Recently I was challenged by the passing of a blessed saint. By the time I met this lovely woman of God she was well in age and was known simply as Ms. Inga. I’d seen her every so often in service and at different church functions. Always very kind and always speaking blessings in her German accented voice.
Over the years her health had declined and she was not able to attend church as often as she like. It had been many year since I had seen her. In fact, a few months ago I had the opportunity to deliver a fruit basket to her, when I as her I realized just how many years it had been since I had seen her. When I got back from that delivery I had the opportunity to talk to one of our leaders and they began to tell me several great stories of Ms Inga.
From these stories I have found Ms. Inga to have been one powerful woman of God. A woman who ‘s prayer life cause the foundations of hell to shake and the heavens to move. She was a woman who did not hesitate to touch heaven not just for loved ones, but for the world.
One story stuck out to me though. Not some much a story but a habit of hers. Often people would call Ms. Inga up seeking nothing more than prayer. She’d answer the phone and people would just unload load after load of pressure placed upon their shoulders. In her lap people placed lives, hopes, and dreams asking her to lift it up to the Lord. Each time her reply was the same. It was simple it was direct. In her strong yet sweet German accented voice she’d say two words….
“I go.”
She’d then hang up the phone and go straight to her knees and pray. We aren’t talking a quick simple prayer; where you casually look for the TV remote while you mutter a generic stream of supposedly spiritual words. Rather, she would pray and seek the Lord until she felt the burden was lifted. She would do something that sadly many of my generation knows little of, she’d pray through.
This… challenges me. When I heard about this I had to check my heart and ask myself, when people come to me with their burdens….. do I say, “I go.” Do I hit the floor and pray until the burden is lifted? Or do I half heartedly say, “yeah I’ll be praying,” and walk away thinking of it no more.
I’ve been to youth camps, conventions, pastoral meetings where people talk about the great exploits of God and requests for prayers are passed around like playing cards on a table, but how many of us have been challenged to say, “I go.” The implications, the heaviness of those two words have truly gripped my spirit.
When Ms. Inga would say, “I go,” she said so with the understanding that she was about to enter into battle field. She said so knowing that when she hit her knees that the sound would resonate in the caverns of Hell in such a way that Satan trembled. She said so knowing that God looked down on her with the pride that only a father could have for his child. She did so knowing the world would forever be changed by her following
actions.
Adonai, I pray that when a burden is dropped into my spirit next, that I will have the strength, the stamina, that humility to say, “I go.”
