Building a Wall

God is inviting us to call upon His name, so that He might demonstrate His love to you and show His power through you. Jeremiah 33 states:
2 "Thus says the Lord who made it, the Lord who formed it to establish it (the Lord is His name):
3 'Call to Me, and I will answer you, and show you great and mighty things, which you do not know.'

What an incredible shift could take place in this world if only we, as the people of God, would take Him at His Word!  We can believe for the Lord to do incredible things in our midst and recognize that He wants to express His story through us, so that we might grow closer to Him and impact the world around us.  We are called, through our prayers and communicating what God has done, to show others the love and hope of Jesus.

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In the Sermon on the Mount, in Matthew chapter 7, we find Jesus teaching these principles about prayer:
7 "Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened.
9 Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent?
11 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask Him!

Richard Gamble could be described as a modern-day Nehemiah - he wants to build a wall, first virtual, then literal - to display how Jesus is at work in our world today.  The British businessman today has launched the Eternal Wall of Answered Prayer; the website The Stream reports that Gamble "invites Christians from all over the world to share personal stories of answered prayer on social media."

He is quoted as saying: "more people are watching church online in [the UK] than ever before. People are googling what prayer is. It’s one of the biggest searches right now. So, we just want to give people encouragement that actually, when you cry out to God, He’s there. He listens.”

The writer of the piece, Nancy Flory, states:

The answer to prayer may not always be “yes.” It could be “no,” or something different than what we expect. In any case, Gamble wants people to share their stories to give others hope. “I just believe when you hear a story of something that God has done for somebody else, it just inspires faith in people. It gives them hope and I believe hope is the most powerful force on this planet.”

Gamble says that, "Our aim is to make hope visible. … Why not share a story of something God has done in your life, and then nominate three of your friends to do the same?”  

The sidebar to the article gives four steps in sharing the news of an answered prayer:

Step One:

Think of a prayer that God has answered for you.

Step Two:

Record a short video on your phone sharing that answered prayer (1-2 minutes, landscape format). In your video it could be as simple as including these 3 key elements: What was your situation? How did you pray? How did Jesus answer your prayer?

Step Three:

Nominate three people to take part in the answered prayer challenge!

Step Four:

Post your video and nominations on your social media on January 25th and tag in @eternalwalluk and use #answeredprayerchallenge.

A Dr. John Kirkby shared his challenge on Twitter; saying:

Here’s my @eternalwalluk#answeredprayerchallenge since I met Jesus 29 years ago and through 15 hrs of @CAPuk God has answered prayers, often not when and how I asked Him. He’s faithful.

CAP is apparently a church-equipping ministry.  Kirkby also shared three Twitter handles to invite them to the challenge.

Richard Gamble wants to do more with the concept of the wall - he is the process of developing a literal wall in Birmingham, UK, built with over a million bricks and situated between two British highways. He says, “Every single brick on it will represent an answered prayer. And so people will be able to come. They’ll be able to point their phone at a brick, and then using some state of the art technology, the phone will light up and it’ll tell you the story of answered prayer that that particular brick represents.” He projects it will be almost as high as the Statue of Liberty and in the shape of the infinity symbol.

Gamble has already seen answered prayer in the form of God's provision. He received the permission to proceed with the plans. He was able to raise the over 61 thousand dollars to do the original architectural renderings. 

He is concerned about the Christian heritage of his nation.  Gamble relates:

“You know, there are many stories of God answering prayer in our nation that are disappearing. … We want to make sure that people in our country know that God is alive. He listens when we pray and He answers.” He added that it’s difficult to find positive stories in the media these days. That motivates him. “Do you know what people think? [They think] God isn’t doing anything. He’s doing absolutely loads. And this is a contemporary way to communicate the truth about God in the visual age of the 21st century.”

Like Richard Gamble, each of us is called to trust God.  We can call upon Him with expectancy and passion.  And, as he inspires us, we can testify to what He has done.  If you are a believer in Christ, certainly you have a story of His work in your life - we can make sure that we are relating hope to other people, to "make hope visible," as Gamble says, and by observing and communicating the story of what God is doing through us, we can impact our world.

So, we can trust and testify, but we can take steps to reach out in faith.  Our faith will result in action - remember, James says faith without works is dead - as we pray, we can also gain a sense of where God is leading us, so that through our obedience, He is glorified.