Someone Was Already Praying for You
Ben Fuller on Why Community Matters.
Christian music artist, Ben Fuller, preaches the gospel for a living. He’ll be the first to tell you what that costs. “When I signed up for Jesus,” he says, “I didn’t sign up for the huge target that would be on my back to preach the gospel for a living. And so it’s been really, really hard.”
Staying connected to God in seasons like that, when the plowing is hard and the fruit invisible, takes everything you have. And then, Ben says, it takes the people around you.
People keep him going.
“The one thing that has continued to give me hope is my friends that surround me every day,” he says. “They remind me who I am in Christ, and they push me to the cross when I don’t want to go. And they send me scripture, and they pray for me.”
Community, for Ben, is the people who show up in your hardest season and refuse to let you face it alone. They are the kind that arrive when you’d rather be left alone.
His one piece of advice for anyone in the same battle:
“Surround yourself with people that love Jesus more than you.”
Sometimes God places community around you before you know you need it, before you’re ready, and before you’d think to ask.
Year After Year After Year
Ben’s most powerful community story started before he was ready for it. For 14 years he was a secret drug addict, hiding in plain sight, “having no idea,” he says, “that Jesus was a Savior and not just a swear word.” All the while, someone was already praying for him.
“My best friend Paul, who I didn’t even know was a Christian, prayed for me,” Ben says. “Year after year after year after year.”
Quietly. Faithfully. From a distance Ben had no idea existed.
Paul held on through doubt. “I really thought that you would never come to Christ,” he told Ben later, “just given your path that you were on.”
He kept praying. God heard every word.
“Don’t give up hope,” Ben says now, speaking directly to anyone interceding for someone they love. “God hears you. Because I know He heard Paul when Paul was interceding for me.”
Eighteen years later, Ben still says it with wonder: “Look at God. Heard those prayers and answered those prayers.”
“He turns all things for good,” Ben says. Romans 8:28 says, “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (NIV). Ben didn’t just believe that verse. He became it.
You’re in Somebody’s Story
Maybe you’re in the hard season right now, where staying connected to God takes everything you have, where you need people who will push you toward Jesus even on the days you’d rather turn away. Or maybe you’re the Paul in someone’s story. Praying year after year, trusting that God hears even when you can’t see the answer yet.
He does. You were never meant to carry this alone, and neither were they. Don’t stop. God heard Paul. He hears you too.
Want to go deeper?
“No Ordinary Moments”—a 5-Day Devotional on YouVersion—will walk you through what it means to find God present in every season, including the ones where you’re holding on by a thread. [YouVersion link and plan subtitle—to come.]