Giving Your 20's to God, Ep. 14

In a world where 20 year olds give themselves to many things, Katie and Emily unpack the choice to give their 20's, plus more, to God in  the prayer room. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:03

Welcome to the Lafayette Prayer Room Podcast. The Lafayette Prayer Room is located in Lafayette, Louisiana. I am Katie LaSard. I am 27. I'm a wife, a mother, and a leader in the prayer room.

SPEAKER_01 0:16

And I'm Emily Arsmont. I'm also 27 years old. I am single. I am in ministry and I'm also a leader in the prayer room.

SPEAKER_00 0:23

And today we will be talking about what it looks like to give your 20s to God in the context of the prayer room. So to start off, we'll share a little bit about us. We have been friends for way over a decade. We met in middle school. We both grew up in a Christian home, Christian school, that's where we met. And we were in the same friend group throughout grade school. And not until the towards the end of high school that we really became super close because we were pursuing the Lord. And it just happened we just ended up together even after high school. And I used to joke and say that we're soul sisters because we I had never had a friend that I can go and pray with or pray for me or really talk about the Lord or what we had been walking through. And I remember, I think you remember in high school, there were times when groups of us would fast and pray for lunch, and it would be you and I left out of all of our friends. And that was just a statement of our friendship, and the essence of our friendship has always been the Lord has been the center, in all honesty. And I once heard this and it stuck with me. You know how they say best friends forever. Um, but I once heard it said, friends are forever if the Lord is the Lord over them. Yes, and I just love that because that has been the essence of our friendship, and I'm so grateful for you.

SPEAKER_01 2:01

So even though we were friends for a long time before we graduated high school, once we graduated, everybody fell off, started pursuing the ways of the world, and so we were just left us two, and the Lord really knit us together at that point. So after high school, we started running together in a different way than we had before. And I'm so grateful for you because you have been a pillar in my life for my whole 20s, and I could not have made it without you, and truly that is a testimony to what the Lord puts together, no man can separate. Yes, because that's true in marriage, but also true in friendship, and this is an ordained by God friendship, and in different seasons we've been able to hold one another up, and it's truly impossible to follow the Lord wholeheartedly in your 20s, but throughout your entire the entirety of your life without having community, and that's who you've been to me, but also you've introduced me to other people that are now in my community as well, and I'm just eternally grateful for that.

SPEAKER_00 3:11

So, in the middle of high school, I had started going on mission strips with our church, and I just absolutely fell in love with that, and I was like, I am going to be a missionary, that was my thing. I wasn't gonna do the college thing, and I ended up going to YWAM Youth with a Mission, and it was a mission school, a discipleship training school, and we did um it was six months, and you do three months in a class and three months on the field, and I went to Africa for the three months in the field, and in that season I experienced Jesus and met the man on the pages in such a tangible way. I knew him just like you. We both knew him, we know all the stories, we experienced him in youth groups and chapels in many different ways, but this was different. This was depth that is undescribable, and I found his eyes, I found the beauty of Jesus and the love for the word just increased in my heart in that season and in that school. That the purpose was to develop me as a minister of the gospel, like go out and preach the gospel, um, to know God and make him known. And yes, absolutely that was done. But more than anything, I became a friend of Jesus and a lover of Jesus. I really did. I became fully abandoned. And in that season, there was this song. It wasn't new at the time, um, but there was this song that when I sang it, my heart, there was something inside of me would well up. And it was like my anthem, even after um that six months for years, it still is something that moves my heart in a way, and it says, All is for your glory, all is for your name, for your fame, put me anywhere. Just let me see your beauty, let me see your glory. And at the end, there's a tag that sings, you're my God, you're my joy, you're my delight. He really is the joy and the delight of my heart and my soul, and that's who I met. Like I met the man, Jesus, with fire in his eyes, with a seal of love for me. And the base that I went to was in Kansas City, and there was a prayer room that we were connected to, and then I got a taste. And then after that season, you and I went to a conference at that prayer room base. It's called the One Thing Conference, and there's thousands of people that went every year. Do you want to talk a little bit about it?

SPEAKER_01 5:57

So the One Thing Conference was at the end of the year. I was 17 the first time we went, and before that, I had never been in an atmosphere like that. I didn't know what a prayer room was, I didn't really understand what intercession was. I don't remember exactly what set it was, but somebody came up and they led the whole room in a call to intercession. And I didn't know what intercession was. However, I felt the Lord burning in my heart saying, This is what you're called to do. And I remember both you and I saying yes to that call. And now I know a lot more what that looks like played out. But at the time at 17, I just said yes to what the Lord was calling me to do. And so in my 20s, the Lord has really fleshed that out so I can practically be an intercessor. And that looks like being a minister to his heart, first and foremost, being a priest in his house. And like we see in the Bible, there's the five-fold ministry, but there's also, I believe, another subset in there somewhere about being an intercessor, because even though in the Old Testament that all of Israel was supposed to be a kingdom of priests, there were also the Levitical priests. And so, in the same way as the New Testament church is called to be a kingdom of priests, there's also a subset called to be intercessors in a different way. There's a different mantle, a different grace placed upon people to be intercessors, to pray for others, to cover the nations, to cover our churches in a different way. And that's what I said yes to in that moment. So even though the Lord has led me to pray for others a million times over, being in prayer as an intercessor, there's a different mantle of ministering to his heart as a priest that I experienced that I know we all experience in the prayer room.

SPEAKER_00 7:51

Yeah, and I remember one of those calls or somewhere in the conference that same night because we were together at that response, and there was one woman, and she got up and shared a little bit of what she did in the prayer room, and she was in her 40s, she was not married, she didn't have any kids, and she gave a couple decades to praying in the middle of the night at this prayer room, and she said that you know a lot of people would look at my life and say that's extravagant, like on both spectrums, like that's weird, extravagant, but also wow, that is that is the dedication to give up being married and have kids, but to give a life being a priest, like you're saying, to be a part of that priesthood, even in the night, like her whole life is switched, and she said, No, like it's not me, it's him that is extravagant. He is the extravagant one, and I remember coming off of this season with Y Lamb. I my heart could have leaped out of my chest, and I could have dropped dead right there. Of how deep I felt that like we are in it for him, we're in it, we're in prayer, we're in intercessors, we're priests who keep the fire on the altar, and then we can pray for the people. Like it is out of intimacy and the beauty of Jesus that we get to pray and intercede. And another moment in that same weekend was they were doing another call, and or it might have been the same moment, this was 10 years ago. I can't remember that well, but I do remember what they said, and they were praying over us who were responding, and they released mothers and fathers weeping on the living room floor because they are encountering the Lord while they're praying in their homes, in their kitchens, in their cars. And Hayden was my husband, was right next to us, and I was like, Lord, that's what I want. That is what I am burning for. I want like a song, put me anywhere, just let me see your beauty, I'll serve anywhere, and that we get him in the place of prayer. So if I get him, I'll I'll do anything in prayer.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

So at the same time that you were at YWAM, I was off at college in Virginia doing the typical after high school college route, and I had this amazing counter with encounter with the Lord, a call to intercession. I didn't know what that looked like. I didn't have an outlet for that, but I would go to these little prayer meetings in this little chapel that they had on campus, and you know, nobody else went with me. I just went alone, and it was a very lonely season. But the Lord met me there in friendship, like I'd never known him before. And so I was praying, Lord, am I supposed to be here? Am I supposed to be in Virginia? Am I supposed to be in college? And I was questioning, do I go into missions like Katie's in? Do I leave for a season? What is my life looking like? And having no clue. And then one day I was praying and fasting. I went one night to the prayer meeting, and they had some missions, an organization, some missionaries come and speak, and I knew the Lord was calling me to leave for a season to drop the American dream route to pursue him, going on the mission field, whatever that looked like. So this was a you know, a year after you had done YWAM, I went and did my own DTS discipleship school in Kansas City as well, and my focus of my DTS, my discipleship school, was interlaced with the prayer room that it was that YWAM was connected with, and so it was marrying missions and intercession, and of course, that was absolutely perfect. I did not plan that, but the Lord did, and so whenever I was there, he really challenged me in learning how to pray, learning to pray out loud, breaking off fear of man, breaking off fear. And so, whenever I was in Kansas City, but I went to Thailand for my outreach, and when I was there, learning to share the gospel, learning his heart, sharing it with people there. And then when I was there, there was a prayer room there, and yes, I was in the nations, I was praying, but then the Lord met me in that prayer room and said, you know, even in the future, if you're not in the nations, you can still go with me in prayer to the nations. So it changed my perspective on missions, on what a missionary is, and then also the necessity of having people in prayer partnering with missionaries, and it unlocked in me this desire to have all the word, missions, prayer, intercession all together. So after my original DTS season, I came home, worked for a little bit, and then went back to Kansas City for a secondary school called SBS, which is a school of biblical studies, and that was for nine months. We spent in detail studying the word out, inductive Bible study, starting in Genesis, going all Old Testament, New Testament, historical setting, all of the information, really studying the word for the first time in my life. Even though I had grown up in church, I'd grown up in a Christian home, I did not know how to study the Bible, and so that birthed in me something else of really studying the Bible for myself, and then coming back to the Bible belt where we're at in South Louisiana, teaching people to also study the Bible for themselves. And so, studying for the first time, going through the whole Bible, the desire to teach people how to study the Bible for themselves was really birthing me in that season, and I really found Jesus in that season in a way that I was weeping for people when I came home of I want them to encounter Jesus in the word like I have. Jesus gave his life so that we could have intimacy with him. The veil was torn, we have full access to the Father, we have full access to the scriptures for ourselves, and he didn't die so that we could go to church once a week, he died so that we could have restored intimacy with the Father, that we could read the Bible, have the Holy Spirit illuminating the scriptures as we read them. And so that has birthed a desire in me to teach the next generation of upcoming leaders and ministry how to study the Bible for themselves so that they can reproduce in the people that they minister to a love for reading the Bible, studying, knowing the Lord in that way.

SPEAKER_00 15:01

That's one thing I love about the prayer room is we're so focused on the word and on scriptures. Like we get to feast on him, on the word, on his body, on his blood. That's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

So, how did you end up at the prayer room after your YWAM season?

SPEAKER_00 15:20

After YWAM, I was on a spiritual high and I couldn't come back home and do business as usual. I couldn't come back home and like we just said, settle for the crumbs or the here and there. I was so hungry and I experienced depths I've never had. I was in the deep. I didn't want to go to the shallow. And I knew my mother-in-law, Trista, was over the prayer team, and I knew kind of what it looked like, and I went solely for worship. I wanted to meet with him, and slowly but surely I ended up being swept in the prayers that we were praying. And I remember the time that I guess I was going up to pray for the next generation. And Trista saw something in me and felt something in my prayers, and she called out in me. I never considered myself an intercessor or even called to that. I was thinking I'm called in ministry in some sort or even the mission field again at some point. Like I was never thinking I was called as that. But in that season when I was just there to meet with him, I got swept up in intercession. And I was feeling his heart for the next generation. And even to this day, I get up and I leave that focus even now, 10 years later, and we can all laugh because I boo-hoo cry every time on the mic. And it's it's just something in me. I feel like his heart is in mine. I feel his burden for Gen Z and Gen Alpha. I feel what he feels for them, and it just flows out. And there's a scripture that I love, it's in 2 Chronicles 16, and it says, the Lord's eyes roams and searches the earth looking for hearts loyal to him. I, the whole world is moving at a very fast pace. I mean, we live busy lives in America, and to be able to stop and look at him and stop and care for what he cares for. And like, what are you feeling about this? How can I partner with you? How can I move things? We get to move things in the spirit, we get to partner with him for his kingdom, and it's it's knowing him, it's experiencing him in intimacy, and then it's it's partnering with him and what he feels, how he the burdens that's on his heart, like that is being a friend, and he's looking for friends who will stop and listen and share his burdens and share what he's praying on earth as it is in heaven, and I want to be his friend, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:15

And one thing at the prayer room that Mistress uh has championed for a long time is praying for the next generation. That was us that she was praying in, you know, and thinking about that, that's beautiful. But I also wanted to share, I dream a lot, and the Lord speaks to me through dreams. And I had this dream a few months ago that I was at a young adult conference at the church that she goes to, and as I was looking at the stage, the Lord was zeroing in on her playing the piano on stage, and it was different context of the Lord showing me when this person was ministering, and then a next scene was another person ministering, and every single scene she was on stage playing piano, and the Lord zoomed my eyes into her playing on the piano and just worshiping, crying out for the next generation. And so, in my dream at the comp at the conference, the person next to me looks at me and said, Her intercession is what brought about tonight, the young adult conference, and saying, Right now, we're experiencing, you know, the the love of the Lord, but in another place, it's also they're experiencing the fear of the Lord right now at this same moment. And then, lo and behold, in real time, some of the young adults that I knew were at a conference, and that same night that I had that dream, the Lord was moving, pouring out the fear of the Lord, repentance that same night. And so thinking when I told Trista this dream, I was thinking, Lord, those prayers, regardless of the ministers that come and go, the intercessors who remain hidden, you see them. And those prayers are what's affecting what's affecting the next generation. Those prayers are being answered in real time and just offering that as an encouragement to her. And I know that meant a lot to her, but it also meant a lot to me of Lord, I'm in the next generation where you're moving. And it's a blessing to be an answer to those prayers and bring that to the prayer room to bring the next generation where we're physically standing there representing the next generation praying, but we're also intercessors standing in the gap representing our generation. And, you know, you and I have joked about this a lot that you know it it's a stigma to be a part of Gen Z. And so we may scoff at that. And we have in the past, but the Lord has convicted both of us separately of no, it's a blessing and an honor to be a part of Gen Z because in a generation that is so distracted, so impure, so consumed by social media, it's a blessing to be a part of Gen Z because then we're able to stand with authority, power, different influence than the older generations are for our generation. We're when we're praying on the might for the next generation, that's including us. So that's including our friends, that's including our siblings. And so believing, yes, Lord, you want to affect Gen Z and I am living proof that you are chasing after the hearts of Gen Z. And it's not a destinate to Gen Z. And I think that's something that the Lord has broken off in my own heart of don't disqualify Gen Z. I'm after them and I will have my inheritance in Gen Z. So we're the first fruits of that. But believing that there's going to be many more to come out of Gen Z as we pray, as we believe.

SPEAKER_00 21:55

We can laugh at this too, but before I pray on the mic every week for Focus tune the next generation. I once read a scripture in Psalms. There is this one line, and it just wrecked me one time. And it said, He is faithful to every generation. And I declare that. And I just feel like the Lord tells me, declare that before you pray anything else. Like He is faithful to Gen Z. Everyone can say anything. And yes, it's real, it's rough. But he is faithful. Like there is nothing that God cannot do. And we pray, Axu, Lord, you said that you would pour out your spirit on our sons and our daughters, on men and women, and we declare and we decree and believe that he will do that in our generation. So at the same time that I began coming to the prayer room and became a leader, I also in that season got married and I was in full-time ministry at our church. I had many different roles in those few years. Um, but Hayden and I were youth pastors for a minute, and I was full-time doing the prayer room, doing that. Um, so you were an SBS and you came home around that same time. So tell us a little bit what that looked like.

SPEAKER_01 23:12

So after the nine-month season of SBS, it was absolutely beautiful, amazing, changed me forever. But then when I came home, this was right before 2020, at the end of 2019, and I unexpectedly got sick. And in attempts to correct my sickness, I got on this medication that ended up making everything 10 times worse, 100 times worse. And so from that point on, at the end of 2019, I went to a season, three and a half years of absolute sickness. My body was shutting down as a medication-induced autoimmune disease. And I went to countless doctors, no help. I was struggling, and I hadn't met the Lord in a real way in the previous season. So to have that ripped out from under me, I was questioning everything. I was questioning his character, I was questioning, God, are you good? Are you real? Am I even a Christian? And that was real. So even though the Lord had called me to be an intercessor, I could not even pray for myself. I could just say, Help, help me, God, help me, send me somebody. And in that season, Katie, you were there for me in a way that I can never repay. And I'll just say that having community, having you, when I isolated, when I didn't leave my house, when I didn't go anywhere, you were there for me in a way that you'd pray for me. We took communion that you had over my body, over healing. So this was three and a half years, and you can imagine what happens in three and a half years, it's a long time. And you were faithful to me, and you are a representative of Jesus to me and his faithfulness to me because I was questioning everything, but yet you were there remaining steadfast, and you were showing me Jesus. You're steadfast with me in the midst of it. You're crying with me, you're weeping with me. Death and destruction and disease is not a part of your creation. You created everything and you called it good, and only sin and death came after the fall. That was not God's original intent. So struggling with that, wrestling with God, are you good, and crying out for him to know him as a healer. And so, in the midst of that, I was struggling very badly, was not leaving my house, not going to church, just going over to your house every once in a while, and I would hear about your time in the prayer room. And in that season, there wasn't really a call for me to go to the prayer room, but the Lord just said to my heart one day, hey, like maybe you should go to the prayer meeting that Katie's going to. Just a call to intimacy again, a little whisper to my heart of, hey, I still love you, I still like you. You know, even though you've fallen off and you're you're mad at me questioning everything, he was still reaching out to me. And so I went to prayer, that same you know, prayer meeting that you were at with Trista, and we were just in a small room, nothing fancy, just going before the Lord, praying over different things, and I felt a grace to intercede again for other people because I couldn't pray for myself. There was no words to pray. I had prayed them all, I had cried all the tears for myself, but the Lord used that to bring me back into intercession of when you're praying for other people, when you're pouring out yourself for other people, I will refresh you, I will bring healing to you, I'll fill up your cup, I'll give you words to pray for other people in their dire hour. And so that's when I started coming, and that was in the middle of my sickness four years ago, which is crazy to think about. And that's how the Lord got me in the prayer room is he invited me into intimacy again, where I was so angry, so broken, didn't think that I would ever do anything in ministry again, didn't think that I was good enough for him anymore. And the Lord really met me, drew me in, and then I became faithful to the prayer room. I started coming every week. I experienced community. Like I said earlier, you were the gateway to other community through the people at the prayer room that they were praying for me. They were praying for my healing, believing for me. When I couldn't hold myself up, you and those other people held me up. And I was actually reading today about Moses and Aaron and her holding his arms up in the battle against the Amalekites. And it's just funny because that's what the Lord used you and other people to do for me in prayer. You brought me before the Lord. It was like the friend, the friends bringing the the um the paralyzed man, their friend before Jesus and letting him down through the roof. That was me. You brought me to Jesus faithfully, and I wouldn't be where I am today without that because the Lord has allowed us to be strong for one another in different seasons, and you were strong for me in that season. You were interceding for me, you were bringing me before the Lord and displaying his character. And so, whenever I got to the end of that season, the Lord did not heal heal me miraculously overnight, but he used many things to bring healing in so many different areas, and so I have experienced healing from that autoimmune disease, the effects of it, and in that time I was battling clinical anxiety and depression from like chemical from the medication. I'm completely healed of that. No longer am I suffering with that, no longer am I having other ailments in my body, and so that's just a testimony. The Lord used that horrible season for his glory to bring me into the place of prayer where I wouldn't have been otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 29:29

Yeah. And that was your rough season in the middle of your 20s, and towards the end of my 20s, I had a rough season with my second pregnancy with the son that we have. He's special needs, and that pregnancy was a major crisis. And I can look back and say, you were the same for me in that season when I didn't have faith, and when I didn't even want to have faith, you looked at me and you said, No, we're gonna fast, we're gonna pray, we're gonna take communion. And you were the one who fasted for him for quite a while, and we saw amazing miracles in that season, and that is the beauty of friendships that are surrendered to the Lord. Like we in our rough seasons, you can be the one that pulls me up, and vice versa. And ours is just a testimony of that.

SPEAKER_01 30:30

So now, on the other side of my healing, um serving in ministry, like I never thought that I would in that season, and that is a huge answered prayer. But what the Lord taught me in that season is the value of hiddenness before him. And when you look at the Bible, Jesus' whole life up until the start of his ministry was hidden. Other than the mention of his birth and the mention of him in the temple when he was 12 years old, all of that's hidden, and it's sacred to the Father, those years that he spent with him. And so that's what I felt like in that season, but that's just continued of being hidden with the Lord, saying, You're worthy, whether I'm in quote unquote ministry or not, you're worthy of giving myself to you in the secret place, in the hiddenness. And I've told other people this before, but in the Old Testament, the the Levitical priests, their priesthood in the tabernacle in the temple, it was hidden. It was it was sacred to the Lord, to the Father, that special intimacy. And so when he calls you into intimacy, it's hidden. And I quoted this to somebody yesterday, and the Lord was quoting it back to me, but out of Psalm 84, better is one day in your course than a thousand elsewhere. And thinking, Wow, Jesus, you have really taught me the value of intimacy, the value of being seen before your eyes when I'm not seen by anybody else, and that being enough, not having the title, not having the job description, not having the accolades, but having him, having intimacy with him, and that's something that nobody can take away from me. Because when we enter into eternity, we don't just all get reset, we start from where we're at. So every every tear, every bit of suffering that I was able to give to the Lord, he uses that, he builds relationship with me, and then I'm able to intercede, pray for other people with more authority, more power because I've been through it. And that's what the Lord has used. I can pray at conferences, I can pray for people on the street, I can be in on the prayer team, serving in my church, praying for people with power, even at 27, because I've been through hell and high water with Jesus, and I know him in a way that nobody can take away from me. And I'll tell you this quick story that I was praying at a conference, and a lady came up to me, and she admitted, you know, when I saw you on the prayer line, I was disappointed because I wanted an old lady to pray for me. I wanted somebody with experience who knew Jesus to pray for me. So I prayed for her that night, and this was the next morning when she when I got her again in line. So she admitted this the second time, and but she said, you know, I was wrong. And that prayer that you prayed for me was the most powerful prayer I've ever heard. And I looked at her with hopefully humility, and I said, I've been through a lot, and the Lord has taught me his character, and that just goes to show you you can't judge a book by its cover, you can't look at a 27-year-old and think, oh, they're they're not as a powerful prayer warrior as an 80-year-old. And don't get me wrong, they've been through a lot more life than we have, but we both have testimonies of Jesus meeting us in the darkest places of things that we thought we'd never go through in our 20s, and that has allowed us to pray with authority in ways that we could have never otherwise.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

Yeah, and that on that point, we have pillars in our prayer room. We have elders, we have hidden women that have done 20 plus years more than us that have been there decades, week after week. And that is one of my favorite things about our community is that I have learned how to pray, I have learned how to walk through seasons steady and consistently because of them. It's so beautiful, and I just that is the key to consistency for me, like seeing them, seeing the gold that is in them, the gold that they have produced after decades with Jesus in intimacy and in intercession, all of it, and like I want that. I want to give decades to him because I want to know him like through all those decades. I want the gold. And I'm thinking of this chorus we have saying at the prayer room, and I love it. And it says, I don't want to talk about the fire, be near the fire, or think about how I once had the fire. I want to burn and seeing other burning ones closely and gleaning and just learning from them and going on adventure with Jesus, with them as a community in our sets, going through Bible studies together, even going in intercession. We go in the spirit in places. We have a history together as friends and a community. And you know, talking about that chorus, like I want to burn, I want the fire. Both of us could have said, I'm complacent and content with our YWM seasons with the SBS school. I'm good, I have a spiritual high. And we tend as humans just to get on spiritual highs and then, oh, check mark, or oh, I had it. There is always more in God. There are depths, He is endless in a world and being a part of a generation that does not like commitment and who's always busy. The community is one that has helped me be consistent and continue this journey. But another thing is I have tasted and I have seen him and things of him. The scripture says it is good for my good to be near God, and that is really true. It is good for my pleasure, for my good, for my safety, for all the things to be near him.

SPEAKER_01 37:11

Yeah, one thing that we pray at the prayer room a lot is in a culture that is so addicted to so many other things that the world calls pleasure, we pray a lot. Jesus, you are the superior pleasure. And understanding that all my desires are fulfilled in you, every longing is fulfilled in you, and you will not withhold any good thing from those who seek you and fear you. So that's one of our prayers. And being around others who have put decades into intercession, who have spent long hours with him in intimacy and prayer, it shows me that it's possible. It shows me that even if I'm in the prayer room or at home with a group of friends, there is a place in God of encountering him, spending time in prayer, spending hours on end with him that's accessible, and the Lord draws us there when we say yes. He desires that, he desires to have intimacy with us. So, us giving ourselves in the prayer room has allowed me to build my personal prayer life even more so. It's shown me there's power on my prayers, there's power in community, but there's also power in personal intimacy with the Lord, praying the word, singing the word, the in-depths of who I am, and not just settling for the surface token prayer. It's really encountering him, saying, I'm locking myself in my room, I'm gonna spend 20, 30 minutes, an hour, two hours really seeking him, really going after what do you have to show me that wouldn't be available if I would just stop after five minutes? What's there? What depths are there for me to mine in you that are only available to those who really seek you?

SPEAKER_00 38:59

Yeah, because when you think of a friend or a husband or a wife, like you want to share your heart, you want to share things, but they're like, peace out in five minutes. Like, this is not a drive-thru thing. If you really want his heart, if you really want him, we have to spend time asking, listening, and being busy and just going so fast. We live in a fast-paced world, and that can be a struggle sometimes, even when we get in the prayer room. Like, okay, we had a rough week, or we have so much going on, I have a baby, like you know, there's so much on my mind. And it is sometimes a struggle once we get in there. If we're feeling dull, if we're feeling weak, if we're feeling just crazy in our head, there are times when it's hard, and because we're human, and Jesus understood that because he withdrew, we withdraw to the place of prayer, to the prayer room. And in those times when I do get when I'm overwhelmed or just forensic or have so much on my mind or just not feeling it, I always remember and I hate journey. It's like a perspective shift in my mind and my spirit that I'm here to be with him, and I get to look at and spend time with and pray with the maker of heaven. He chose to let us in this, he chose to let us um partner with him and move things in the spirit and change things, change history, even that is amazing, and like you said earlier, that is something that that is the main thing that Jesus died for, so that we could have communion with the Father, so that we can be one with the Father, and not only moving things in the spirit, but we get to join in heaven's song, in heaven's prayers, like heaven is real, and there's a throne room, there are angels and elders and seraphim. They are singing holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and he is to come right now, this second, and we get to join in that song, and we get to join in with Jesus at the right hand of the Father, the great high priestess, praying that is a gift, and what a privilege it is to know him in that way, and to be his friend and partner in this. And one thing that I just think of as I'm talking about this is I've been a part nine years, maybe almost 10, of this prayer room, and just talking about praying in real time with heaven, like on earth as it is in heaven. We have seen in these nine years, I have witnessed when like elections come up, or um, we are praying for this law to pass in our state or in our city or this law to be abolished. We have experienced because we pray for these things week after week, if we feel like it or not, if we feel like our prayers are weak or not, we prayed week after week, nailing on these mountains, and we have seen those prayers answered in real time. And even before my time in the prayer room, our group has been praying over the overturn of Roe versus Wade with abortion, and that had been a big thing for years. And honestly, I don't know about everyone else, but I didn't know if that was gonna if I'd see that in my lifetime. But that happened just a few years ago, and not that it was all us, but like we have like something in that because for decades, we every Friday morning, our team prayed for that. It's real time. A lot of times we're just there and like we're praying again, but we don't know and we do not see what he is doing, even when we don't feel like it, when we feel crazy in our head and scattered, but it's because we came and we sat and we took the time to listen and feel his heart. Our prayers matter and they move his heart.

SPEAKER_01 43:20

So, one big misconception that people have about prayer meetings, prayer rooms, all of that is that we're just in a circle praying, we're just you know praying over needs, and that does happen sometimes, but a majority of our time is spent praying for the focuses, the answer driven prayers, we're praying the word over the set focuses every single week. So, in the midst of that, all the prayer needs that we have in our own hearts and our own families is comes under that. And so, when we're declaring over addiction, when we're declaring over the next Generation when we're praying for single mothers and and praying against abortion, praying for those struggling with gender and sexuality confusion, those are real things in our families, in our circles, that we are praying the answer to those things. And then another thing is that a lot of times people believe, yeah, we're just maybe praying to the ceiling or our prayers may not re even be reaching heaven. And even though people may not express that in words, that's how people feel on the inside. And so whenever we pray in a prayer room consistently and we see answered prayers, we see laws of return, we have testimonies that come out of that, it changes our perspective. God challenges us to think do I really believe that my prayers are changing history right this second? Do I really believe that my prayers are going before the living God, that they're moving his heart, and that he will move because I prayed? Do I really believe that? And that has challenged my perspective in my 20s of do I actually believe that prayer works? Because if it doesn't, then why do we pray? However, God has shown up so many times and he loves to show up. He loves to answer even just the little prayers, the things that we consider very minute, that he moves in those areas, even before he moves in the big answered prayer areas, to show I care, I see, I hear. I'm the God who sees you, I'm the God who meets you, I'm the God who listens. He bends his ear to listen. And he moves when we pray. He desires for to have partners on the earth. And all we do in the prayer room, all we do as intercessors is say, Here I am, God, you're calling. It's like when God called out to Samuel in the night and said, Samuel, Samuel, and he called him and he said, Here I am. Use me to speak to your people Israel when there's no word of the Lord in that time. He said, I will be the mouthpiece of the Lord. I will stand in the gap. I'll be a minister, I'll be a prophet, I'll be a judge. And he didn't sign up for that. The Lord called him, gave him that that mantle before he was born. And he also had to say yes to it when the Lord called him. And so that's what I believe for all of us. The Lord wires us so differently. So of course, you're gonna have the evangelists and the pastors and all of those things, but you also have the intercessors, the the people who move with his heart in a different way in the secret place to be intercessors, to commit long hours to being with him. And yes, every believer is called to pray. So don't hear what I'm not saying, but there's a special grace, and so for people out there who your heart is burdened for the things that he's burdened for. When you see the things on the news, when you see things in your family, and you just feel like Lord, when is somebody gonna do something about this? He's called you to partner with him. That's a burden because that's a need where he's calling you to step into the gap and say, Will you pray? Will you partner with my heart being released on the earth for this matter?

SPEAKER_00 47:20

One thing that I absolutely love, and my favorite thing about the prayer room is the worship with the word sets and just how scripture-based and the word is focused just in the prayer room in general, between the worship with the word sets, we literally go through scripture and singing it and praying it and saying it, and even using scripture to pray for the thing, the the focuses that we pray for and the prayer. But also, there's we we pray and we sing, we pray and we sing, and we sing scripture, and songs come out of it, and I love that because even in my really rough seasons, I didn't realize how much scripture has been rooted inside of me when I needed it the most, it was popping out because I spent time in the prayer room and we're going through scriptures in the set, or we're praying praying for something, and we're using the scriptures and we're finding hint in the scriptures. And I mean, we also do Bible studies together with our community, but just having the scriptures sung and prayed and talked about, it is crucial to have scripture rooted in you in crisis. Um, and I just think that's beautiful, and even just on a random day, this song will pop up in my head that we prayed in the prayer room and it's scripture, and I'm just so grateful for that. I know more than I think I do just because I spend time in the prayer room and I sing it and I join in with it, and that's a treasure to me.

SPEAKER_01 49:04

It's really taught me how to pray scripture in the prayer room because every time I'll come up to pray for a focus, I'll say, I'm praying out of Psalm 101 and read the scripture, and then prayers centered around that, prayers based on that, using it as a foundation, bringing it before the Lord, saying, Your scripture says it's this and this.

SPEAKER_00 49:26

Yes, you said it.

SPEAKER_01 49:27

Yes, so I'm taking it for me, I'm taking it for my family, I'm taking it for my generation for Lafayette for Louisiana. I'm using it as the foundation of what you already said you wanted to do. So then it's not just my God, I hope you want to do this. It's Lord, you said you wanted to do this. So in my generation, in my city, in my state, that's the epitome of intercession, I feel like, right there. So another favorite part of mine about the prayer room is that I get to do it with you and other friends, and the Lord building friendships in the prayer room based on where we go together in the spirit. It's something unlike anything else. Because you have time in the word, time in praying for the focuses on the mic, but also discussing it after saying, What was the Lord showing you in that set? What were you thinking about when you prayed this? Because the best thing is to get up in a line. We've all prayed individually. We get up in a line to pray. Somebody prays something and it's the exact same scripture. It's the exact same prayer that I was praying in my personal time. So even though they just prayed it, I get up saying the exact same thing because that just shows the unity that's in the room that he's releasing, saying, Lord, you really want to focus on this. You really want to pray this scripture. And then that takes us because people can feel it when you're in the room and the spirit starts to move in that way. He's highlighting that and says, Okay, stay on this a little bit longer. So then it just builds friendship. It's fun to go there together in the Lord to say, okay, we're stopping, we're, we're staying, and we're we're looking at his beauty together in this moment. And then when we leave after having spent time specifically on that, something's different in us. It's a moment that we've had together that can't be taken away from us, that we'll always have. And when I look back in my journals that I bring to prayer, writing all the things, I look back on certain things that we've sung together, and it just brings me back to that moment of remember what I released in that moment, the Lord saying that, remember what I released, remember when you and Trista and Renee and Katie were talking about this, and it brings that back to me. So whenever I'm struggling, whenever I'm wondering, Lord, are you gonna move in this situation? I look back on his faithfulness to where he had me pray that and I saw him answer it. And so it gives a testimony to, okay, Lord, you're gonna do it again. And it's so beautiful to have a friendship, friendships cultivated over years in prayer together. It's unlike anything that can be accomplished outside. So when you look back on the past 10 years, giving the Lord your 20s, what is the biggest thing that sticks out to you?

SPEAKER_00 52:27

I would say just the shift in my perspective, my vision of my life is that what has shifted it is the revelation of Jesus. It is the one that I've come to know, that I want to know more of, and I have to have him. So I like like I was at the beginning, and why I'm completely abandoned for Jesus, but even more. Like I have to have him, I want him, so I will consecrate myself because, like you said, it is in the hiddenness that he reveals himself, he it's in the quiet, it's not in the open, and I want to go there. And so I think of this chorus, this is sung at a prayer room, and the first couple times I just weep in this set, and it says, I'm coming again to the altar of your beauty, and in my hands I got my dreams, I got my goals with me, and it's only here that my heart can see clearly, and so I'm weighing it on the scales against the beauty of the Lord. So all the dreams, or even and all the dreams that I had or have for my future, what I think my life should look like or want to look like. I'm weighing it against the beauty we have tasted and we have seen, so we can weigh it and say, where else would we go? Where else? There's no other that satisfies we have seen and we cannot look back, we cannot go back to life or Christianity as normal. Like we have seen the beauty and we're going for it.

SPEAKER_01 54:17

So for me, when I look back on my 20s, when I graduated high school 10 years ago, I thought by now at 27 that I'd be married, I'd have kids. I didn't know what my dream life looked like, but that was definitely in the picture. And so now at 27, I'm not married, I'm single, I have no kids. I am in ministry, but it doesn't look like I expected it to look. And I've faced a lot of challenges that I did not expect to face. But when I look back on my 20s, I can say that he is so worthy to give my 20s to. And not just in the prayer room, but in every aspect, meeting him in the word, knowing him intimately. It may not look like what I planned, but it's more beautiful. Having his dreams, his desires for my life play out. And yes, I believe I will get married hopefully soon. But regardless of what my life in the future looks like, this season in my 20s, giving my life to the Lord, being in the secret place, the hiddenness that builds the character that's necessary for future ministry. Whatever that looks like, it's not wasted, it's a season of refining, purifying. So that way when I do minister to people, it's uh from a pure place. It's not from a place of seeking my own gain or my own accolades, it's from I really have his heart because I've been with him in the place of intimacy and prayer. So that way when I see people who are struggling, I know I can see Jesus' heart, Jesus' eyes for them as if he were standing right here. So I would pray that when people meet me, they see Jesus in my eyes, that they see him, they hear him in my voice. And that only comes from being intimate with him, from being in the place of Lord, there's more, there's always more to reading your word, there's always more to know you. Your beauty is unending. The elders, the creatures cry out, holy, holy, holy, 24-7, because every second they look at a different aspect, a different facet of his face, like a diamond. It's just change before them everlasting. And so I want to join in looking at him like that, saying, Lord, what is there more to know you today? How can I find you? How can I see you? And then how can I pour that out for other people? And his dreams for my life, I can say, far exceed what I planned. And looking back on my 20s, I don't regret a single thing. I don't regret a single moment that I have given him. I don't look back on any prayer set thinking, oh man, I shouldn't have come. I always look back thinking, wow, Lord, thank you for giving me the grace to come and meet with you when I was so weak, when I had nothing to say. Thank you for bringing me to this room. Thank you for connecting me with these people. Because where would I be without them? Where would I be without a place to encounter you? Because when you have a place that's stable in your life where you can go in the good weeks, in the bad weeks, it changes your life because you're not changing your schedule around when you're in crisis. You already have it set of I'm going to the prayer room or I'm going meet with this person, and I know that when I go, I'm gonna meet Jesus there, and Jesus is gonna meet me there when I have nothing to give. And that's the beauty of being in a prayer room, being surrounded with like-minded community. Just even for those people out there that may not have a prayer room, that are listening to this, that they may not live in life yet, or around a prayer room, just get a community of people who were in prayer together, have meetings, house meetings, just prayer meetings at your at your home, opening your home, saying, Holy Spirit, I invite you to come, I consecrate this home to you, I give it to you to have your way in my family, have your way in my community, have your way in my church, in my city, and then that becomes a house of prayer, that becomes a meeting place, like the upper room where his fire falls on that place where two or three are gathered, you are in their midst. So having community that surrounds you, that brings you before the Lord is crucial because you can't find that when you're in fight or flight mode. You have to have it, you have to cultivate it before crisis hits, because crisis will hit every family, every individual. So when you have believers who are surrounding you, who are not just Christians by title, but they're sons and daughters of the living God that meet with him, that know the man Jesus. So that way, when you're struggling and you don't know which way is up, which way is down, they can point you to him and they can say, Let's pray over this. Because it's different saying, Oh, I'll pray for you, versus let's pray right now. Let's cover this right now. It's an authority, it's a boldness, it's an intimacy that I can be at Walmart and I can be at church, anywhere. It doesn't matter. Let's pray right now, because I believe that I have the ear of the Lord right now. We don't have to be in a service setting and we don't have to be in the prayer room. We can be on the street believing that when I pray, I affect God, and God will move in this situation, regardless of how pretty it looks, regardless of how eloquent it sounds, regardless of whether I feel weak or strong in faith, the Lord meets us there.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:06

Do not regret one second giving my 20s. I started this when I was 19 and I'm almost 28. Um, so it's close to 10 years, and I do not regret it for a second because it's him. I got him, I get him. He is the goal, he is the prize, and I want to give even more decades to him because he is worthy. He died so that I could be in communion with the Father, with him, with the Holy Spirit, living in step with him. And when we get to eternity, you know, the Bible talks about our rewards in heaven and how in heaven we'll be clothed with our love for him, how we loved him on earth. And I want to give every season to loving him, whatever that looks like. And I want to get to eternity and wear my love for him because he is worthy, even in your 20s, no matter where you've been, what you've done, he died for you so that you would be able to experience the love of the Father, the love of Jesus, the love of the Holy Spirit. It is worth it.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:25

And for those who feel disqualified, like I'm in my 20s, and it's never too late to start again. It's never too late. You don't have to be 18 for the Lord to choose you and use you. He chooses of all ages, he meets you where you're at. And I just want to say for anybody that's in their 20s, that's struggling of where do I go from here? I've made too many mistakes. Meet him in that brokenness. He's there. Just turn around. He's chasing you, he's desiring you, he wants intimacy with you. And this, what we've cultivated, is not because of our faithfulness, it is purely because of his faithfulness to us. 100% when we've let go of the rope, he's held on, he's the one that's been faithful to us, and he wants to do the same for you. It's not about how we're more spiritual or we're better or we're called to be intercessors, it's about we just said yes because he's worthy. And thank you, Jesus, for choosing me. Thank you that I get to be a bride to you, and it's a beautiful calling, it's a beautiful life that we have with him. But do not for one second think that I did this on my own strength, that I did this on my own works. He saved me purely by his grace. He called me, saved me for good works, but he saved me purely by his grace, and it's his grace that the Lord knit us together, that the Lord sustained our friendship, that we're here in this season together, that we can look back on 10 years thinking about our 20s, reminiscing of all the ways that the Lord has shown up, all the ways that he's been faithful. It's purely by his grace.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:21

Yeah, absolutely. He really is the keeper of our hearts in the flame of love. It really is not us, it's him who tends to the fire.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:32

So as we end, I would like to pray just a short prayer over all those who are listening, no matter what age, no matter what decade they're in, to really go after the Lord. So, Holy Spirit, we thank you for this time together. We thank you that you have moved, that you've spoken through me and Katie, that you've helped us remember your faithfulness to us. And so, God, we claim, we declare you are worthy of our lives laid down. You're worthy of our 20s, but you're worthy of the rest of our lives. And so, for anyone who is here today, that they're questioning, they don't know, they're maybe in crisis. We declare that, Lord, you are worthy of anyone and everyone. You are worthy of a life laid down. We speak life over everyone who's listening, that they would encounter you, that they would meet you in the secret place, that they would know your worthiness, that they would know the love in your eyes, that they would see you even for the first time. We pray newness, fresh fire, fresh life poured out upon them, that everyone under the sound of my voice would experience an encounter with you today. We thank you for this time together. We thank you just for meeting with us. We thank you for burning this in our hearts, for pouring out your love on our hearts that we can pour out into others. It's a blessing to know you and make you known to everyone that we meet. We love you, Jesus. We honor you, we thank you for this time together in Jesus' name.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:05

Amen. Amen. Well, we hope this has been honest, helpful, provoking, and encouraging. Thank you for choosing to spend this time with us. We'll see you next time. Bye.