Written by Katie Forbess, IRSM Board President
February is Prayer Month for IRSM and has been for the last eight years. One of the greatest examples in my life of fervent prayer is Iron Rose Sister Ministries itself. Our mission to equip women to grow closer to God and one another more deeply was an answer to the desire of my heart. At a time when I thought that I was crying out to God and He wasn’t listening, He was putting things in motion that I could never imagine.
When my heart was broken, leaving Bolivia to return to the states, I had many ideas and thoughts. In my original plan about how I wanted to help women grow closer to God and one another, it was for the state of Arkansas. IRSM is international in our reach, and this year, we have added a third language: Portuguese!
I think one of the amazing gifts of fervent prayer is that it transforms us when we open our hearts and say with purpose and with power—the power of God—what we need and what we want.
God knew when I walked across the stage at a World Mission Workshop that I wanted to dedicate my life to Him. I wanted to be a missionary in a foreign land. He knew what that meant, and He knew more even than I did why. My spirit was talking to His Spirit. That was a fervent prayer. I didn’t know how God was going to answer that.
God is listening. He is listening to our fervent prayer, just as when a baby cries and everyone must listen to hear the tone of the cry. Or the child that repeats over and over again, “Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy, Mommy,” until you have to say something. You have to answer. Someone has to answer. In the same way that a teenager does little things to get your attention and if you are paying attention, you totally see them, especially if it’s your nephew or your son. You know! Those are fervent pleas and that’s what we do with God. When we do it transparently, we grow, and we change, and we know that God sees the desires of our hearts.
This year we are studying Our Story and it’s only making me look back and think more and more about how my prayer life has been changed through praying for IRSM. Everything from the inception and the deciding 501c3 vs for profit to last week deciding the theme for something or a computer program that we need to use because we are growing, and we need to be able to communicate effectively within the organization and outside the organization. There are so many ways that I know that God is hearing our cries.
I have called myself a glorified cheerleader but maybe I should change that to a glorified fervent prayer warrior because sometimes when I can’t do all the other things that I want to do for Iron Rose Sister Ministries, what I can do is pray.
And that prayer can be for anything. It can be for a sister I don’t know in another country. It can be for Michelle for many different reasons. It can be for any of the team members, the board members, for a project we are starting, or for a conference we have. The prayers are unlimited, and the importance of those prayers is that they are fervent and that I believe that there is power behind them.
God wants our passion. Hannah showed so much passion that Eli thought that she was drunk (1 Sam. 1:13). Passionate may be a good word for me since I have been described as “a little extra” in my life. A little extra for people who can't take me the right way. They don’t understand me or think I’m a little much. I have learned how to handle that better, but God wants me to be to be “a little extra.” God can handle it, especially in prayer!
With Job, the beautiful talk between God and Job when God says, “Well, hey dude, but remember who you are,” God never says, “I don’t want to hear you.” He never says—now He does say be quiet—but He never says, “I don’t want to hear you, I don’t care about what you're saying, I don’t want you to share your thoughts with me.” But He does say, “Hey dude, I want to remind you who I am.” And that is what happens through fervent prayer: you spill out your passion and your thoughts and your feelings and your everything else, and then you remember who you are praying to, and you say, oh, yeah, “He’s God…” And it puts everything in perspective.
I want to leave you with one last thought: I can only pray fervently to and be passionate about a God that I know and love. That’s another thing that that fervent prayer does. It brings my first love to mind, and it reminds me what is actually important and what is actually going to be powerful and Who will make things happen.
Finally, when it comes to fervent prayer, Hannah is a beautiful example. I could have talked about my own example of miscarriage, but the thing that I think is most effective is to tell you about how prayer is an integral part of Iron Rose Sister Ministries, Ministerio Hermana Rosa de Hierro and the Portuguese version that I may or may not be able to pronounce. We all want and need fervent prayer. This ministry is not based solely on my fervent prayers. I am one piece of a team of a multitude of people who have prayed and wanted and needed IRSM before it even began and have carried IRSM through their own passion and their own fervent prayers. Thank you for being a part of that! God is listening.