What Kingdom-Centered Prayer Looks Like

[Music]

Welcome to the Grace at the Fray—a podcast that explores the many dimensions of God’s grace that we find at the frayed edges of life. Come explore how God’s grace works to renew your life and send you on mission in His kingdom.

[Music] 

Jim Lovelady 00:25 Hello, beloved! Welcome to Episode 7 of Grace at the Fray. Okay, so today, this episode is going to be a little bit like the movie, Inception. It’s like an interview inside an interview. First, I want you to hear a conversation that I had with my friend Lindsay, who lives and works in London, as we talk about the matriarch of our company, Rose Marie Miller. And if you’ve been listening to the podcast, you’ve already heard that name many times. And that’s because she holds a place of great honor and love, not just for folks at Serge but really anyone who knows her. So Lindsay is going to give you a little background on her friend, Rose Marie. And then I’ll take you to London, where Lindsay and Rose Marie talk about the beginning of this ministry and how it was marked by intense, consistent, and desperate prayer for God’s kingdom to come and His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven. 

And throughout both of these interviews, I want you to keep this question in the forefront of your mind: What does it look like for you to put yourself in a position where you are ready to receive whatever it is that the Lord in His goodness and love wants to give to you? 

So, without further ado, my friend Lindsay.

Jim Lovelady 01:49 Well, hey!

Lindsay H. 01:51 Hey, how’s it going?

Jim Lovelady 01:52 Hey, it’s good to see you. It’s been three months since I was in London… It was such a fun trip. I felt like every person I hung out with, I was like, “Man, I want to hang out with these people more.” And, yeah, same with you, same with all the folks who are over there. So I wanted to connect with you because you and Rose Marie did an interview while I was over there, talking about kingdom prayer, like big prayers, talking about big prayers for God’s kingdom. And I thought it’d be really important and really good for us to do a little prelude for that interview. Because the podcast is on, I don’t remember how many episodes, but in almost every episode, the name Rose Marie has shown up. And so, since we’re going to have Rose Marie on the podcast, I thought it would be important to talk about who she is. And since you’re such a good friend of hers, and since you know her so well, and since you were part of this interview, I thought it would be great to hear who you are and how much Rose Marie means to you and all that. So ready, set, go.

Lindsay H. 03:12 Right. Well, yeah. So I’m Lindsay, and I’ve lived in the great city of London for over a decade. And when I joined this organization, I remember hearing the name Rose Marie or Jack Miller, and I was like, “They sound like great people. I have no idea who that is.” And I actually first met Rose Marie when I interviewed to join this company. And I remember thinking, “Wow, she seems like a really deep well of knowledge.” And then I learned that we’d actually be serving in the same area of the world, the same part of the city in London. And I was excited because I’d heard all these things about her, but I didn’t know anything about her other than she’s really wise. And she’s been around for a long time. And she and her husband helped start this company. And so I have had the privilege of calling Rose Marie a teammate, a friend, and really an informal mentor. So I’ve known Rose Marie for a long time. I remember I wrote an article a couple of years ago talking about our unlikely friendship. I said that the three things we have in common are (I think there are more than three, but…): we’re both human, we’re both women, and we both love Jesus. And that’s, on paper, those three things really are what we have in common. Other than that, we’re 64 years apart; she loves to read, and I could care less. I love when she talks about how she had to give up novels, and I’m like, “I need to put more novels in my life.” So we don’t have loads in common, but those three things, namely our love for Jesus, are really the heart of a really good friendship. And so my relationship with Rose Marie is one that I hold very, very dear, and I have just been moved by God to think of all the ways that I’ve been able to glean from her. Not because she in and of herself is this untouchable person of wisdom, but because she knows she’s human. And she knows that the best thing for us, the best thing for her, and the best thing for the world is to know Jesus. But we spent a lot of time together praying, honestly. And don’t be deceived. These are not like three-hour prayer meetings. I couldn’t last. These are like: we chat, and then we pray. So she’s a pillar, not just for this company, but really anywhere she’s ever lived, she has impacted lives because she’s a woman who loves to pray for people.

Jim Lovelady 06:01 Yeah, the effect is, if it’s someone who is like “holier than thou,” and kind of has this posture of “this is how a good Christian behaves,” people can see through that standoffish kind of attitude a mile away. But she’s the opposite, actually. I think she said it, and I don’t remember if it was on camera or off camera, but she was just expressing some neediness to you. Just like, “I am struggling in this area.” I can’t remember the details of it. But all I remember is going, “Man, there’s an openness and a vulnerability about her that is winsome.” And so when it comes to how I want to be when I’m 98, Lord willing, I want to be someone full of joy who openly wrestles with Jesus and then enthusiastically receives His grace and mercy on a moment-by-moment, day-by-day basis. The way that, in the short time I got to hang out with her, I saw that. And it seems like everyone around her also starts to do that because of this lifelong obedience and determination to follow Jesus wherever He leads. So she’s hanging out in London, catching cabs, talking to people. You know? 

Lindsay H. 07:31 Honestly, there have been a few times where I’ve called her an Uber or something, and the cab will drive up, and I’m like, “You have no idea what’s your about to get.”

Jim Lovelady 07:40 That’s awesome.

Lindsay H. 07:43 I’m like, “She’s on fire today. So good luck.” 

Jim Lovelady 07:48 Lord be with you, cab driver, because He’s going to be with you.

Lindsay H. 07:51 Yeah, I’m like, “Good luck. Bye.” But yeah, there’s something really encouraging about following Jesus and realizing that the people we admire who also follow Jesus are just as needy as we are. I don’t know, that to me was something I really wanted… I want people to hear that. They may not hear that—I don’t know how you couldn’t hear that in what she’s saying—but it’s true. Rose Marie is 98 and sharp as a tack; honestly, she’s sharper than I am. She’s far more well-read, not just because she’s got 64 years on me, but because she reads. One of the things I love about her is she is honest and also very approachable. I see Rose Marie as a person who is just that. She is a person who struggles to want to pray sometimes, who she struggles to want to be in the Word sometimes, and who can be grumpy. I’ve never really experienced her grumpy, but I’ve got to believe that she’s had grumpy moments. Someone who wants to have friends, who had to adjust from being married to being a widow—to being single—all of those things are there, and they’re real. I remember talking with her one time about just some of the challenges of being single and living cross-culturally. And, you know, we have very different situations. But she gets wanting to have friends too. And I think sometimes when we look at people, we put them in this place in our eyes or in our hearts where they don’t struggle and they are never lonely. And that’s just absolutely not true. It’s absolutely not true. And I think my heart as I think of her is I want people to hear that she’s just like everybody else. And Jesus changed her and changes her every day. Every day, it’s just really tempting to listen to people and think they don’t struggle. They don’t feel the way I feel. And that’s just not true, at least not with my friend. I also wanted to talk to her about times in her life when God’s answer to her prayer has been different than what she thought it would be. And she touches on that a little bit. But, things that you may not hear in this conversation that I just know of her is God has rocked her world. There have been prayers, I have prayed with this woman over people that we love, over just really difficult situations, and God has said, “No,” or “Not yet.” We still pray, we still go, and we still knock on the door. And I think that for me, and I don’t want just to say my generation, I think this is just a human condition, but I think a lot of us love the idea of God. But we don’t love the idea that God is not a vending machine. And, so, just hearing from her that 98 years into this journey, God has not given her all the things that she has said and asked for. But God has still been good to her. That is a lesson that, I don’t care how old you are, you need to hear that. God is good even when His answer may not be exactly what you want. I need to hear that. And she’ll share a little bit about some stories of hard things that have happened. But that is something our world needs to hear because it’s true.

Jim Lovelady 11:57 Yeah, it’s remarkable humility when so many people look to her for and have found encouragement. And I’ve seen the work of the Holy Spirit; when you’re close to someone who walks closely with the Holy Spirit, it rubs off. And so the whole Moses thing where everyone’s like, “Put a bag over your head, Moses, please, we can’t handle the glory,” I mean, it really is that. To be around someone who has worked closely with Jesus for a long time is to be around someone glorious. So Jack and Rose Marie were part of founding World Harvest, which later was renamed Serge. A Serge? What’s a Serge? A serge is a sewing term for taking two frayed edges and sewing them together. And so Grace at the Fray is the tagline, and the name of this podcast, because that’s what we’re about. We’re about seeing the Lord bring the frayed edges of life together in His grace. So how much of the history of the company do we need to unpack before I show this interview?

Lindsay H. 13:19 Yeah, I mean, I think one, just knowing a little bit of the history of the Miller family: knowing who Jack is; knowing a couple of names that are referenced in our conversation like Keren and Bob; hearing before you listen to this episode that Rose Marie and Jack really intentionally wanted to follow where Jesus was leading them. So it affected not just the local church, the world, the US, and people wanting to go overseas, but their own family. And so a lot of the people they name are people in their family, which is remarkable, such a legacy of God’s kindness to set to think that Jack and Rose Marie were not the only ones in their family who are part of what the Lord called them into. It’s their children and then their children. Just really cool. So you hear some names like that. But they didn’t start out seeking something massive. It was just seeking God’s face. And in a time when they were really trying to figure out what the next steps were in their lives, it just started with prayer. And so I think that’s helpful because I came into all of this not knowing anything, not knowing what New Life was, which was the church that Jack and Rose Marie were part of and helped found. I didn’t know what that was. And so I feel like just knowing there is a backstory of church-planting helps, as well. So I think just as you listen, you may hear some names, and you’re like, “I don’t know what that is.” Even knowing the context of what was going on there in the rest of the world—she references Uganda and Amin. And, you know, I think it’s easy, especially for someone like me, who doesn’t remember that because I wasn’t born yet, to know a little bit of the context of how Uganda was being torn apart by this dictator. And God led Jack and Rose Marie there in a time when it was really bad. That’s just helpful to know as you listen to this. I don’t think I knew. I didn’t know.

Jim Lovelady 15:44 Yeah, and as she unpacks some of the stories of how the company got started, I think it really is profound how she has a sense of urgency about the need for prayer. To this day, she is emphatic. If you want to see the Lord move, she says, “You have to pray.” And there’s not this manipulative kind of thing like, “Jesus, I said my prayers.” It recognizes the desperation that we have in life. And when we put ourselves in a place of receiving, which is what she’s talking about, you have to intentionally add prayer with prayer. We were intentionally putting ourselves in a place of receiving from the Lord whatever it would be that He would have. And it just so happened that when they engaged in these prayers for large things, “Let your kingdom come,” the Lord honored those prayers with some really significant movements of grace. And it’s like when a large rock gets dropped into a still lake, or if you’ve seen part of the glaciers fall into the ocean, it just causes this huge wave. I feel like that’s the story that we’re about to hear. There’s the story of people just ready and waiting for the Lord to do something big. And in their humility, they were there. And I feel like I’m still getting to ride this wave, that we’re getting to ride this and continue this legacy of grace that happens at the frayed edges of life. So yeah.

Lindsay H. 17:35 Absolutely. 

Jim Lovelady17:36 Yeah. It’s wonderful. Okay, so without further ado, for the listeners of the Grace at the Fray podcast, would you please introduce your good friend, Rose Marie?

Lindsay H. 17:52 All right, friends, I want to introduce to you 98 years young, a legend, a sinner saved by grace, and a lover of books: Ms. Rose Marie Miller.

[Music] 

Lindsay H. 18:40 Yeah, so I was just thinking, you and I often get together, and we have a lovely time. We’ve spent time in some interesting places, mostly my car, in car parks because it’s raining or something. But the last time we were together was actually a really historical day. And you had just had a nasty fall and were in hospital and recovering. I went to visit you. And it was the day that Queen Elizabeth died. And I remember sitting there, and we were watching the news, and we were holding hands because I don’t think either of us knew what to do. And you looked at me and said something I’ll never forget. You said, “You know, I think there was part of me that just thought she was going to live forever.” And I chuckled. I mean, I was sad, but I chuckled because I think honestly, I think sometimes I think that about you. And I think, obviously, you may outlive me! But there is an element of just something so precious about being able to look back over almost a century, right, almost, not quite, we’re almost there, but to look back and still have a mind that allows reflecting and looking at God’s goodness. And so, as I walked away from our time together, the next few days were just covered with news stories about the Queen and her life, but it was other people telling that story. You don’t actually get to hear from her. And so I was just thinking, you know, it’d be really, I would love just to spend some time reflecting on God’s faithfulness to you, one. God’s faithfulness to this company—Serge/World Harvest—and how God has been good. But yeah, we have this moment in time. And I think this is a gift. And so, I’ve been around the company for a while, but I still don’t really know the beginning story. So would you mind sharing it with me? And how did prayer—we love to pray together—but how was prayer part of the story of this company?

Rose Marie Miller 20:55 Well, prayer has to come out of a place of deep need and desperation. And my husband and I always prayed together, but I never really felt it was always prayer for my heart. And God had to do the work in my own heart: show me my own sinful self, my own desires always to go my own way. But being married to Jack, I didn’t have much opportunity to go my own way anyway. But I think the deep rootedness started when my husband was a professor at Westminster [Seminary] and had this little church out in the country. And he came to the place where he thought, “This is it; I can’t do it. I can’t do it.” And he resigned. And then I knew that he had to get out of this country, not to talk to people. And so we took our three younger children with us (Keren went with us), and then he just studied the Word. And, what came together for him, and which is really the DNA of our company, is that the Holy Spirit and prayer go together. You cannot separate them. So he came back and took back his resignation, and the little church grew. And then, finally, the elders in the church there said that he needed to give us full time to the church. He had to choose between the church or the seminary. And interestingly enough, he went to see Dr. Schaeffer in New York and said, “What should I do?” And Francis Schaeffer said, “I think you should stay with the seminary.” So that was kind of the bits of the background. And then, he started teaching night classes at the seminary: Christianity and Culture and Christianity and Prayer. And it just drew people from all over the area. And they started coming to Jack and wanted help, advice, and counsel. And out of that came a whole group of people who were drug addicts, some were misfits, and actually, some were in insane asylums. And they found a place in our home. And Keren grew up during that time, too.

Lindsay H. 24:10 This was still in Philadelphia?

Rose Marie Miller 24:12 This was in Philadelphia. But then Jack knew that these people, all the people that were not just living with us, but people from the broad spectrum, were hungry for teaching, hungry for a church that would really meet the deepest needs of their hearts. So he asked that little church across from Westminster, Calvary, “Can we have an elder and his family?” So that was the beginning. But the mix in all of this is that there was no way we could start this church unless there were prayer. And I don’t mean just casual prayer; I mean concentrated prayer. And that’s when we started a prayer meeting in our home. And we have a big living room, almost as big as—about the same size as Bob and Keren’s. And we filled it. I mean, God filled it. We couldn’t take in more people until another group was started around the corner. Dan Herron, who is now one of the leaders in our company, started that. But then they divided. It was just interesting. I was writing this to Piper that they decided to divide the prayer meetings, and it fell apart. It was just such a community that God was building that to separate it was not helpful. But anyway, that didn’t stop the prayer. So we just had started all day per meetings.

Lindsay H. 26:12 Okay, so that, to be honest with you, that sounds rough to me—an all-day prayer meeting.

Rose Marie Miller 26:18 Well, people came and left.

Lindsay H. 26:20 Okay, people came and left. Okay, so it wasn’t an all-day—open-house prayer. Okay. So I also have heard rumors that it was like the place to be, like the Millers’ house for prayer meetings was the place to be. 

Rose Marie Miller 26:31 Well, that’s true. 

Lindsay H. 26:33 But what’s the atmosphere like in that kind of place? It sounds, like I’m just interested.

Rose Marie Miller 26:39 What was interesting, added to this, is that God sent refugees from Uganda. They met Ed Clowney; they came to study at Westminster. And then they sat in part of Jack’s classes, and they came to us, and they said, “You’re not praying enough. You need all-night prayer meetings.” So they started all-night prayer meetings. I’m not sure my husband ever made it. And I never did. I stopped there. Sorry. There was just a sense of community getting together. These were young people that were just hungry for fellowship, hungry for connection. I’m not sure of the timetable on this, but God said, “Families, fallen families.” And then they were swept into the prayer too—people in other churches that were in sort of dying churches, in their minds anyway. We prayed before church. We prayed after church. Jack prayed with people at the door. People came to our house. They were always needy. Some of the people… one of the women who came from a mental institution eventually became a believer. She was able to go to nursing school. And now she’s a woman who got married, had a son, and now reaches out to the poor. And that’s a beautiful story, you know?

Lindsay H. 28:44 So I think it’s pretty amazing because I didn’t know this part of the story, but how you were in these prayer meetings, and whether or not you remember what you were praying for, God did lead you. And who would have thought that from a little place in Philadelphia, you’d end up in war-torn Uganda? How many years later was that that you were in Uganda?

Rose Marie Miller 29:06 Well, Amin was driven out of the country in the mid-70s, and we went in 1979. So it was that same year. 

Lindsay H. 29:19 Oh, wow. 

Rose Marie Miller 29:20 And because Jack was still a professor at the seminary, we could only go for a few months at a time. And then Bob went with us at that point, and so did Dave Powlison. 

Lindsay H. 29:34 Oh, really?

Rose Marie Miller 29:35  So yeah, it was just kind of a ripple effect being God was pleased with a concert of prayer. Maybe for a lot of them, we just prayed for their particular needs. When you think of what God has done since then, it’s just incredible. But I mean, in addition, it’s not just all about Jack and Rose Marie here. It was just the people who God brought in and then sent them out. But it was a combination of the Spirit and prayer. And the Spirit teaches us how to pray. And I’ve always had… I’m always thankful that almost every time Lindsay and I get together, we end our time in prayer.

Lindsay H. 30:25 We do. And that’s something I’ve learned. I mean, I prayed before I moved cross-culturally, but how I view prayer has really changed. And a lot of that has come from spending time being a teammate of yours, just being a friend. Honestly, one of the first things you’ll say is we need to pray. And I see that that doesn’t just happen. That’s because you’ve seen that it matters. So it brings me to one of the questions I’ve been thinking about, and we talked about it a little earlier. But as we think about looking back over… the company is celebrating 40 years. That’s amazing! Praise the Lord. Thinking about all the little nuggets I’ve heard along the way is truly remarkable. But one of the things I’ve been interested in is, over those 40 years, have there been times where you felt like when you’ve come to God in prayer about something company-related, or about the early days of the company, where God has said “No,” or something different than what you think is best? Because I think I’m noticing in myself and in culture, especially, that we have this idea that when God answers prayer, we see an answer to prayer as a yes to what we want, right? And if God doesn’t do that, then He didn’t answer the prayer. I was just wondering if there’s anything in terms of, just Serge as a whole, if there’s been a prayer that you’ve had over the years, and God said something different.

Rose Marie Miller 32:08 Keren, can you help me out here?

Keren 32:12 Well, I think there were some really difficult times when we almost went bankrupt. What was the name of that company? It was one of those pyramid—it turned out to be one of those pyramid schemes. We had invested heavily in it, and we almost collapsed.

Lindsay H. 32:34 Like World Harvest? Whoa, I did not know that. Wow.

Keren 32:37 Well, I think there was a lot of desperate praying going on, but God did deliver us.

Rose Marie Miller 32:43 Yeah, it was; then we went around and had to apologize. Yeah, you’re right. The mission could have sunk. And it didn’t. I think another time is when my husband died. Yeah, it was a pretty crucial time. Leadership was uncertain. And then, I think, for a few years, leadership changed a couple of times. And finally, God just sent Bob Osborne, and I think after that, the mission stabilized. And I honestly believe, speaking of prayer, the prayer times when COVID first started, I said to Josiah, “We have got to pray!” And then they had this whole year of prayer. And I think the growth that has come out of that has to do with that emphasis on prayer. So then, I hope we don’t drop it. I really do; I know it’s a lot of work to organize, but just to help us and to remind us that it is not going to go forward by God’s blessing if we don’t pray. I mean Kingdom prayer; I don’t mean just praying… I mean, we pray for personal needs for one another, but we want a kingdom prayer. Do you want the kingdom to come? Do you want God to be honored? And do you want Christ to come back? Yes, of course, we do. But it has to be “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done.” And I think even as workers, having to pray that prayer, “Thy will be done,” that’s not an easy prayer to pray.

Lindsay H. 34:42 It’s so hard. I don’t know why it is so hard to stop and pray. I didn’t realize how dependent I was on myself and my plan-making until moving cross-culturally and realizing, “Oh, it doesn’t matter how smart you are, how crafty you are, or how gifted you are.” It really doesn’t do much if you’re not praying because it’s like a guide. We’re on the greatest treasure hunt in the world, right? There are people waiting to be found, waiting to hear about Christ and His Kingdom. And so when I pray, it’s like putting on a new set of glasses and seeing where to go and seeing the world in a new way. And that’s something I’ve learned just by spending time with you and within our company. Just put on a new set of glasses and look at the world differently. And it’s hard. It’s easier to make plans, isn’t it?

Rose Marie Miller 35:44 I think it’s also important to ask people about your praying. Say, “I’m having problems praying. Will you pray for me?”

Lindsay H. 35:56 So if someone was listening to this conversation who is like, “That sounds great—prayer. And I love Jesus, but I don’t really know where to start,” what would you say? How would you advise them?

Rose Marie Miller 36:11 Well, I think you just start with the way Jesus taught His disciples to pray. But that is foreign to us. We don’t know what we’re praying when we say, “Thy kingdom come.” And so that’s why we need someone to pray for us. But then you have to be in the Word. I am really happy when I get into a cab and can share my faith. I don’t get out very often. But it really just gives me such joy to share my faith. But prayer just can’t be separated from outreach. It just can’t be. If you think of prayer as something that’s just isolated… you just read the first chapters of Acts, and they pray together. And I was thinking about this the other day, “why are they praying for what God is already doing in such an explosive way?” But I think they had that sense that it has to be upheld by prayer, and look, the Church grew! 3,000, 5,000….  And, you know, the prayers that I pray, Kingdom prayer, may never be answered in my lifetime. I don’t know how much longer…I’ve seen people that sort of drift away. And that’s hard.

Lindsay H. 37:38 So it’s like what you’re looking forward to is also a burden. But it’s a burden to see God’s kingdom come; I mean, that’s something to look forward to. It’s that “already not yet.”

Rose Marie Miller 37:53 Yeah. You’re right. I think what you look forward to in the kingdom is a burden. But it’s a burden to pray for and then to be thankful when God does it.

Lindsay H. 38:07 That is something we can do, whether we’re overseas or we’re in our home culture, is praying for our local body, praying for the leaders. And if you’re a leader, praying for your people and the other leaders.

Rose Marie Miller 38:21 And another note about prayer, I’m in 2 prayer meetings overseas. And I have them pray for individuals here. So I bring them into my world with prayer. I think we need to do that too. Then they do pray, and then they ask questions. And so that’s another aspect, which I think is important.

Lindsay H. 38:50 Not that prayer isn’t fun, it can be very fun, but what are some things that you do that you enjoy? What are some of your hobbies? 

Rose Marie Miller 38:58  I don’t think I have any hobbies.

Lindsay H. 39:00 You have hobbies!

Rose Marie Miller 39:03 Well, how long ago did I fall? August 18th? So since then, I’ve been slowly recovering. 

Keren 39:13 You like to read.

Rose Marie Miller 39:15 Oh, yes. I love to read. I have to be careful, though, about reading. I really do. I had to stop all novels because I was enjoying them more than the Word of God. I did. I really had to. My daughter recently sent me two novels by my favorite author. And it’s a struggle, you know, how much time do I spend reading this novel? I’m reading on several levels. I’m reading the Word, which I love. I’m in a book club with two of my grandchildren.

Lindsay H. 39:56 And you’re not reading light stuff in that book club.

Rose Marie Miller 39:59 Reading Orthodoxy.

Jim Lovelady 40:02 Chesterton? 

Rose Marie Miller 40:04  Yeah, G.K. Chesterton.

Lindsay H. 40:07 I thought she was going to say some like fluffy Christmas novel, and she dropped Orthodoxy on me. I was like, “What?”

Rose Marie Miller 40:15 It wasn’t my choice.

Keren 40:20 You like watching Father Brown.

Rose Marie Miller 40:27 She’s right. Yeah. So, you know, G.K. Chesterton wrote all the Father Brown series.

Lindsay H. 40:33 I don’t. 

Keren 40:36 Well, loosely associated. 

Rose Marie Miller 40:38 He’s a priest that’s a detective.

Lindsay H. 40:40 Oh, I have a lot of studying to do here. You’ve given me a new task: Father Brown, a detective. So you like reading, you like a good telly show. What about…

Rose Maire Miller 40:54 And I like to be with people. 

Lindsay H. 40:55 You do like to be with people.

Rose Marie Miller 40:56 Yeah, I do. I do.

Lindsay H. 40:58 Okay, the real question: coffee or tea?

Rose Marie Miller 41:02 Oh, I can’t drink coffee. 

Keren 41:04 Decaffeinated 

Rose Marie Miller 41:06 Decaffeinated, I can do.

Lindsay H. 41:08 Alright, fair enough. Fair enough. All right.

Rose Marie Miller 41:10 And tea’s fine. And then I can drink tea after 10 o’clock. 

Lindsay H. 41:13 Oh, man. This is rough.

Keren 41:15 10am, you mean.

Rose Marie Miller 41:19 10am.

Lindsay H. 41:20 Oh man, Rose Marie, this is rough.

Rose Marie Miller 41:23 Well, since I’ve been back home, Keren makes a smoothie for me every day. Yeah, that’s delicious.

Lindsay H. 41:36 I’ve never had anything Keren’s made that’s not been delicious. So yeah. Well, Rose Marie, I am in awe of what the Lord has done in your life and your family having an up-front seat in some of the ways God has been working. Without going into detail, it’s been a pleasure to watch God work. And to also see, you know… I can look back over text messages. First of all, you understand WhatsApp better than my own mum and dad, which is amazing. Because I mean, I think you’re good at technology. That’s another hobby I think you have, email. But just to see times when you said, “Lindsay, I don’t want to be in the Word.” Or, “Pray for me; pray for my praying.” And that has, I mean, I have really been inspired by that. And I just want to say I know that that’s God at work in you. I know that that’s genuine. And I just want to say, kind of on behalf of a generation, really, thanks for modeling what it means to ask for prayer. 

Rose Marie Miller 42:47 Well, that’s encouraging because I have a lot of desperation, believe me.

Lindsay H. 42:52 But seriously, how sobering it is to see someone that you really cherish and look up to, who’s seen a lot in life, who’s been there from the beginning of a company that sent people around the world, and saying, “I don’t want to be in the Word,” or “I need help.” As someone who struggles to ask for help, it really means a lot. And it is a beautiful picture of what God has done in your life.

Rose Marie Miller 43:24 It is certainly all what the Spirit has done. Left to myself… every once in a while, God just shows me, pulls back the curtain, and shows me some parts of my heart that really frighten me. And I go right to Christ and say, “Please, don’t let me go down that road.” So yeah, it’s not about us, is it? That’s what G.K. Chesterton said. Those people that are all about themselves are lunatics. Anyway, thanks, Lindsay. Because you’re in a different group now, we don’t get together very often. But we’ve had fun times, just her visiting me in the hospital and the very night the Queen died, we were there together.

Lindsay H. 44:32 And you know what we did before you went to bed? 

Rose Marie Miller 44:35 We prayed.

Lindsay H. 44:36 We prayed for the royal family. It felt right. 

Rose Marie Miller 44:38 We had to, you know?

Lindsay H. 44:40 And actually, what I loved about that is sometimes I think we think, “I’m never going to meet them. I can’t pray for these people I don’t know.” But you can. That’s something you can do. So it’s like asking people; I mean, it didn’t feel silly! Actually, it felt right.

Rose Marie Miller 44:56 So when God puts somebody on your heart to pray for, it means you ought to pray. Now, I don’t do it every day, all the time. And please don’t think I’m a 24-hour prayer person because I’m not. I’m just not.

Lindsay H. 45:18 But you are honest, and that’s what I think is… See, the fact that you’re willing to say, “I’m not a 24-hour prayer person,” is really refreshing to some people. Because they probably go, “Oh, I bet Rose Marie prays for 24 hours a day.” And you’re like, “No, I gotta sleep. I got a book to read.” Well, in the spirit of that, shall we pray? 

Rose Marie Miller 45:36 Yes. 

Lindsay H. 45:37 Why don’t we pray? 

Rose Marie Miller 45:38 Absolutely.

Lindsay H. 45:39 Father, thank you so much for, Lord, Your faithfulness to each of us in this room, to each of us listening, wherever they may be. Lord, we thank You that You are a God who keeps His promises. And Lord, we thank You for the faithfulness that You have had to Rose Marie and her family for many, many years. We thank You for the faithfulness of 40 years of this company. And thank You for the ways that You have protected us. Thank You for the ways that You have allowed for hard things to happen for the sake of Your kingdom expanding. And Lord, we do ask that as we continue on, that we would be faithful to Your call that Your kingdom would come and Your will be done here on earth as it is in heaven. So, Lord, we ask that You give us eyes to see people the way You do and hearts to love people the way You do. And I pray that You would give us a desire and a hunger to commune with You, Lord. Thank You for this time. We ask that You make Your presence known in our lives even more. Your kingdom come, Lord Jesus; we pray in Christ’s name, Amen. 

Rose Marie Miller 46:49 Amen.Thank you, thank you.

Jim Lovelady 47:00 I have a friend who’s a really great surfer. And one time, we were out surfing the Jersey Shore (LBI represent!). I saw him catch the most beautiful wave that took him really all the way back to shore. And as I watched, I knew that he had timed the way he caught that wave perfectly. So he was able to catch that thing and ride it for a long time because he was ready. And he was waiting. And he knew what he needed to do when the perfect wave came by. And I feel like a lot of the story of Serge is that Rose Marie and Jack Miller had put themselves in a position where they were ready for when a great movement of God came by, they were ready to catch that. And I think that we’re living in the effect of that. And it’s an honor to be a part of this company that wants to honor God in this kind of way. But it’s marked by desperation. It’s marked by dependence on the Holy Spirit. And it’s marked by prayer. So all of these things come together so that when the Lord is ready to move, we’re ready to ride the wave. 

So what is it in your life that you need to do? Is there something that you need to repent of that’s getting in the way of you being able to catch the movement of God in your life? Is there something you need to start doing to put yourself in a position where you can receive the good things that the Lord would be offering you right now? Whatever it is, we’d love to know, and we’d love to hear about it because we’re all in this together. So we have an email address, podcast@serge.org. Send us an email about how we can pray for you and participate together in what the kingdom of God is doing. 

And if you want more information, go to serge.org. And explore that website because there are so many beautiful things happening that the Lord is doing through Serge. And it’s a lot of fun. 

So, as you go, ready to receive whatever good, glorious thing the Lord might want to do in your life, know that all the promises of God find their yes and amen in Christ, and those promises belong to you. So, go with His blessing: May the Lord bless you and keep you and make His face to smile down on you. May the Lord be gracious to turn His bright eyes to you and give you His peace. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, one God, life everlasting. Amen.