CRM - Empowering Leaders

In My Shoes: RUNNING WITH THE LORD
by Alice Collier

Every four years, the CRM family from all over the world gathers together at one location to reconnect with each other. This worldwide conference is a reunion of sorts—we have the opportunity to hear ministry and personal updates, receive training, and enjoy a break from our usual ministry assignments. With the preparation for a conference to gather over 600 individuals, teams of people were needed.

I felt God calling me to be a part of the conference intercession team. Once I committed to pray, He began to take me on an exciting, faith-building journey. As I set time aside to pray for the conference and the missionaries who would be gathering there, He began to show me more and more specific things to pray about. It was as if He was saying, “Show me that I can trust you, and I will reveal deeper places in My heart to you.”

At the same time, God put it on my heart to pray for other situations. It was so exhilarating to sit at His feet as He gave me wisdom of how to pray. Not only did He reveal these to me, but He also gave me scripture to confirm what He was showing me in prayer.

But as soon as I got serious about the call to intercession, I became a bigger threat to the enemy. Distractions started to come my way. A little over a month before the conference, I broke my right hand. Beyond being in pain, having broken hand was frustrating and extremely inconvenient. I couldn’t cook or clean, change my baby’s diapers or even get myself dressed! I got really upset, but the Holy Spirit revealed to me the plan of the enemy to do that very thing: to frustrate me and get my focus off PRAYING.

Other missionaries in CRM were persevering through struggles that were far worse: grieving loved ones who were dying of cancer, finding strength to go on after burying their children, coming down with unexplainable illnesses, watching their children or grandchildren suffer from illnesses and disease, struggling with financial difficulties, and so forth.

God showed me through all of this that intercession IS NOT a game. The cast on my broken hand and the struggles that other missionaries were facing were all battle scars. The enemy was on the prowl. The warfare was quite intense, and if I was going to intercede, I had better be on guard and keep my focus on God! He began to teach me the importance of my spiritual armor, and He taught me how to use it. I learned more than ever how to use the sword of the spirit and to hold up my shield of faith!

God revealed to me the fortresses from where the enemy was sending attacks, and He showed me how to break them down in prayer. As I prayed for the Holy Spirit to reveal to me the strongholds over CRM, He first began to reveal to me the strongholds in my own life. He showed me how the enemy used fear to keep me in bondage, and busyness to keep me out of the Lord’s presence. As I began to confess these areas to the Lord, I felt as if He was taking blinders off of my eyes so that I could see more clearly, and so that I could pray more effectively. “Oh, Lord, take the blinders off the eyes of CRM as a whole as well!” I asked.

Routinely, I went running almost every day. But after I broke my hand, I couldn't run in the natural, instead I began to “run” with the Lord in the spirit. While my husband, Sean, watched our son, Kadin, I set off on a prayer walk with the Lord. I spent a concentrated amount of time praying. These were hard times of battle, but it was invigorating to be “running” in step with the Lord, and to unite in prayer with the other CRM intercessors around the world!

As the intensity was turned up in prayer, the attacks also became stronger. One week before the conference, immigration told us that we might not be able to take Kadin out of Japan. The hour-and-a-half was nerve-wracking as we waited to hear if we would even be able to go to the conference. But God moved on our behalf and gave us favor, increasing our faith even more.

Because the attack and the resistance were so intense, I knew that God must have very special plans for all of CRM at the conference. God was so faithful and He gave these promises to claim: that the Angel of the Lord was encamping around us, and that He would deliver us out of ALL the evils that we were facing.

A few days before the conference, on one of my prayer walks, a running friend of mine whizzed past me. “Oh, how I miss running!” I thought to myself. “I can’t wait to get this cast off so that I can run again! My muscles are shrinking and getting weaker!” As soon as I thought this, I felt the Lord say to me, “Alice, you are running in the spirit now. Your leg muscles may be weaker than they used to be, but your spiritual muscles are stronger than ever!”

When we arrived at the conference in California, I was physically exhausted, like my body had been on the front lines of a very long battle. But there was such an excitement in my spirit, an anticipation of what the Lord had in store for all of us.

The first night of corporate worship was amazing with over 600 of us worshipping together. God’s anointing was definitely there! Tearfully, I prayed, “God, thank you for your faithfulness! Despite all the attacks of the enemy, your servants made it here from all corners of the world.” It was a feeling both of relief that one season was over, and excitement about what was now going to take place.

The intercession team prayed together before and during the meetings, asking the Holy Spirit to take control and bind the work of the evil one. And the Lord’s spirit would meet us there in such a sweet way. Members of the intercession team each wore a colorful “prayer stole” around our necks, to show that we were available to pray with others. When the prayer stole was placed around my neck, I felt God’s favor, as if I was being robed with a coat-of-many-colors by my Father. I could almost hear Him saying, “Well done, my daughter. You were faithful in what I gave you to do. Now, come, let me show you more…”

Today, I look back in awe of how the Lord so beautifully and gently poured out His presence in so many ways. He wooed us to Him. He consecrated our hearts, and led us to repentance both individually and corporately. He refreshed us and poured out His fresh anointing to prepare us missionaries to go back into the world.

Through this experience, the Lord has strengthened my prayer “muscles” and opened my eyes to the joy it is to serve Him in prayer. I will surely never be the same.