The Story of a Prayer for Writing – Episode #616

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The Story of a Prayer for Writing
Episode #616
9-23-2018

With Martha Kilpatrick and hosted by John Enslow

This is the continuation of a series of Podcasts started in Episode #615.
We tend to find Jesus most powerfully in our weakness. This is the story of a prayer for writing that changed a man’s mind, his abilities, his very life.

Martha:
This testimony is a statement of a reconciliation to God about everything that John didn’t like in his life.  It’s how far reconciliation goes. It’s goes to the ultimate. If we will allow it to, we will see God’s hand in every single moment of our lives. And that’s what’s exciting about it. That’s what you see that’s different. You vindicate God. You come to the ultimate reconciliation with Him about your own suffering and your own dilemmas. So I’m very enthused about it. You’ve been working sitting out here on this porch overlooking this blue, marvelous ocean. He’s worked for hours and it just seemed to flow. It was like the living waters, wasn’t it, John?

John:
It really was. I was able to write a couple of blog posts for GetAloneWithGod.com and then I was able to get into the testimony. And I finished that, sent that back to Jennifer, and then I actually went through the manuscript about the exchanged life. And I was able to hack away a bunch of things that… I wanted to streamline it, I want it to be really focused and honed down and direct. And I don’t want there to be some rabbit trails in that. And, so I’m, I’ve gotten through the first part of that and then I’ll be working on that as well to get that finished. So I don’t know. There’s just a bunch of stuff going on. We just really, really, really need prayer. And, and we would love to include you in some, you know, praise and prayer reports and asking you and if, really, if you are interested in joining us in, into prayer and be getting some of this stuff forward and to go in the direction that we’re going and that will, will build over the weeks and months to come, I would just love you to contact us and say, “Hey, I would really, really love to be a part of that. I would really love to join you in prayer. I would really love to get updates to know where you’re going and what’s happening so that I can be joining with you and seeing God’s purpose and plan working out.”

Martha:
My time here was to rest and I wanted it to be about reading, too. And I, I have read a book that has changed my life about prayer and I’m going to be sharing that with you in future podcasts and hopefully we can make that book available.

John:
I believe we’ll be able to do that, yeah.

Martha:
It’s an amazing, life changing book. And it’s radically affected my understanding of prayer and my commitment to prayer. And so prayer is how everything comes about. So I’m anxious to share it. I’m in, I’m on fire. So it was a gift to me of rest in a different way than I expected. I didn’t lie around. I was reading and praying all the time. So I’ll tell you about that later. And I know that will happen. And I won’t have to come and say, “I’m not talking about the book because I’ve already finished it!” I can do that as the Lord is willing.

I want you to read some from your manuscript. One thing about John’s testimony that’s so amazing to me is that when he was four years old, he would go out in the yard and throw notes up in the sky to God. His parents at that point in time weren’t particularly churchgoers, were they, John?

John:
No, not at all.

Martha:
And I asked, “How did you know about God?” And he didn’t know. And I never had such a consciousness of God at that age. I think it was much later, maybe eight or nine that I had any awareness that there was a God. So this is the story of God’s sovereignty over this, sovereignty over this man that God was revealing Himself from the very beginning and wooing you to Himself and you were already writing back then. When you first came, I told you, you would be a writer and God said you were a genius. And you didn’t, you couldn’t see it, could you, John? You couldn’t absolutely see it.

John:
Not at all!

Martha:
And you’re getting better and better and more and more prolific as a writer.

John:
Well, you know something? I want to, I want to kinda give a little bit of shout out to you about that because, yeah, you did, you saw, you had a vision, ok. And you saw something in me and something I didn’t even see in myself. And, but I want you to… I mean when you said, “You’re a genius,” that was shocking to me. I was like, “You’re kidding!” But I want you to tell about the prayer, the prayer you did over my mind and how originally when we were working together and I was writing stuff, it was awful. It was gruesome. And, you know, we basically had to go where… You’d say, “Okay, why don’t you just tell me and I’ll write it down?” And then that’s how I eventually, that’s how I started writing. So, but I want you to tell a little bit about that.

Martha:
Ok. Well, first of all I didn’t know it that you were to be a writer. I do feel that my calling is writing and that I want to foster that in other people but the Lord told me that. And I love when God gives you a clear objective. And so… But you probably would have been considered a learning disability as a child. I don’t think you had one. Maybe you did.

John:
I had probably…I mean, they’d probably have me on Ritalin from ADHD. I was, my brain was kind of chaotic. And so, yeah, they probably would have put me on Ritalin and I would have been sitting drooling in a chair with the rest of the kids.

Martha:
Terrible! But what God called me to do with John was to lay hands on his head and pray for the healing of his brain. And it was a lot of stress. There had to be healing from stress. I don’t remember the prayers I prayed. But I’m learning prophetic praying. That is to say you pray what you see is God’s intention. And so I don’t know how many times I prayed for your mind and your head. And the way you’re writing now your vocabulary increases with every writing that you do. And your skill at writing is always developing. So, forgive me, I’m really excited because what God has done in your life, I didn’t do it. I simply prayed what He told me to pray. But… And we did sit many times on painful things where you had something to say and I wanted you to write it and literally I would have to have you, “Ok, just tell me.” We spent many, many times doing that, didn’t we, John?

John:
We spent years doing it that way. It was years doing it that way. And, you know, I would be, I would be sitting there and you’d just come up behind me sometimes and you’d put your hands on my head and I knew you were praying for my brain. And, you know, you didn’t have to say anything. You didn’t have to use any words or anything like that. I just knew that the Spirit was doing that. But there was years that you would, you know… I would say “this is what I’m getting and this is…” and I would try to write it down and it was convoluted. It was, it was…

Martha:
Complicated!

John:
Complicated! It was more complicated than clear. And so basically you said, “Ok, tell it to me. Would you just tell it to me?”

Martha:
And so now he’s more prolific than any anybody in Shulamite Ministries. And I’m very, I’m proud of the Lord because… And I’m proud of John’s submission to just keep going at it. I kept saying, “You’ve got to, you’ve got to do this.” And he would try. And so it’s a wonderful victory of the Lord and it’s a wonderful vindication of the Lord and that makes me really happy.         

The Story of a Prayer for Writing – Episode #616 – Shulamite Podcast

The power and love of Jesus Christ isn’t always found in the story of our giftings. Sometimes we find Him most profoundly in the places we’re weak. This is the story of a prayer for writing that changed a man’s mind, his abilities, and his very life.