It's Festival Season! Soul Survivor and New Wine both begin this weekend, and one of the speakers at both festivals is Robby Dawkins. Robby believes that the powerful and life changing things Jesus and his disciples did were not just for Bible times. In his ministry to hurting people, Robby sees ordinary people touched by God's power, through simple faith in God's Word. He has seen this time and again, but it wasn't always so.
When God reached out to Robby, he was a discouraged youth pastor working in a small, dysfunctional church. He believed God could do miracles (in theory), but the truth was that he was thoroughly turned off by the hype, manipulation and abuse surrounding many ministries. He was stuck, resigned to a faith which mainly involved trudging from day to day without expecting too much.
* * * * * * *
The day that God chose to interrupt me, I wasn't thinking of anyone but myself. I had been hired as a youth pastor, but my vision of ministry had pretty much been brought to its knees by the reality of answering phones and doing the menial tasks that consumed my days. That particular day, I was in a terrible mood. I felt deeply unappreciated by my senior pastor and his family. I felt far from God and from all of the things He had called me to. I was angry and hurt. This was not in any way my shining moment as a Christ follower.
The phone rang, and I answered it halfheartedly. Probably another sales call, I thought, or maybe a message for me to deliver.
The woman on the phone introduced herself hesitatingly. "Look, I don't really know what to ask," she began. "I don't go to church. As a matter of fact, I'm not even a Christian," she offered apologetically. "I just picked a church from the phone book because my father's going in for heart surgery right now. He's in bad shape, and the doctors say they really don't think he's going to make it. We had to press them to go ahead with the surgery."
She sounded fragile and worn as she explained this was her father's third bypass surgery, and it most likely meant the end of his life. She didn't know where else to turn, but it had crossed her mind to call a church. She hoped someone would burn a candle, rub some beads for her father, sing a hymn or say a prayer for him in his final stages.
As she tried to rationalize to herself and to me why she had reached out to us, I could tell she was a little embarrassed. Maybe she even regretted that she had bothered to call at all. What could I do? I offered to pray for the surgery with her, though I didn't really want to. It sounded as though her father definitely wasn't going to make it.
"Well..." I paused reluctantly, "I could pray for him..."
* * * * *
The prayer which followed began with little hope or expectation of this man's recovery. Yet as he prayed, he felt God speak to him: "Get out on a limb." Then, "Take a risk." With no real idea of what he was about to say, he found himself saying that God was going to heal the woman's father and give him a new heart! He was horrified and tried to pull back what he had said...
* * * * *
"What you need to know is that I've never prayed for anyone and seen them healed before. You should know that most of the time when I pray for people, they get sicker, and some have even died. I know that God can do things like what I just prayed, but He's never used me to do them. What I just said probably won't happen."
I was panic-stricken. What if this woman got her hopes up and wound up terribly disappointed? It would all be my fault.
She interrupted me. "You said God is going to give my dad a brand-new heart?"
I gulped out, "Yes, but -"
She cut me off with a brief "Thank you!" and hung up the phone.
When the woman called again crying hours later, my heart sank... "Your dad," I said, "he's ...dead?"
She said, "No - he's doing great!"
Nobody was more surprised to hear that than me.
"Yes, that's right..." She pressed out the story through her tears. "When the doctors opened him up, they said my father had a brand-new heart!" She explained how several years ago her father had had a valve replacement. The doctors had implanted a heart valve from a pig to save his life. All of that was gone. All the scar tissue from the previous surgery was gone. The doctor said it was like the heart of a thirty-year-old man.
I was absolutely stunned.
It is also available as an ebook.
ISBN: 9780800795573
Paperback
£8.99
"Robby does a marvellous job of letting the reader know that if he can walk in a miracle lifestyle, anyone can. He acknowledges the reality of the dead not always getting raised, the bills sometimes barely getting paid and healing not always manifesting as we think it should. It is honest and without hype.
Then there is the fact that miracles sometimes happen in spite of faithless prayers. It was this experience that sent Robby on a dive into a Gospel that does what it says it will do."
Bill Johnson, Bethel Church, Redding - from the foreword.
"I loved the inspiring stories, as well as the practical insight into how to hear from God and relay what He is showing you to others. A very interesting, inspiring and encouraging book."
Randy Clark, founder and president of The Apostolic Network of Global Awakening
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