Thailand. This month has looked a little different than the previous three because of our change of plans. Or, I should say because God’s plans are better than our plans. Instead of working with ministry hosts in Chiang Mai he had us in Bangkok for an all squad month of ATL.
ATL means “ask the Lord”. These months are an opportunity to lean in to our relationship with God and practice listening prayer. We get up in the morning, pray, and listen.
We ask the Lord what he has for us, and then we go and do it.
The first day of ATL multiple people on the team heard “prayer walk.” We spent the first three days of ministry here doing prayer walks around the city.
Here are a few things you should know about Bangkok. The primary religion here is Buddhism. There are temples on every block and shrines on every corner. The population of Christians is about one percent. Thailand is also a major area for red light districts and human trafficking. There is a lot of spiritual darkness here (though Bangkok is not nearly as bad as other areas).
Before we set out in the mornings we prayed protection over the team, and that the Lord would lead us where he wanted us to go. As we walked and prayed we also listened and felt for any prompts that the Lord was calling us down certain streets or to pray for anything specific.
As we walked we prayed over the city and the people in it, prayed that the shrines temples and idols would be replaced with truth, prayed that the Lord would bring his light into the darkness.
The first day something caught my attention: We were walking through an alley and as usual we greeted the family that lived there. Our hostel is on a side alley instead of a street and there are lots of locals who live in the buildings on either side. They often just hang out outside by the river, sometimes they cook their food outside, and many of them have little shops they’ve set up. It’s been nice to get a little peak into day to day life here.
We always greet the people who are hanging out and they do the same. As we walked through this alley we said hello in Thai and they said hello back. As we continued to walk through we passed a girl maybe my age, maybe younger, who gave us a friendly smile and then said in English “Don’t be afraid.”
It was one of those moments when I did a mental double take. A moment when I wondered if anyone else had heard the same thing I had heard. I wondered if she had even said what I had heard. I think I smiled and nodded at her to greet her and be polite and then as soon as I had passed I likely had a visual expression of confusion on my face. Why would she have said that? What does it mean? It didn’t make any sense in the context of the situation. It also didn’t seem like anyone else in the group was responding or reacting to it in the way I was. I was caught in this surreal moment. A moment I feel was shared not with this stranger, not with anyone on my team, but just between me and the Lord.
The second day we set out again with the same prayer of protection and guidance at the beginning of our day. We also had more specific direction and felt that we were being called to prayer walk around temples in the surrounding area. We went to one of the big ones but because it was more well known there was an admission fee. Instead of paying we walked a full circle of prayer around the block that contained it. As we walked home we continued to pray and we also kept an eye out for more temples to pray over. There are the big well known ones but there are also smaller neighborhood temples every few blocks. There was one of these that we had walked past on our way to the larger temple so I suggested that we stop and pray around it. It was nestled between some houses and a parking garage. One of the houses had a little 2 car garage and above the garage was a sign. The sign was in English and in clear line of sight if you were standing by the temple.
It said “Beware of false guides.”
This one my team mates did also notice, and we later commented on the irony and significance of it. There are many locals in Bangkok who don’t speak any English, let alone read it, and it’s crazy to me to think how many people come to that temple to pray every day, see that sign, and have no idea what it says.
The biggest prayer we have been praying over these temples and shrines is a prayer for truth: that truth would rule and be made known in these places.
I don’t know what this sign was actually trying to convey; I suspect it was likely a poorly translated warning about how to park properly or something to that effect, but the fact that we were praying truth over this place and there was a sign right there, a warning against false guides [gods], struck me really palpably.
I find that things often come in threes, and this series of encounters was no exception.
The next day as we were praying we got “mall ministry.” A pretty sure sign that this was from the Lord was that the person who heard it had little to no interest in doing mall ministry and didn’t like the fact that she was hearing that. So off we went to find a mall. We had a few conversations and encounters but mostly found ourselves prayer walking this enormous mall. That morning I had gotten the letter B and the number 8, and another teammate had gotten B4. When we got to the mall we were excited to find that the mall was marked by section and by floor (D3, D4, C2, etc.) This fact alone felt like a confirmation that we were where we were supposed to be.
I went to find B8 and it turned out to be the very top floor. It was the floor with the movie theater (and not much else) and since there was no one there I prayer walked some laps around it before heading back down.
Before we left, one of my team mates wanted to get some coffee and while I was waiting for her I wandered over to a shelf that had some magazines aesthetically strewn across its surface. The one sitting on top again was mostly in Thai, but in a strong black serif lettering on the front it just said “Is Am Are.”
Once again this phrase struck me as something that didn’t make any sense in the context. Something that wasn’t supposed to be there.
This one reminded me of the identity of the Lord. When God speaks to Moses through the burning bush and Moses asks who is speaking, the reply is “I Am.” (Exodus 3:14)
The Lord is the great I Am. He is the most real of everything that exists. He is eternal. He always was, and he always will be.
“Is Am Are.”
ATL has been challenging. We have struggled with learning to better listen to what the Lord is saying to us, with not having an organized ministry structure, with the fact that we can sometimes have 7 different callings, and half a dozen other things. ATL is a huge learning process. Discerning the voice of the Lord takes practice. He speaks to all of us in different ways. Personally I have heard the voice of the Lord through so many different avenues. Sometimes it’s a soft voice in the back of my mind, sometimes the Lord speaks through other people, sometimes he even speaks to me through animals that show up at a significant moment.
In the process of cultivating the ability to listen to the Lord, it’s always helpful to confirm things with scripture, so that’s what I’ve done here:
On the first day of ATL, something new and more than a little intimidating [scary], it was “Do not be afraid.”
Isaiah 41:10 “Do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”
The second day, when we felt that the call to pray truth over Buddhist temples, it was “Beware of false guides.”
Exodus 20:3-4 “You shall have no other gods before me. You shall not make for yourself a carved image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.”
Isaiah 45:20 “Gather together and come; assemble, you fugitives from the nations. Ignorant are those who carry about idols of wood, who pray to gods that cannot save. ”
And then on the third day (significant in and of itself) the Lord reminded me of his character.
“Is Am Are”
Exodus 3:14 “God said to Moses, ‘I AM WHO I AM.’ And he said, ‘say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”
For each of these words there are many verses, but these are the ones that have specifically come up for me. We are now in Malaysia (sorry, as always I’m trying to catch up on my blogging) and heading into another month of ATL. Keep us in your prayers as we continue to seek the Lord and as we wait eagerly to see what he has for us here. I hope you find an encouragement in these words as well. The Lord is always with you, and if you seek him you will find him.
Jeremiah 29:13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.
I also hope that this reminds you to look for God in unexpected places.
He is speaking.
Are you listening?
Much Love and God Bless,
Hattie
