opened my Bible to the passage and read on to verses 21-22: “Yet, you have not called upon me, O Jacob, you have not wearied yourselves for me, O Israel.”

The need was clear. It was time to pray. My friend Debbi and I had vowed a year earlier to pray every day for the women of our church, but this was a bigger vision – revival for the city of Phoenix. I prayed God would send us more intercessors. In the weeks that followed, friends from my church as well as new acquaintances God brought my way (in places as unlikely as the produce section at the grocery store) began gathering to pray and fast for God’s will to be done in our city. Our group of 40 women felt God led us to call ourselves “Frontline” because God was telling us we would win this spiritual battle by worship and the Word, just as God directed Jehoshaphat to put the worship team on the front lines of battle so that all would know it was God who was doing the fighting.

Though God worked richly in our lives during that season, by the time I stopped leading the group in June of 2000 because of having my fourth baby, we had not seen the major breakthroughs we were expecting. It was one of the biggest disappointments of my life. I couldn’t figure out what had blocked God’s plans for the city. By 2003 and 2004, sadly, Proverbs 13:12a described my condition: “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick….”

In 2004 God called us to serve at a church in McKinney, Texas. Though it was hard to leave friends in Phoenix, it was a joy to move close to family and to put the disappointments of unfulfilled spiritual expectations behind me. I put my journals of words from God regarding Phoenix in a file, and moved on.

Fast forward nine years. In the process of praying through a call that my husband has felt on his life to lead pastor a church, Chris started feeling the Lord leading him toward church planting. In January I all but told him, “Anywhere but Phoenix!” (Really, I know better than to make statements like that!) Though we have so many dear friends there, I guess the deep-rooted disappointment of past hopes still lived on.

Through a series of unexpected events that started mid February of this year, we could feel God’s undeniable leading toward exactly the place I said I didn’t want to go: Phoenix. But there is a new twist to it. God has given me the full of Proverbs 13:12, bringing to my attention the last part of the verse. “Hope deferred makes the heart grow sick, but a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.” Really, Lord?! We feel this is God’s invitation for us to come back and harvest what we helped sow in prayer 15 years ago. Am I excited? You bet I am! I am poring back through the many pages I have of promises that God gave me in 1998-1999, and claiming every one of them. I’ve felt the Lord whisper to my heart, I never make a promise I don’t keep.

Another exciting part of this is that our precious church in McKinney is sending us to do the church plant! Though we will be a thousand miles away, we are still connected to a people we love and we will have their support as we go on this new adventure. Many dear friends in Phoenix are also praying for us and some are even planning to come help get the church off the ground. Our hearts overflow with thankfulness.

Father, I thank you for this opportunity to share of your faithfulness and your calling. We are privileged to be at your service. Thank you for the promises that you have given every believer in your Word. Help us to know those promises and may they carry us through difficult times. Thank you that we can trust you always. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.