One Christmas we bought Anna, our daughter, a puppy from the local dog pound. Actually we bought two puppies because when we went to the pound she fell in love with the father dog, and the six month old puppy was such a bundle of joy that it was impossible to separate the two, and leave one behind caged up for an uncertain future.
Within days of her owning both dogs, the young puppy was diagnosed with a disease called ‘parva’, which is a parasite that eats away the life of the animal. Our hearts sank. It was a few days before Christmas Day, and it looked as if we would be having a really sad holiday.
As I stood praying through the sadness, the Lord spoke loudly… “Is your joy full!?” “IS my JOY full….? I thought… OF COURSE my joy is not full. We had planned a great family Christmas time, and our hopes of wonderful joy filled days with a new puppy now looked like doom. However, I searched for the verse where Jesus talked about praying until your joy is full, and was amazed at what began to happen.
A local pastor came to dinner that night, and upon hearing the story his wife said “Nothing comes to our house to die!” So I kept asking for the puppy to be healed and moved through the sadness until I could laugh with real joy. Within 24 hours the puppy was miraculously totally healed, and still romps around to this day.
Living prayerfully means living joyfully. Often you meet intercessors who are all burdened down with all kinds of baggage. What they carry has just not been prayed through.
Recently we drove over mountains in California known as the ridge route, en-route from Kern County to the Los Angeles basin area. On the road approaching the range of mountains we were in direct sunlight and clear skies, but as we looked at the first set of mountains we could see we were about to enter into a thick darkness of grey clouds. As we began the climb the roadway, called the Grapevine I could not help but think of the verse that says “God dwells in the thick darkness…” mentioned in 1 Kings 8:12 and 2 Chronicles 6:1.
Within moments the sky changed and had grown dark around us, and the more we climbed to several thousand feet the stronger the wind blew around us. On the summit the land was literally covered in several feet of heavy snow. Everything was carpeted in this thick snow. It took about 30 minutes to drive through to the other side, and when we finally got through the range and began to come down we entered into warm sunny weather that is common to Los Angeles. In fact it was almost 15 degrees higher than when we had left Kern County. This reminded me of exactly what it’s like in prayer at times.
You may be facing a dark situation, but it’s not going to stay that way forever. We may face some horrendous reports and situations this year. This year, and this second month, let’s make a difference. Two is the number that makes a difference. Prayer makes a difference, because when we invite God into our difficult and dark places, He will be there. No matter how dark things look, let’s pray until our joy is full, and stand together in the place of agreement. When a bad report swoops at us let’s live prayerfully, and pray until our joy is full. | 
