Soaking in God's Love

As the JV fall conference team began designing this year's conference, which is focused on the Great Commandment of loving God and loving others, they came up with something creative to have for the conference participants on the first full day of conference. 

They asked eleven people if they would create eleven different kinds of experiences that would lead to people feeling God's love in a way they haven't before.

I was asked to lead one of those experiences., and in particular they asked if I would design a prayer experience as one of the eleven that people could go to Tuesday afternoon.

After prayer and several talks with my Prayer Room partner, Geri, we designed something for this afternoon, and invited several other JV missionaries to be part of giving the experience.

Wanting it to be very personal, I had Jim, pictured above, read Scripture over the group from Ephesians 1 and 3 (the "Father" prayers in those chapters), and at the same time had Geri and her husband Dave walking to each of the 50 participants and giving them a warm hug or tap on the shoulder, as they also gave them a small wooden heart to hold.

I then gave instructions and a handout to help people pray Scripture for someone sitting next to them (whether they knew them or not).

The handout had 26 topics, like discouragement and trials, where you could choose one and then be prayed for in that area using Scripture.

We ended the hour and a half time by one of the 7 JV missionaries who I'd asked to join us, personally going to each person to pray over them...something that they had to rely on the Spirit for since we didn't personally know every person in the room!

It was such a remarkable experience...to give the Father's heart of love through prayer to those who were with us...and to experience it myself as I was prayed for too!

I heard that the other experiences this afternoon were equally powerful at giving an experience of God's love in a meaningful and tangible way.

I can say that it truly felt like holy ground in our space, as tears flowed and smiles broadened as we soaked in God's love.