Shake the Ground

“And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.”

— Acts 4:31 ESV

I read that and thought about how amazing and awesome it is. Then I thought about my own life, and how I think it is sometimes easy, really easy, for the opposite to happen. As in, instead of my faith shaking the earth, I feel shaken, instead.

I had a week recently when I felt so energised and excited, and I literally jumped over chairs to go forward at church to “receive more” at the end of the service. In notices (announcements), they mentioned a women’s fellowship evening on the following Friday, and I was excited to go along. I spent most of the following week hyped, and it felt like God wouldn’t stop talking to me about things and giving me new ideas. It felt exciting to hear what God was speaking to me, and to be receiving ideas for something big which He seemed to be giving me directly — something big, and full of the Word of God that would hopefully help others draw closer to Him.

Friday came around and, I have to say, it wasn’t a case of “the place we gathered was shaken.” Well, it quite possibly was after I left… let me explain… I was shaken. I walked into that women’s meeting hoping to meet and connect with other Christian women in my still-quite-new-to-me church. Within five minutes of arriving, I was in the toilets having an anxiety attack and then I left for fear of crying in front of strangers and making a fool of myself. I’m an introvert to near extreme, so hands up I struggle with these things, but usually I hold it together a lot better than that! I came home disappointed and deflated. But anyway, I thought, “It’s okay — I have my online community.”

A few days later, I posted a journaling photo on instagram, and within about half an hour someone corrected me on what was written. (I didn’t know her and hadn’t interacted with her before, but she was online, and therefore a part of the “online community” I had come to rely upon.) I have had his happen a few times before — people correcting my spelling, usually — and I do find it hard. When you share your journal or journaling Bible online, you’re making yourself extremely vulnerable for so many reasons, and personally I never seem to take these “correction” comments well! I deleted the post instantly, ashamed of my mistake, and I pretty much curled up into a ball and cried, because now I felt that even my online community was rejecting me.

But you know what? THAT IS NOT WHAT IS MEANT TO HAPPEN!

We pray and the earth shakes! We pray and it changes things! It changes the atmosphere. It changes all kinds of things FOR THE GOOD! We are DANGEROUS when we pray!

This in turn, as I’ve notice, tends to attract the attention of the enemy. That week I was flying high and starting to hear from God about what the next big step for me might be, and I believe that’s why the enemy threw a load of challenges at me, using some of my biggest insecurities as his ammunition. So I had been shaken, and I stopped awhile, rather than the earth being shaken by me.

Maybe I was looking like I might just get a bit too dangerous, and woe betide the enemy if I actually positively connected with other Christian women out there! And you know what, realising this, I mean really realising this, I wanted to share this because YOU ARE DANGEROUS! When YOU pray it makes a difference. When YOU pray THE EARTH SHAKES! Don’t be fooled by the lie that this is only true of others, that you haven’t prayed in so long you’re not sure you even remember how. YOUR PRAYERS shake the earth where you stand and make the enemy quake. YOU ARE FILLED WITH POWERFUL PRAYERS!