During our morning mission trip team debrief in Queensland, Australia, I was having a rough time. A few days earlier, a friend had given me a word about spreading rainbows across Australia-that I was to go and give God’s promises to people. Yet I was not seeing or feeling Him move the way I knew Him.
Summoning courage, I raised my hand and said, “Hey, I need to be really vulnerable with you guys. I am struggling to feel God’s presence. I feel rather empty and alone; would you pray for me?” Without hesitation, the team gathered around and laid their hands on me. As they prayed over me and encouraged me with words from God , I began to feel warm and weightless, like a buoy in a bath. It was glorious!
After the meeting, Emma, one of our wonderful hostesses, notified me that she and I could indeed go to “Crocodile Hunter” Steve Irwin’s Australia Zoo that day. This was a lifelong dream of mine, so I emphatically exclaimed, “That would be awesome!”
Ecstatic, I ran it by my leader, and he said, “No worries. I will just need you back by three.”
It was noon at that point, so we bustled off to make the 45-minute one-way drive to the zoo. When we arrived, we had just over an hour to spend there, and God was incredibly good! Having taken many visitors through the park, Emma was surprised by the speed at which we traversed the grounds. None of the exhibits we went to had lines. The crowds were ahead of or behind us but never right in front. Both the animals and zookeepers were amazingly gracious, letting me take photographs with them. In an hour and a half, I ended up taking hundreds of pictures and saw the majority of the zoo, which normally takes at least four hours.
On the way home we began discussing Australia, and I found myself declaring a message from God of blessing over the country. Australia was to become a geopolitical powerhouse through political and socioeconomic reformation; there were “red arrows” born in the nation’s heart, traveling out into Oceania and beyond, and a drought’s demise was near at hand. The presence of God filled the car.
We arrived home famished and immediately raided her kitchen. While I was cutting fruit, Emma looked at the clock and gasped. A trip that should have taken 45 minutes due to traffic alone had taken only 13! Emma could not believe it, having taken that drive many times in her life. I checked my phone to verify the time, and it was spot on. We had just been transported! It was the icing to an already delicious day’s cake and a dream fulfilled to extravagance for me. God kept a promise to me that I didn’t even know He’d made. He is truly the best Dad in the whole world.
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