When I first began to seek God as a teenager, he encouraged me by answering small prayers. As I have grown in faith, the necessity of prayer has increased also. We have been taught that when you pray to overcome something, you don't stop until you have overcome. I am learning that this is becoming more and more vital that I pray and not faint. There are two things that I believe God has brought up that he has used to teach me:

During my second year in college, I needed a car. Not having an abundance of money, I bought an old used car. (I happened to buy that car from a 32nd degree mason.) I had a mechanic check it out and found it was in excellent condition, and it ran well. After a while, however, the car started to do all sorts of weird things. The temperature gauge would give false readings, the car would shake violently for no apparent reason, and mainly, it would not start at times. When this first began, I examined the car and found nothing wrong, but I did replace the battery once. I was finally convinced that there was nothing really wrong with the car, and that it was just the devil. So, whenever the car would start acting up, I began to pray. I would bind the power of the devil, bind witchcraft, and on most occasions, the problem would stop within minutes or seconds. In one instance, the car would not start. I had some friends with me, and we had been out eating and were getting in the car to go home. When it would not start, I started praying and binding witchcraft. It still would not start, so I got out and lifted the hood. I continued praying loudly outside. After a couple minutes, I got back in the car and it started, and we went home. One of my friends asked me what I did under the hood, and I said "Prayed, that's all." He remarked several times after that about the "Car that runs by faith." Eventually, the problems with the car completely disappeared, and it never needed any repairs. Turned out to be a good car.

When I came on staff at Water of Life in the spring of 2007, I found out just how much God will let the devil hinder you in small every day tasks. Things that once were very easy now can be fairly difficult. Without the oppression and hindrance of the devil, we can think we are pretty cool. One time, I was editing some videos to post on the internet. They happened to be the videos of Doyle in Israel. When I started to edit them, I ran into trouble quickly. It seemed that just about everything that could go wrong did go wrong with the computers I was using. I knew they should be published, and I was determined not leave that particular night until they were. I was praying and binding witchcraft with strong prayers, and finally I got the right software to work on the right computer, and got them published. What should have taken ten minutes took probably over an hour and a half, but God encouraged me again with this experience to pray and not faint. Thank God.

posted February 14, 2008