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The Power of Praying as God Asks
Episode #669
9/29/2019
With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow
Special Guest: Jennifer Wentzel and Joan Wentzel
This is the continuation of a series of podcasts started in Episode #668.
It’s not unusual to pray over a person or situation without knowing the details of what is happening. But praying as God asks isn’t always done blindly.
Martha:
When we did the recording for the Message of the Month, John didn’t participate in the story but this time I want to hear some things from him that he went through in, in the whole process because he was with it for months. What’s, what do you remember about it, John, that…
John:
Well, it was really cool because I wasn’t focused on it. It was like it was being brought up continually to me. And like, you know, I would all of a sudden, boom, I’d have it. And, and, it’d be in my face and I’d deal with it in prayer and then I’d, you know, pray for it and then the kind of the burden would go away. And, you know, I, I didn’t know from day to day if it was over, it was done, if I was, you know, if my part had, had been complete. But, you know, I just kept on, I just kept on waiting and listening.
Martha:
You were available.
John:
I was…
Martha:
That’s it. That’s the deal.
John:
I was available, absolutely.
Martha:
To God!
John:
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was, I was, I was there and I was available and I just waited.
Martha:
And you really weren’t involved in, in the new reports as such, were you?
John:
No. Occasionally I would hear something about him and, you know, it, it sparked prayer. But usually it was, it was just kind of just the Spirit. It was just the Spirit would say something.
Jennifer:
And that’s, that’s what I think is so amazing about that, John, because the news if you were watching the news and I was, because at the time I was knee deep in my news addiction, Steve Scalise was out of the news in four days. He was out of the major media in four days and so was his killer. So if you were relying on the news to prompt you to remember to pray, you would not be praying, okay? It would not have happened. I know this because I remember saying to myself, “It’s day five and this guy is nowhere to be found and neither is his psycho, psycho shooter.” It’s like the whole thing they just wanted to, whoop, let’s just pretend that never happened. So that’s what’s amazing to me because if you had relied on the news, you would not have been in it to win it.
John:
So that’s what was cool is that He would bring it up. The Lord was bringing it up to me and would tell me. And you, you mentioned, you know, when, when he took a downturn and I didn’t, I didn’t know. Yeah, I had never even seen the guy. I didn’t know what he looked like. I knew nothing about him. I just knew Steve Scalise and I, you know, I had to actually go Google him to find out where he was from and, you know, what his congressional district was and who he was. But, so then, you know, he did, he made a major downturn and I knew it in my heart. My, my spirit was just so troubled. And so I started searching, actually, you know, to see. I was praying but then I actually searched online to say, “What’s happening, what’s happening?” It was a day or two later that I found out that, yes, his, he, what is it called? Sepsis? So he turned septic.
So, the, you know, it, it literally, his injury… I, I just knew it. I knew, I knew that something with his injury had, had taken a downturn and that it, it put him in kind of a critical condition. And so I just really, really, really… That’s when I brought it to you the most is when I was like ,“This is really bad. This is, this is really bad.” And then when I found out that, that he had, had gone septic and he, his body basically… I think he even had… I was, I, I thought, what was going through my head was MRSA and staff infections and stuff like that. Because literally what had happened was the bullet went into his hip and it shattered the bone and the bone became almost like shrapnel that went through and sliced through all of the organs, the blood. It was just… Externally when you looked at him, there was no issue. It, it, I mean you obviously saw he had been shot but it was the internal deal and that’s why they, they had to do so much because they were saying, “What is happening with him? Why is his vitals doing this? What is happening?” And it was because literally it was like his own bone became shrapnel inside his body and just cut organs and, and, and blood vessels, and everything like that. And so he’s bleeding out.
So they went in and they, they, they basically did all the surgery to put him back together. But then some kind of infection turned and, and he start… And I, I, I just, I was like “Whoa, ok!” So I really started praying about that.
Martha:
So what was the end of that siege? I know he had a number of surgeries, just, count, countless surgeries. But he came through that part, didn’t he?
John:
Yeah, they, they, everything that they did, they turned, turned everything around and, and, you know they addressed…. I mean they gave him top notch. I mean he had had the best doctors obviously because they were on it. They were, they were fighting for his life.
But I know that, you know, the doctors had only so much that they could do. I know that whoever was praying with me for him and I know that there’s been a lot of people because he testifies of that in his book; how many people had, you know, responded and told him that they were praying for him. You know you got all those people praying that say it. What about all the people like me who never told him?
So he was covered. He was covered in prayer for whatever reason and it, it turned it around. It turned it around and I prayed all the way until the point that I saw him at an interview. And shortly after we actually listened, you know. We did the book. It may have been after that. Anyway, I, I saw an interview with him and, and… I guess the house majority leader. So it was Kevin McCarthy and, and Scalise and they were there and they were talking about something. I don’t remember. But anyway… And I, and I saw them and, and I said, “Ok, ok.” I mean he had a cane and, you know…
To hear the book I cried. I cried a lot because I, I knew, I, I was like, “That’s when I was really freaked out. That’s when I had urgency. That’s what happened.” So I actually heard the back-story of, of what I was praying for which is really, really neat. It’s special. That was special because, you know, it’s one thing to pray and, and then all of a sudden somebody’s better. It’s another thing to literally have a blow-by-blow accounting of it and to see that was the day I was praying.
Martha:
How did you feel when you read the story and listened about the victory?
John:
Well, I knew God had, had, had really done the victory. That it, it was something that the Lord did and I knew that Steve was chosen and Steve was called and Steve was purposed. There was something about Steve.
And, you know, this isn’t the first shooting. You know they had what was her name, Gifford, who was shot in the head? Gabby Gifford or whatever it was. She was shot in the head. I didn’t have anything for her.
It just, there was something about him. I had, I had no idea even what party he was in until I, you know, did some research. I didn’t know anything about him. It was just, it was just like God was saying, “This is, this is who you’re praying for.” So I did.
And, and reading it, reading the, the testimony of it, it, I remember you and I were going over to Myrtle Beach to write and I remember crying. I just cried and you cried. We both cried. We were listening to it while we were there; we listened to it on the way there. And it was just, it was an amazing testimony and an amazing book to hear it but then to be a part of it and hear it was even better.
Martha:
I kind of see it as a great, massive organization that God put together, of people who knows where. They’ve got many letters from people who did pray but as you say that’s… Who knows what it is. But it’s like God can do anything. He can, if He wants prayer for a situation, He can, He can call for it and it’s just a matter of being available. And you were available for a long, long time really, months and months.
John:
Yeah, it was a charge. It was something I was involved with, you know, kind of continually and it didn’t leave me. It’s not like I was on it. It didn’t leave me. So that was the big difference.
The Power of Praying as God Asks – Episode #669 – Shulamite Podcast
It’s not unusual to pray over a person or situation without knowing the details of what is happening. But praying as God asks isn’t always done blindly. Sometimes we are given the gift of seeing behind the scenes of our heart’s cry in glorious detail!
