Danny is a disciple-maker and preacher who lives in New Hampshire. Before he and his wife moved there, they visited to scout out the area and met a young man at church whom Danny added to his prayer calendar. Through Danny's faithfulness to reach out to this man he barely knew, he learned that God was working mightily in his life and had the opportunity to invite him into a Discovery Bible Study. Here is Danny to tell the story!
Danny Added His Future Neighbors to His Prayer Calendar
"The prayer calendar has given us a tool with which to consistently reach out to people, show them we love them, and to do it in a way that isn't irritating and gives God time to work."
My wife, Kim, and I fell in love with the Prayer Calendar almost as soon as we heard about it. I got so excited by this simple discipline that I went a little overboard and ended up with a lot more than the thirty people Paul Watson had recommended.
Some months before Kim and I moved to New Hampshire, we came out to visit. During our time here, we attended a church where we met a young man -- we'll call him Dylan -- and his girlfriend. They both seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. What I remember is that the girlfriend was very connected to the congregation while this young man was mostly just there because she was.
In the course of our visit I managed to get the numbers of some folks from the congregation, including Dylan's, and added them to my prayer calendar. Then my wife and I headed back home and began making preparations for the move. During that time I stayed in touch with those whose numbers I had gotten. Once a month I reached out to them to ask how I could be praying for them.
What I love is that the prayer calendar has given us a tool with which to consistently reach out to people, show them we love them, and to do it in a way that isn't irritating and gives God time to work.
When Kim and I came back, I heard that Dylan and his girlfriend had had an ugly breakup. Word was he was in the wind, but I had his phone number and figured I'd check in on him. The previous times I'd reached out to Dylan as part of my prayer calendar had been received in silence. I figured my texts may be annoying him or he was just too preoccupied with other things to bother responding. In any case, I didn't have any expectation of hearing back from him.
But this time he responded!
God Had Been Working Miraculously In Dylan's Life
"There was humility there that I hadn't expected from someone who had walked away from faith and given up on prayer."
In the course of our chat, Dylan told me that he had fallen away, lost faith and given up on prayer. During that season in his life, his father had gotten incredibly sick. When they took him to the doctor, Dylan and his family were heartbroken to learn that his dad had stage-four cancer of the bones and prostate and wasn't expected to live more than a few weeks.
The enormity of this bombshell caused Dylan to rethink his spiritual situation, if only enough to give prayer one more chance. In an act of desperation, Dylan decided to pray for his father one last time asking God for confirmation that He heard him. And then Dylan added a phrase that struck me. He said, "not that I deserved it." There was humility there that I hadn't expected from someone who had walked away from faith and given up on prayer.
What followed that plea was nothing short of a miracle. Dylan's father's cancer is now gone, or almost gone! His dad's condition has improved so much that the doctors themselves say he no longer needs chemotherapy. How incredible is that? Praise God for such an answer to prayer!
If that were all there is to the story, that would be amazing, but it isn't.
Simply Checking In Led to Friendship and a DBS
"I think my biggest takeaway, and something that's blown my mind, is that if we are simply obedient to follow God where He leads, He will open doors."
Dylan's own faith journey and way of thinking were completely turned upside down by how God answered his plea.
Now, I'm not the brightest bulb on the shelf, but I know enough to recognize when a door is blasting wide open. After hearing Dylan's story, I met him for a one-on-one at the local Panera. It was a time of getting to know one another better and determining what our relationship would look like.
It was there that I learned that not only were most of Dylan's family not believers, but a lot of them had very angrily rejected God. His situation had not simply been one of not getting support for his faith, but getting active antagonism against it.
After that first one-on-one we started doing a Discovery Bible Study together and and he's been loving it! Now that God's confirmation of His presence has reinvigorated Dylan's hunger for spiritual things, it's so cool to see him earnestly reading God's Word. Because of his background, Dylan isn't coming into his Bible reading with a lot of the theological and behavioral baggage that so many long-time Christians do. There's so much he's discovering and learning to obey for the first time, and I'm thrilled to be walking alongside him on this journey.
I think my biggest takeaway, and something that's blown my mind, is that if we are simply obedient to follow God where He leads, He will open doors. He will even open doors far away from our social circles. I'm 62 years old and Dylan is 22, and we're buddies now!
In closing, I'd like to say that I'm happy and hopeful. I've still got a lot to learn about logistics, planning and prayer mobilization, but God is good and I'm excited to see what He will do in and through Dylan, and in and through my wife and I as we continue to be intentional about implementing our prayer calendars.
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