Kingdom Woman: Embracing Your Purpose, Power, and Possibilities (9 page)

If you don’t have a lot, that’s okay. God can take your little and turn it into much when you commit to following His path for you. In fact, He can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or
imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.” (Ephesians 3:20).

Being a kingdom woman of commitment involves making a decision based in faith to follow God’s prescribed path while aligning yourself under His authority. It will rarely be the path you would have chosen on your own, but it will always lead you to your destiny, which is a far greater place to be than no place at all.

In a memorable poem written in the style of Dr. Seuss, a character named Zoad is similar to so many of us and our inability to commit to a solitary direction by faith:

     
Did I ever tell you about the young Zoad?

     
Who came to a sign at the fork of the road?

     
He looked one way and the other way too


     
The Zoad had to make up his mind what to d
o
—

     
Well, the Zoad scratched his head, and his chin, and his pants.

     
And he said to himself, “I’ll be taking a chance.


     
If I go to Place One, that place may be hot

     
so how will I know if I like it or not?

     
On the other hand, though, I’ll feel such a fool

     
If I go to Place Two and find it’s too cool.

     
In that case I may catch a chill and turn blue.

     
So Place One may be best and not Place Two.”

     
“Play safe,” cried the Zoad, “I’ll play safe, I’m no dunce.

     
I’ll simply start off to both places at once.”

     
And that’s how the Zoad, who would not take a chance,

     
went no place at all with a split in his pants.
[27]

God has given kingdom women the direction and path that He wants you to follow. And if He has not revealed each and every step at this very moment, my advice is to just continue walking until He reveals the next step. God’s path is the pathway of faith. Following Him, even if you cannot see the destination up ahead, is the surest way to become all you were created to be. Issues arise, though, if you attempt to mix the world’s wisdom with godly wisdom. That is when you end up going no place at all instead of arriving at the destiny uniquely for you.

5

A few years ago an interesting event occurred in South Carolina. I was scheduled to speak at a crusade at Williams-Brice Stadium, which is the football stadium of the University of South Carolina. The weather report had predicted rain. In fact, it had said that there would be a storm.

More than twenty-five thousand people had already gathered in the stadium and were waiting for the crusade to begin, when we saw the storm clouds forming. So we, the leaders and organizers of the crusade, wanted to pray that God would hold back the rain.

We went downstairs into a small room, gathered together, and began to pray. Of course, we prayed things like, “Dear God, please hold back the rain” and “If it’s Your will, God, could You hold back that rain?”

Yet in the midst of all of us praying, a petite woman named Linda came forward. Perhaps she had gotten frustrated with the prayers of the so-called professionals—the preachers and the leaders.

Whatever the case, Linda stood up and asked, “Do you mind if I pray?”

What else could we say but “Go ahead”?

Linda prayed, “Lord, Your name is at stake. We told these people that if they would come out tonight they would hear a word from God. We told them
they would hear from You. Now, if they come and You let it rain, and You don’t control the weather, then You will look bad. We told them that You wanted to say something to them, and if You don’t keep back what You can control—the weather—someone could say that Your name is no good.”

And then she threw in a line that caused us all to look at each other out of the corners of our eyes. “Therefore right now I ask in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ for the rain to stop for the sake of Your Name!”

With that, we opened our eyes. Eyebrows went up. All we could say and think was “Whoa. Did she really just pray that?”

Following the prayers, we all went up and sat on the platform. The sky had now become entirely black behind us. A guy who had been assigned to communicate directly with the weather bureau said, “The showers are coming. They are heavy thunderstorms, and they are coming right at us.”

It is now 7:00
PM
, and the music is beginning. It is time to start the crusade when massive thunder and lightning surrounded us. People began to stir in their seats. Some even started to get up and open their umbrellas.

Linda was on the stage with the rest of us. While umbrellas began to go up in the audience, and several on the stage, Linda sat there confident. A quiet look of expectation covered her face.

Then something happened that I have only seen once in my entire life. The rain rushed toward the stadium like a wall of water. Yet when it hit the stadium, it split. Half of the rain went on one side of the stadium. The other half went on the other side. Then it literally met on the other side of the stadium. All the while, Linda sat there with a confident look on her face. The rest of us, the preachers and leaders, just looked at each other. We looked at the rain going around the stadium, then we looked at each other again. Then we looked at Linda. Linda stared straight ahead.

Now, this is not a story that someone told me. I was there. In fact, my family was there with me. Not only that, but twenty-five thousand people were there with me too. And all of us saw a miracle that night right in front of our eyes. I believe that God paid special attention to Linda’s prayer because she had great faith.

She knew God’s name. She understood that His name represented His character. And her prayer appealed to that which mattered most to Him. She knew how to speak God’s language.

I believe Linda’s prayer ushered in a miracle because she realized that God is passionate for His own reputation. She put her faith in God. Her petite frame held power, simply because she was intimately connected with and invested in God’s name. Because the rain moved around the stadium, the crowd was protected so they could hear the gospel and respond with open hearts, having just witnessed a weather phenomenon.

When kingdom women become passionate about what God is passionate about, positive change can occur in lives, families, communities, and even our nation.

Hannah

The Bible contains stories of women who faced seemingly impossible situations. Yet time and time again, these women exhibited a faith arguably stronger than most men in Scripture. Women have a unique capacity for faith, and it is one of the primary ways to advance God’s kingdom. The first woman I want to look at is in 1 Samuel. Hannah was barren. She couldn’t have any children. In fact, the reason she couldn’t have any children is because God Himself had closed her womb (1:5). There wasn’t simply a biological limitation in Hannah’s life. There was a spiritual reason and God’s doing behind her physical reality.

Not only could Hannah not conceive, but she was also living in an unpleasant environment. She lived in a culture where a woman’s identity was often closely linked, if not entirely linked, to her ability to bear children. People around Hannah made fun of her. They put her down. One woman in particular disturbed Hannah the most. This was Peninnah. She was also a wife of Hannah’s husband, Elkanah.

As a result, Hannah turned to God.

Oh, God-of-the-Angel-Armies,

If you’ll take a good, hard look at my pain,

If you’ll quit neglecting me and go into action for me

By giving me a son,

I’ll give him completely, unreservedly to you.

I’ll set him apart for a life of holy discipline. (1:10–11,
MSG
)

In a situation she could not fix, Hannah asked God to reverse the way things had been all of her adult life. Hannah approached her physical problem spiritually. Just like Linda who understood that the storm had less to do with the clouds in the air than it had to do with God’s ability to hold back those clouds, Hannah sought her relief and assistance from the only One who could bring it. She sought out a spiritual solution to a physical need.

When Hannah sought God as the solution to her problem, she placed her faith in Him. In fact, she went a step beyond that. She told God that if He would
give
her a son, then she would
give
that same son back to serve Him in the temple all the days of his life. She looked to God as the answer and sought to honor Him in the process. With that, He provided Hannah with a son. The Scripture says,

An important principle of living by faith is knowing that if God is the cause of whatever issue you are facing, then only God can be the solution. It doesn’t matter whom you know, what your name is, how powerful you are, or how much money you have. God is your source. Everyone and everything else is just a resource. Because the Lord
remembere
d
Hannah, her womb was opened.

Hannah kept her word after giving birth to Samuel. She gave him to the Lord for service in the temple. The son whom she had prayed for all of those years was given back to God, just as she said she would do. But what is interesting is that after Hannah gave to God the very thing that she wanted all along—her child—He in turn gave her a home full of children. In 1 Samuel 2, we discover that not only did Hannah give birth to Samuel, but she also went on to give birth to three more sons and two daughters (verse 2:21). Not only did God respond to Hannah’s faith by answering her prayer, but He also went beyond her request to fill her home with five children. He honored her act of faith in giving Samuel back to Him.

The Widow of Zarephath

In 1 Kings, we come across another woman who demonstrated the power of faith in the face of impossible odds. A famine had hit the land where she lived, making it difficult for her to survive. The economy had crumbled, and the country was experiencing far more than a recession. It was a depression affecting countless individuals.

God had instructed the prophet Elijah to go to a place called Zarephath, where a widow lived. God told Elijah that He had commanded the widow to provide for Elijah. However, when Elijah met the woman at the gate to the city, he faced reluctance on her part. At first when he asked her for a cup of water, she was willing to give that to him and started to go get it. Yet when he asked for some bread with his water, she wasn’t so eager to do that:

The woman did not plan on eating again after this meal. She explained to Elijah that she couldn’t give him anything because she didn’t have anything to give.

Yet Elijah had gotten a different message from God. God had told Elijah that He had commanded the woman to help Elijah. In that confidence, Elijah instructed the woman to not be afraid. He asked her to go make a bread cake for him, but then he told her something else. See, the woman said she did not have enough. Elijah knew that she was down to her last serving of grain. But Elijah told her that if she would make him a cake, then she could make some for herself and her son as well. There would be enough for all of them.

The widow had no future. She had no savings. She had no provision. She had no hope. Yet in the face of uncertainty and famine, Elijah asked her to demonstrate faith. What did the woman do? Exactly what Elijah told her that God said to do. She obeyed.

I wonder what she must have been thinking as she scooped up the last bit of flour and turned it into a bread cake. Most likely, it wasn’t going to be a tasty bread cake. I can’t imagine that she had any seasoning at that point, and she
definitely didn’t have anything to go with it. I’m not sure the word
cake
gives the right impression. It might have looked more like a bread ball when all was said and done. Whatever the case, the widow used what she had left to obey God.

She gave something to a complete stranger over feeding her son. Her maternal instincts must have been screaming at her, yet her faith overrode them. If she was really going to be able to provide a future for her son, she was going to have to ignore the desire to feed him the last bit of food she had left. She was going to have to put all of her eggs, or at least all of her flour, in one basket—God’s basket.

Yet when she did, “the jar of flour was not used up and the jug of oil did not run dry, in keeping with the word of the
LORD
spoken by Elijah” (verse 16).

Elijah’s request wasn’t practical. In fact, it might not have even seemed moral: to give food intended to feed her son to someone else. What was Elijah thinking to make such a high demand? He knew that the God who instructed him to do so would make good on His word.

It didn’t make sense. In fact, it was downright ridiculous. Yet God had asked. And she obeyed in faith. She had the faith of Linda. The faith of Hannah. She had faith that would bring heaven down to earth.

This is my take on the passage: God knew about this particular woman’s faith and that is why He sent Elijah to her. There were many widows at that time. The famine had gone on for almost four years. But not every widow gained God’s attention, because not every widow demonstrated a heart of faith. Somewhere along the line, God had seen this widow act in faith. He knew that if He asked her to do what seemed entirely unreasonable, but which would bring His blessing and favor, she would do it.

He didn’t choose her randomly. Her actions, thoughts, and decisions leading up to that point had made her a woman who caught God’s special attention. Besides that, she lived outside of Israel in the Phoenician city of Sidon. God didn’t go to the “church” to find the woman He was going to use. He didn’t go down and visit the nearest Bible study. This is because sometimes the greatest faith is found in the most surprising places, simply because faith depends upon relationship rather than religion. Religion can be one of the greatest hindrances to faith because it creates dependency on a ritual rather than on the God of the
universe who can do all things.