From: Laelia
Date: Wed Aug 19 18:02:00 EDT 2009
Subject: 

There were a lot of things that stood out to me, challenged me, were a blessing about the drumming circle. For one, I just really loved hearing people share their hearts and two, I loved the ten minutes we spent in quiet praying. The one major thing that I took away from it was this: During the prayer time we were supposed to pray that God would help us use our spiritual gifts and "come upon us with power" to use them in the Body and in the world around us. I had never prayed that before! Actually it surprised me that I had never been encouraged to pray for that before. All my life in the church we would learn about Spiritual gifts and sort of be taught to use them in the church, but in a limited, "safe" manner. SO, when I started praying for God to come upon me in power and to SHOW me how He wants me to use the gifts he gave me, it suddenly dawned on me that this is not a "safe" prayer to pray! Usually when I think of the gifts, I was taught to think...use your gifts in the nursery, or going door to door evangelizing, or working in the office, write an encouraging letter to a friend etc. While those are areas to use our gifts, I remembered that in scripture, God worked through his people in some mighty strange, terrifying ways! David faced Goliath, Moses led a whole mob of cranky people through a desert to freedom, Elijah stood up in front of the most evil king/queen, Samuel advised, annointed and warned kings, Esther saved her entire people, etc- in other words, when you ask God something like, "Come upon me in power and show me how you want me to use the gifts you gave me," expect some unexpected results! The idea scared me and I wasn't quite sure if I wanted to pray it, until God reminded me of this verse: "Isaiah 41:10- So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand." That totally gave me peace so I was able to continue praying and I was suddenly excited to see what God has planned for me/us as a result of our prayers! No more playing it safe!