By Joe Sarembe from Pfungstadt, Germany (Abends am Meer) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons

Ok, this is one of my all-time favorite stories. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea, but I’m pretty sure my friend Tammii will love it. Mom, you might want to stop reading.

When I was young in the Lord, I didn’t know what I didn’t know. I didn’t know hearing God’s voice was supposed to be hard. I didn’t know that I needed to read up on how to pray so I could do it right. I had a burden for a friend, so I asked the Holy Spirit to help me. I asked Him to teach me to pray. For a summer I committed to pray an hour a day just for this friend.

My friend was the most immoral person I had (and have) ever met. He was convinced that he was apostate and before the summer was over, he about made a believer of everyone he knew. He also had an almost Charles Manson-like ability to bed women. In a given week, he might sleep with 2-3 different people. (I can almost hear the men reading this laughing in disbelief and imagining my naïveté.) It was a small town. I knew the girls.

I don’t remember everything I learned in prayer that summer. But what I did learn is that God is not uptight, and that He has a sense of humor. I was praying one day and felt the Lord say, “Plead the blood of Jesus over him. Over every part.” So I began. I pleaded the blood over his mind, over his heart, over his limbs, over his feet---kind of like I’d learned to apply the armor of God to myself. When I was done, I heard God say, “I said every part.”

I was a little embarrassed, but it was God, and back then I didn’t know to question His voice and wonder if it was just me. So I did what I knew He was asking. I pled the blood of Jesus over my friend’s penis. (I can say that word thanks to a few colleagues and friends. You know who you are. Ahem.)

Later that week, I ran into my friend. A little tongue in cheek, I asked how his “love life” was.

He was impotent.

I think it’s high time I left the books, and the doubts. I want to learn to pray again with the one who makes me laugh.

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