hands and feet

yesterday afternoon, my brother, my best friend and i had agreed to meet at the apartment after we were each done with whatever else we had going on, and we would watch a movie.

when i called my brother after my job was completed, he had an adventure ready for us.

so around 3:45 yesterday afternoon, my brother, my best friend and i headed to the flea market.

personally, i'm not a fan- i'll just make that clear. too crowded, too much stuff, and i just don't like the overall atmosphere.

but we had come on a mission. my brother had gone to this particular flea market a few weeks ago and had seen someone he wanted to minister to. specifically, a tarot card reader.

we arrived in the tarot card reader's section of the flea market, and the atmosphere immediately changed. do you ever get that off-feeling when you can sense the spiritual warfare? sometimes it's around a movie you shouldn't watch, when you walk into a house where Jesus is not welcomed, or when you walk up to a tarot card reader's booth. in the simplest terms, it just plain feels bad. this is the atmosphere change we experienced when we walked closer to her booth. she was with a customer, so we waited impatiently as we felt the battle all around us.

my friend and i let my brother do the majority of the talking, because this lady was such a burden in his heart. he asked her a bit about what she did, and they talked about the differences between all the witchcraft-fortune telling-tarot card reading and the gift of the Holy Spirit we know as prophecy. the lady was very acceptant of what we had to say, but she didn't seem otherwise interested, and her priority was obviously packing up her booth to go home. we knew this, so we stated our point: that we didn't come to intimidate her or be intimidated by her. we came to tell her that Jesus loves her, and that we love her, too. could we pray for her?

the atmosphere shifted.

she agreed to a prayer, and respectfully bowed her head, closed her eyes, and even held our hands as the three of us prayed for her upcoming surgery she mentioned and for a proclamation of truth in her life. amen.

the atmosphere snapped.

she looked up at us and said, "now that was powerful." we told her that there is power in prayer, and power in the blood of Jesus. she responded, "yes, but that was boldness."

as we left her booth, we passed other vendors who pulled us aside and told us how glad they were that we had talked to her and prayed for her! they were Christians, they said, and they weren't scared of her, but they wouldn't talk to her.

this broke my heart.

dear fellow Christ-followers, let's be the hands and feet of Jesus. what we preach is essentially worthless if we don't live it.