From Space Shuttle Engineer to God’s Servant - Sally Burke
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Our society is often focused on ego and the pursuit of external rewards, leading us to believe that we control our destinies. However, this is a fallacy. The truth is that God is the one who controls our lives and we serve Him by surrendering everything we have to His will. Though it may seem daunting, surrendering our hearts to God is a liberating and peaceful experience.
[00:00:33] We must trust in him and rely on prayer and His word to help us continually surrender our lives to Him.
[00:00:41] On this episode of Relentless Hope, Sally Burke, president of Moms in Prayer International, shares her personal journey of surrendering her life to God. She went from a successful career as a space shuttle engineer to being a stay-at-home mom who found Jesus and committed her life to Him.
[00:01:03] Sally's story shows us that when we surrender to God, He will carry us through all of life's trials and tribulations. She shares the heart-wrenching experiences of almost losing two of her children and how she relied on prayer to surrender control of their lives to God.
[00:01:24] As leaders, we must also surrender our hearts to God to lead in a way that honors Him.
[00:01:32] Sally encourages us to surrender to God's will for our leadership and to turn to the Bible as the greatest leadership book in the world, featuring God and Jesus as the greatest leaders in the world.
[00:01:47] Sally is also passionate about leaving the legacy of prayer. Prayer is the most powerful tool available to us, and it invites God's presence and power into our lives and the lives of those around us.
[00:02:01] We are created and fueled by God's power through prayer, and we have the ability to change not just individual lives, but entire communities and countries. In conclusion, God has given us the gift of life. And we must let go of the illusion of control to live a surrendered life that allows Him to work through us.
[00:02:28] Welcome to today's episode of Relentless Hope with Sally Burke.
[00:02:36] Not too long ago, Sally Burke rushed her son to the hospital when she thought he was having stomach pains.
[00:02:46] Sally Burke: Uh, my, uh, son David, his, um, intestines had exploded. We didn't know he had Crohn's disease. All we knew he had a tummy ache. Took him, um, into the hospital there and I could tell his body was going into shock. And they did not know what to do. They just knew he was in great pain. And I remember the specialist coming in and he says, we, we don't know what to do exactly.
[00:03:09] And I knew we only had a, a matter of a short time, so I asked the doctor, do you pray? I remember getting on my knees and praying, going, Lord, his life is Yours. You can either take him, heal him by taking him home or heal him here. And I asked the doctor, if it was your son, what would you do? And he said, I'd go in and I'd operate.
[00:03:30] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, the President of Moms in Prayer, Sally Burke, talks about her life growing up as a NASA engineer working on space shuttles and turning to prayer during her son's life threatening event, she transformed her life, found God and now gets to impact others for Christ.
[00:03:57] Sally Burke: I wanna begin by, by sharing with you really my life philosophy. I really believe life is a precious gift from God, and every breath we breathe, we can live this glorious life for Christ as he has lived for us and given us all that we need. God has chosen us before the foundations of this world to live an extraordinary life.
[00:04:20] He created us in a, an incredible way with our DNA, our giftedness, our weakness and, and our past and our future, all to bring glory to His name, and if we allow Him, we can bless others too. We are created to be loved by Him, to love Him. We are created for his pleasure, His fellowship, and, and to really find out what is our calling here on this earth.
[00:04:47] My life story is a story of much forgiven, much given, and now so much to live for, I was very fortunate to grow up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and it was a beautiful place to grow up. It was a very peaceful place, and I want you to imagine this: we lived, uh, where the ocean waters just were in our backyard because of manmade outlets and, and porpoises, sea turtles, and sea manatees. So we swam with them and in our, on our dock, they would land flamingos and pelicans. It was an amazing, amazing place to grow up, and we also, uh, could watch and see from our backyards or on the beaches, uh, the Apollos take off and, and most of our dads worked in Cape Canaveral on the, the spacecraft, the mancraft that, the craft that took man to the moon.
[00:05:41] And, and so that was my growing up experience. And my mom, who had four kids, kept us very busy. We did sports, all of us, and my chosen sports were swimming, which led to lifeguarding, and then I played tennis, which led to the high school tennis team, which all, all of that impacted my life and really gave me a vision of, of what it meant to persevere when things got hard.
[00:06:06] We are very blessed, our schools were great. Some of our teachers were former engineers on the Apollos. They came home to raise our kids and they taught us, and they taught us such things as math. And my dad was great on helping with math and calculus was my thing.
[00:06:21] And it served me well when I, I went to college, I graduated from the school of business and, and the thing that I focused on was called quantitative analysis, computers and calculus. And soon as I graduated, they grabbed me and took me and I moved to California and I worked on the space shuttle. And what I did there on the space shuttle was, um, as we, we worked at the assembly plant where they, they put these space shuttles together and we would test them afterwards to see is the environmental control working? Is the main propulsion system working? And if you saw Hidden Figures, those computers that those women were working on is what I worked on.
[00:06:59] It was extremely exciting, but it was also extremely demanding, and I remember this one time in particular, there's only like five of us women engineers, and we really had to prove ourselves, and at one time, one of the computers went out and I, uh, you know, the manager came down and was just yelling at me in front of everybody. You're costing us $10,000 an hour until those computers get back up. And that was my job to make sure they got back up and, and to, if there was a problem, I had to decipher it and see what was going on, and it was amazing, uh, to watch the space shuttles take off and defy gravity, but soon I, I met my husband there. He is a fellow engineer, and we had a child and we had a son, and I realized pretty quickly they're a lot more complex than the space shuttle. And for me, I need to come home and stay and, and raise him because my work, it could be seven days a week, it could be 12 hours a day, and I wouldn't have got to raise my children.
[00:08:01] So I, we chose for me to come home and my husband still worked and I remember one day he comes home and he is working long hours just like I was, commuting, and by this time we had two and I had one child on the hip and one holding onto my legs. And we always greeted my husband when he came in.
[00:08:17] And he comes in, he goes, Sally, and he had tears inside. He goes, I was listening to the radio station and John MacArthur was on, and he goes, I pulled over and I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I thought, whoa, what's happened to my husband? He must have had a nervous breakdown or something, you know, this isn't right. It did not compute in my brain because you see, as we worked on the space shuttle, we worked with the, the brilliant, most brilliant minds from around the world, and really our intellect was our God, you know, we, we defied gravity, we did this, we did that. And it, it wasn't, you know, even I grew up in the south and I believe there was a God, I believe that Jesus, you know, but he didn't live that surrendered life. You know, if you live in the south, they go, what church do you go to? What college football team do you like? And you go to church. But he didn't live that surrendered life, and my husband did. He surrendered his life to the Lord and made him his savior.
[00:09:11] And, within a matter of time, I watched him walk in, in such a way, a peaceful way, a way that said no to the world, cause we, we were living fully for the world and a very selfish life.
[00:09:23] That's what you do if you don't know who God is.
[00:09:25] And that Christmas, my husband, um, buys me, was used to him buying me diamonds and different things like that, he bought me a Bible and he told me, oh, I searched all over for just the right Bible and I'm thinking of Bible, Bible. So I opened it up, and I began to read it, and I, and I read, you know, first of all, I read, uh, Genesis. You know, I mean, you think about it. God spoke the heavens and the earth into being, and, and I, I saw science in that.
[00:09:52] I mean, it takes time, energy, and space to create anything, and only God could create something from nothing. There is that scientific analysis that was true, and he created it and, so I, I went to the Book of Psalms and all that I learned in college, everything that told me there was no, God. I saw whoever wrote this Bible was brilliant.
[00:10:13] He could make simple truth, a complex truth, so simple and profound that I even, I can understand it. And then I read the book of John and I saw that Jesus was God. And right then and there I started my life to Lord. I had no idea. I mean, I hadn't started going to church. I didn't know what he did, but I, I began to be transformed.
[00:10:31] And from that point on, I've lived the most extraordinary life you could ever imagine. I mean, I get to watch lives transformed. I I was saved outta darkness into his glorious light. And now I, I get to be a part of impacting others for Christ, and. And it, it has just totally changed me. There's nothing like it.
[00:10:52] I remember when I was talking to Dr. Dobson one time, I've talked to him twice and both times he asked me, cuz he was so into the space program, he goes, do you miss working on the space at all? I said, no, what I get to do now, that was exciting, I get to be a part of an amazing prayer ministry in which lives are forever changed and touched by God through the power of prayer.
[00:11:13] Great power in taking a shuttle up, but even greater power as people come together and pray.
[00:11:19] God has a great plan for our lives and, and I, I think about that. I was forgiven. I lived a life of sin. Yeah, Jesus forgave me. I, I lived an abundant life. I was very fortunate with parents who loved me unconditionally, parents who, who taught me right over wrong, and, and I live that life, and now that I'm saved, I get to live a full exciting life for Christ. And, and it's never ever been the same.
[00:11:48] So, so that's my life. And, and, and now I, I serve as president of the Moms in Prayer. I get to watch lives, all over the world in 146 different countries, transform daily, daily as they meet with God face to face.
[00:12:02] That's what our life is about. Our life is about God, and it's about living this fullness of life that He has given us, this abundant life that he wants us to, to live before the foundations of this earth he chose us unto him to live that kind of life. And, and, and so for you guys out there that, that's my desire for you.
[00:12:23] Every day I wake up, I thank God for this breath that I have today. Life is hard. My life's been since I became a Christian, you know, kind of went easy before as a Christian. Then after I became a Christian, um, both of my boys, they're young adults now married, they have gone through life, uh, changing life threatening lifelong diseases.
[00:12:40] Both of 'em been in the hospital, one for over a year, another one, uhm for 12 days, and both of 'em almost died and, and yet they still live with these lifelong diseases, yet Christ in them.
[00:12:54] One's an incredible evangelist. The other one is a, a young man who walks integrity of, of God. Both of 'em are married.
[00:13:02] And, and yet in those trials and those tribulations, and watching my dad take his last breath, he, he died of emphysema. That's hard to lift him up and know he's taking his last breath yet. God carries us through and he carries us through in such an incredible way that we can turn around and, and bless another that has gone through trials and tribulations.
[00:13:22] Uh, my, uh, son David, he, he almost died. His, um, intestines had exploded. We didn't know he had Crohn's disease. All we knew he had a tummy ache. Took him, um, into the hospital there and I could tell his body was going into shock and, and they did not know what to do. They just knew he was in great pain. And I remember the specialist coming in and he says, we, we don't know what to do exactly.
[00:13:47] And I knew we only had a, a matter of a short time. So I asked the doctor, do you pray. I remember getting on my knees and praying, going, Lord, his life is yours. You could either take him, heal him by taking him home or heal him here. And I asked the doctor, if it was your son, what would you do? He said, I'd go in and I'd operate. And they went in and they were able to, uh, tie his intestines together and really save his life.
[00:14:10] The most remarkable thing to me about that, my son was like triple majoring and he was getting his CPA license and he was being interviewed by top CPA uh, companies. And, uh, a few days after he came home from the hospital, he goes, you know, mom, I was thinking about it. I, I was talking to God and I said, you know what, if I just have two years to live and, and he's lived past those two years, he goes, how would I live for God? He changed his totally, his major. He is now in the medical field. Uh, he's impacting others, has a very compassionate heart that would help anybody at any time to do anything.
[00:14:47] And I think about how God used that trial as scary it is for a mom. But to transform my son, I always pray that my kids would love God even more passionately than I do, and live a life that is a hundred percent for him, and I, I watched him do that.
[00:15:01] My other son, when he was 15, he had grand mal seizures. And I remember when we got the first phone call, he was spending the night at some friends and I got a phone call, something wasn't right.
[00:15:12] Ambulance come flying by our house and I knew it was for him, and when I walked in the door, he was in the end of his grand mal and his eyes rolling back in his head and me being the great prayer warrior, what do I do? I faint, not once, but twice. And we, they get him into the ambulance and, and bring him to the hospital there I can pray for him.
[00:15:31] But it, it was a series of grand mal seizures for years and the different medicines, they would be up and down that they would take him and really lost who he was, his personality, 'cause his medicines change who you are. But the most remarkable thing to me was he never lost his love for Jesus Christ. And, um, a few years ago, his brain literally just shut down.
[00:15:54] It just, it just stopped talking to itself. He stopped being able to move or talk. And, and I, I remember we were in the hospital with him and they were able to save him in time, give him a shot that would keep his brain awake, and eventually got him on medicine that helps, uh, the brainwaves work in his brain.
[00:16:13] And we're taking him around, uh, the hospital. And my son is such an evangelist, he loves Jesus, and even in this state, he kept saying, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. And his beard had grown and his hair was on top of his head. And, I looked at my husband as we're walking him around with the IV, I go, we got John in the Baptist here.
[00:16:31] And, and I remember telling him, Ryan, you may scare people, they won't, they won't understand. Wait until you can fully talk and walk, and so they can understand the gospel that you're trying to tell them. And, and, uh, several months later, he's doing better. He's doing great. Uh, the medicines really helped and his brain's working just great, and a few months after that we went to the doctor's office and he's walking and he is talking and we run into a kid, a young man in his twenties, he has a bike beside him and he goes, um, Ryan starts saying, hey man, I like your bike. I know what he is gonna do. He's gonna share Jesus with this guy. So I step back, let him do his thing, and pretty soon they're going back and forth talking, preaching.
[00:17:08] The guy goes, man, I recognize you, and Ryan goes, great, you know, he's thinking and I'm thinking, oh no. He goes, a couple months ago you came up to me at Carl's and you told me Jesus loves me, I need to go to church. He goes, I've been going to church, it's the most amazing thing. And, and I just rejoice in that, you know, uh, we can be thankful in all things because God has a plan for it.
[00:17:28] So this young man is, is going to church and we get to witness God working through him even in the depths of the worst possible place. I would never want my boys normally, I would never say, great God, that's a good idea, let's do that. But God carries you through it, and then when you look back, you get to see God's hand print through it all.
[00:17:46] You get to see Him glorified and others impacted.
[00:17:49] And that's life.
[00:17:50] Life is hard.
[00:17:51] It's not easy.
[00:17:52] But with God, God in the midst of it, we can walk, um, unshaken in it and through it.
[00:18:00] Joshua was not a perfect man. He fell, he blew it on occasions, but he got up and he kept going. At the end of his life, he says, it's for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
[00:18:10] And that's what we learn. We're gonna make mistakes, but we're gonna get up and we're gonna keep going. So I, I wanna implore you if you are a leader, and I say if you're a mom, you're a dad, you're a leader. Uh, if you have employees under you, you're a leader. If you're in a ministry, you're a leader.
[00:18:26] Learn from the word of God.
[00:18:33] Steve Gatena: On episode two of this three part series, Sally Burke teaches us about the power of listening to God and sharing your victories. She explains how her Moms in Prayer's led and encouraged leadership all over the world. As a leader, she impacts children every day through prayer.
[00:18:57] Sally Burke: In my life, the first leaders I witnessed was, of course, my parents and, and how they unconditionally loved us, how they led us, and how we felt the freedom to fail and get up and, and do it again. And, and I was an extremely average, ordinary person that had no extraordinary gifts or talents or anything.
[00:19:20] And, and I, I remember how my parents gave me so much confidence in just who I was. This is who and how God created me and he could do great things through me. And I remember the age of 15 doing something that was extraordinary where the, this young boys baseball team, they're my age. They're 14 and 15.
[00:19:40] They didn't have a coach. No dad wanted to coach them. They said, hey, you know baseball cuz my dad taught me to pitch like a guy. He goes, hey, will you be our coach? And then we got a young adult cuz we need adult to coach us. And we began to coach this baseball, um, team and, and we, I encourage them the same way my parents is, is you encourage them, you lead them forward.
[00:20:01] You can do it. Just get up and, and give it your best try. And if you fail that's okay.
[00:20:05] And it was so cool cuz by the end of the season we were battling for first place. We end up losing, but we got second place and all the other teams had dads coaching them. But my parents and their leadership allowing me, I mean they love me unconditionally, they disciplined me, but then they also gave me the freedom to fail and to get up and, and learn again and I'll, I'll never forget that.
[00:20:26] And then of course, the next ones that you usually have are teachers and coaches. And you always saw the good. Leadership, uh, a teacher that had a calm class and every te, every student in there, no matter their ability, felt like they could learn something and they end up liking that.
[00:20:42] And, and those that weren't, uh, was chaos and mayhem in the classrooms and, and people could not learn. And so you learn from that, uh, you know, as a, a leader, a teacher leads the class and then coaches, you know, I had some great coaches. I had those coaches that we thrived if we won, we thrived if we lost and we were one for another, we cheered each other on and we gave it our all.
[00:21:07] And we gave that because that was, uh, a great leader and with my undergraduate and my master's program, I read so many books on leadership secular, and then when I became a Christian, Christian, uh, books on leadership. But I, I gotta tell you this, if you wanna be a great leader, the greatest book that's ever written on any subject, of course, is the Bible.
[00:21:29] But the Bible is the greatest leadership book ever written. It has deep riches and truths about leading. We, we, we think, the greatest leader, of course, Is God who leads creation, who spoke creation, knows why you were made. He's leading you forward each and every day. You have the Holy Spirit within you guiding you.
[00:21:49] But it also has stories of leaders, good leaders and bad leaders. I, I'm reading through 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. There's some great kings and there's some very, very bad kings, and you get to learn from them. The good kings followed God, they followed his word. They didn't fear man. Oh, we can never, as a leader, fear man, our whole goal in life is to please God.
[00:22:12] And, and we have to remember that as you lead, it's never about you. God is handpicked you, chose you to be a leader. He's gonna empower you, he's gonna equip you, but you must feist upon His word. You must learn through His word. We look at Daniel, we look at David, we look at Joshua, we look at uh, um, even the women Esther and, and Deborah. Now we have some great leaders in there that are living examples for us. And you know, in Moms in Prayer we have tens of thousands of leaders and, and the very first base of a leader is a Moms in prayer woman who is gathered. If you don't know what Moms in prayer is, it's where two or more women gathered together one hour once a week, and they pray.
[00:22:59] That's their goal and they pray for children in schools. Our mission is to impact children in schools for Christ through prayer, and that leader has women that come into her house, and she leads them to the very throne of God, to battle for the lives of the children and the schools. And what she focuses on is who God is, His word.
[00:23:20] So she starts with praise. God enters the praises of His people. She doesn't know who God is. God's gonna lead her victorious. He's the victorious one. She takes her eyes and the women's eyes off of their situations, off of their trials, off of their tribulations, focuses it on who God is according to His word.
[00:23:38] And then there's silent confession. We want to make sure the Holy Spirit moves in us. And then there's a time rejoicing thanksgiving. You, you think about in, in Psalm 78, uh, where God says, tell your children's children what I have done. Don't be like the sons of Ephraim who are in the midst of the battle, fully dressed and ran cuz they forgot the great things I had done a time in thanksgiving and then we intercede using God's word.
[00:24:04] It's all about Him, it's all about His word. And I tell you this truth, wherever there's a Moms in Prayer group, we have over a hundred thousand women around the world, we see victory, we see revival, we see spiritual awakening, but it's all about Him and His word.
[00:24:21] And in fact, as a ministry, because I have leaders of leaders, I have area coordinators and so they're leading the leaders. So in a city, let's say you have 30 schools covered, you have 30 leaders that area coordinator must develop, training and, and send forth and encourage her leadership, well, well, how's she gonna do that?
[00:24:39] And then I have people over them, state coordinators, then all the way up to country coordinators all over the world.
[00:24:45] The word of God. The Word of God is powerful and it transcends all cultures, all language. They can be there in Africa. We have groups in Africa. I have groups in Europe. I have groups in Oceana, South America, Latin America, North America, all over.
[00:24:59] The word of God transcends it. So what I did with them last year, I said, we're gonna focus on the book of Joshua. We're gonna read through it. We're, we're gonna digest it, we're going to, and we're gonna see how Joshua one man led his people, million people, victoriously. Into the land that God was gonna give 'em.
[00:25:15] Now God was gonna fight for them and through them, but they had to know this and, and, and so I think about our women, they're like, Joshuas. It can be in Gabon, Africa. It, it can be in South America. It doesn't matter that school is the land they're fighting for. They're fighting for the very souls of the children.
[00:25:35] And, and every time they pray, they bring victory. But as they read God's word together, God is the one that teaches them and trains them. I mean, I have the responsibility of, of tens of thousands of leaders, I'm gonna point 'em to God. I'm gonna point 'em to His word. And as we read it together, we grasp, you know, what God is saying and how to follow him.
[00:25:55] Joshua was not a perfect man. He fell, he blew it on occasions, but he got up and he kept going. At the end of his life, he says, for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And that's what we learned. We're gonna make mistakes, but we're gonna get up and we're gonna keep going.
[00:26:10] So I, I wanna implore you if you are a leader, and I say if you're a mom, you're a dad, you're a leader. Uh, if you. Have employees under you. You're a leader. If you're in a ministry, you're a leader. Learn from the word of God. Learn the lessons that you, you can learn. I, I, I look at Joseph, Jehosaphat, he was a great king.
[00:26:30] He followed God, but then he bound himself with King Ahab, who was a worldly king. One king Jehosaphat was the king of Judea, uh, that kingdom. And, and then you had Ahab, the King of Israel. Well, he was, the Ahab did not follow God, but Jehosaphat wanted unity. We could never have unity with the world. We, we just can't do it.
[00:26:52] He bonded together. He went to battle with him. He almost died. He comes back. And God speaks to him. God rebukes him. As soon he gets on there, a prophet comes up to him and asks him, what were you doing? You know, and, and, and then Jehovah as catches, what God is saying to him, and he immediately takes his people.
[00:27:15] He points to God. As a leader, we must always point to God, Jehosaphat is gonna have great victories. You're gonna see him in 2 Chronicles 20 victorious over three vast armies. He comes to him. But what he did before that was very important. He took all the people of that land, and he sought the Lord, and they all sought the Lord.
[00:27:36] Then he set up leadership and, and, and throughout they had judges. They had different people and, and I love what he said to them. Not to fear man, but to seek God. Judge justly, but seek God's face. And, and I wanna read this cuz I think it's important. We have a tendency to want to please man. And in our hearts, we must only please God, believe this or not, whatever decision you make, uh, the statistical analysis is 19% of those people are not gonna be happy.
[00:28:09] So we must seek the face of God as a leader and say, okay, God, what is your will surrendered?
[00:28:13] Jesus Christ, the greatest leader, he, that ever walked the, the face of the earth always surrendered His will to Lord to his very last breath. Not my will, but your will be done. And we have to do that as a leader.
[00:28:26] We have to get in such a state as we have no will of our own, but only the will of a father. We never can be man pleasers.
[00:28:33] We look at Paul, what a great leader. Paul led the people, but he continually said that I am not here to please man, I'm only here, my life is only here to please God.
[00:28:44] One of the most valuable things I think you can do as a leader is listen, is listen and hear those that you are serving, those that you are leading. I will go to major events and meet. I travel a lot, meet women all over the world, and there's an expectation that I'm gonna talk to them. Well, I do share with them. I do encourage them, I do empower them, I do equip them. But I found out the best thing I can do is listen to them and hear them.
[00:29:10] So what I do when I go to these events, I hear them. What's working, what's not working? What are you struggling with? Share your victories. And what I notice in that these women, as they begin to share what God's doing in their lives, all of a sudden they raise up to the next level of leadership.
[00:29:28] We must always, always hear the people.
[00:29:32] We must first hear God and listen to his word, but we must hear the people. I read, um, um, every other month reports from 146 countries. And the reason I do that, I take time to read each one, and they're simple, short, is what is going on? What's God doing? Am I hearing His voice? Am I hearing the women of the field?
[00:29:53] Am I learning? Am I growing? And we will always grow in our leadership, but will grow by listening to God and listening to those that are under us, and, and then, and that we will serve them well.
[00:30:04] And I, I wanna read this. This is from, uh, Francesco Fennel, A saint of old, but this is what he says.
[00:30:11] Let yourself be humble. Calm and silence under humiliation are a great benefit to the soul. Do not get angry about what people say. Let them talk while you try to do God's will as to the will of man. You can never come to the end of satisfying it, nor is it worth the trouble. Silence, and peace union with God ought to comfort you under whatever men falsely say.
[00:30:36] You must be friendly to them without counting on their friendship. They come and they go, let them go. They're but as shaf scattered by the wind.
[00:30:46] And, and when I wanna say, don't be surprised that the enemy comes after you. You have a big target on, you're a leader. If he, if he can knock out the shepherd, then, then the sheep goes astray.
[00:30:56] And, and the enemy will even use, uh, people of faith to come against you. I just recently, I had a woman call me and, and she had like two and a half pages of ought against me. And, and she wanted just to let me hear it and just go for it. And some of it, some of the criticism, I can take ownership and say, I am so sorry, I never intended that and I can apologize, but some of it was not true and I am able to hold up that shield of faith we're supposed to be stronger. The Lord's strength of his might put on that full armor of God so we can stand against the walls of Satan. And I lifted up that shield of faith and she's like, wait, wait, wait.
[00:31:36] I wanna finish this list. I said, No, I'm gonna speak to you the truth and love. And it, it was pretty cool because after that I pointed her to God and what God has done in our ministry and how we should be thankful and how she was a part of it. Pretty soon we ended by praying and she says, I'm burning that page. I'm done with those two and a half pages.
[00:31:55] And, and you know, you can't blame man. Man's emotions go up and down, every situation. Your eyes as a leader focuses on God and God alone. You are called to this position. God knows your tomorrows. He knows your yesterday's days. He says, call on me. I'll answer you.
[00:32:12] I'll show you great in my things you do not know. And then you go forward listening to Him. Some days you'll be liked and some days you won't. Your only thing that you can do is please God, and you must surrender your heartbeat to Him and allow Him to move through you. Pray. Pray all the time.
[00:32:33] Pray for yourself.
[00:32:34] Pray for those that you lead.
[00:32:36] Know that you'll stumble.
[00:32:37] Know that you'll make mistakes.
[00:32:38] Admit it.
[00:32:41] Always, always know that your leadership is all about Him, not about you, and it's about others. And I, I wanna share with you, uh, what God will do if you do that, you will see revival. You will see spiritual awakening. You will see immeasurably more than ever could ask or imagine according to his power that's worked within you, and to him, be the glory. If you lead in such a way that's filled with God, filled with the Holy Spirit and following Jesus.
[00:33:10] And I remember the very first answer to prayer that I saw was the first grade teacher that my son's classroom was in.
[00:33:18] This boy was sick and, and he was in the hospital and they didn't think he was gonna make it through the weekend. She grabbed me, she goes, you're part of that prayer group. Will you pray for this boy? And and we did. And so the next Monday I run to class and I wanna know how he is. And she goes, he's great, he's healed.
[00:33:33] And I'm like, I'm amazed. Like, ah, how'd that happen? And she goes, you prayed. We all know it's a miracle. And, and that was my first big answer to prayer. Well, that changed that boy's life. That changed that parent's life changed that teacher's life. And they got to witness the power of prayer.
[00:33:55] Steve Gatena: On episode three of this three part series, Sally Burke wants to help moms from all over the world and talks about a time when a woman from Rwanda help tribes transform a whole community through prayer. We learn how she found the power of prayer and how prayer can leave an incredible legacy.
[00:34:19] Sally Burke: All of us are gonna leave a legacy of some type. We all want it to be good and, and what I'm gonna share with you is the legacy of prayer. That's what I'm most familiar with. That's what I'm witnessing. That's what I'm seeing happening all over the world.
[00:34:35] Prayer is the avenue that God himself has chosen to bless his people. He tells us that in James 4:2 you have not, cuz you asked not. Prayer is inviting His presence and power into our lives, into our family's lives, into our situations, into our world. Prayer is where God ushers His will here on this earth as it is in heaven. It is the greatest power available to mankind when prayer is combined with His word.
[00:35:01] Prayer becomes an unstoppable force no matter what is going on here. And this world and and prayer can change the circumstances, history of what is about to happen. Prayer can intervene with that. I'm going to share some Biblical stories. But I wanna share you some lifetime stories with me, and this is what I want you to know about prayer.
[00:35:20] When every time you take a moment to utter prayer, that's a eternal gift and it long lives after you. One of my dearest friends left a legacy, of prayer. She passed away over 20 years ago, and I met her at Moms in Prayer, and we prayed together for her three daughters. And when she would pass away, they'd be young, they'd be 12 and 10 and four years old.
[00:35:45] Well, these girls still stay in contact with me, and I remember when her oldest came home from college and I remember vividly her mother's prayers and her daughter would share with me, uh, her life on campus, and she said, you know what, I, I just don't wanna do drugs and I just don't wanna sleep with my boyfriend.
[00:36:03] I just, and I'm thinking, that's cuz your mom prayed that. That's cuz your mom prayed that. Now her mom had died a decade before that, and yet those prayers live long after we do, and her, her daughters today are all three serving the Lord, and this one in particular is now also in Moms in prayer. And she's impacting lives for Christ.
[00:36:23] So, so that legacy of prayer, many things we can do will, will pass away in this lifetime. But prayer will last long after you have prayed. God has chosen you and I to be His vehicles to accomplish His will. We are created and fueled by His power, and it happens through prayer. In prayer we can change the destiny of not only a life, a community, a country, and prayer can leave a legacy from generation to generation to generation.
[00:36:53] I, I wanna give you an example, in my own life, somebody prayed for me. They prayed me out of darkness into his glorious light. And, and now I get the opportunity of praying for children in schools. And, and I wanna share with you what that type of legacy does, as, as we pray for the children. We, we began to, to pray on this elementary school and, and these teachers and, and the students.
[00:37:17] And we always pray positively. We always pray, if they don't know the Lord, may their eyes be open and they turn for darkness, light, and the power of Saint and to the power of God. So they can be forgiven of their sins in a place among those you're sanctified by faith in Christ. And God answered those prayers that we saw 14 out the 22 teachers come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior on this public campus. And the thing that's so amazing, not only did the teachers, but their whole feelings came to know Jesus Christ. And that changed the whole culture of that public school as one child, one, uh, teacher after another came to know Jesus Christ, and now they have what they call Teachers in Prayer on that campus that had been praying for well over a decade.
[00:37:57] Also, we, we began to pray as I prayed for my own child, I learned to pray a mom's in prayer. I, I didn't even know how to pray after I came to know the Lord. I read in the book of, of Luke how Jesus taught the disciples to pray, so I called out to Him, oh Lord, teach me to pray. And prayers about that one-on-one relationship with him being FaceTime with him.
[00:38:17] You know how you're FaceTime with your loved ones?
[00:38:18] You're FaceTime and prayer with God. And, and he answered that prayer by teaching me pray with a woman inviting me to pray for my children in their schools. And I walk into this room and these women are, are praising God. And I didn't pray out loud for a while, but I instantly began to see answers to prayer.
[00:38:39] And I remember the very first answer to prayer that I saw was the first grade teacher that my son's classroom was in. This boy was sick and, and he was in the hospital and they didn't think he was gonna make it through the weekend. She grabbed me, she goes, you're part of that prayer group. Will you pray for this boy?
[00:38:53] And we did. And so the next Monday I run to class and I wanna know how he is. And she goes, he's great. He's healed. And I'm like, I'm amazed. Like, wow, how'd that happen? And she goes, you prayed. We all know it's a miracle. And, and that was my first big answer to prayer. Well, that changed that boy's life. That changed that parent's life changed, that teacher's life.
[00:39:14] And they got to witness the power of prayer. And so then as we began to pray for our own kids, oh Lord, may they find favor in the teacher's eyes. May they have Christian friends, may they soar academically, even those that were struggling. And God answered those, those prayers for us.
[00:39:28] And one day they're, they're all standing on the stage, their moms and prayer kids getting awards. They were the most outstanding students. And a friend hits me, he goes, look at that. My, my son was only in third grade. I'm looking at all the other students that didn't know Jesus yet and my heart was broken. I said, oh Lord, may all of them hear the good news.
[00:39:45] Does God care? Yes. Does he wish none shall perish? Yes. And prayers have a new in which we were gonna see revival, spiritual awakening. So we began to pray for each child by name and that they would hear the good news. The gospel of salvation, believe and be so with the power of the Holy Spirit. What does God do on this public school campus?
[00:40:02] He brings a good news club. Those are children of evangelism. They came during a modified day and they shared the gospel, and I came just to hand out candy or whatever. Well, pretty soon so many kids were coming to know Jesus, that they say, Sally, we need you as a counselor, come over here. And what was so utterly amazing to me was these little kids would say, I'm ready to receive Jesus.
[00:40:24] And these are kids I prayed for by name. I looked at their pictures in the yearbook and I prayed for them by name and they put my, their hand in mine and say, okay, I'm receiving Jesus Christ, as my Lord and my Savior, and I would take my ring off and I said do you see this, I, I put in the, the clap of my hand.
[00:40:40] I said, you are now saved and nobody can snatch outta the father's hand. And today they're teachers, they're preachers, they're missionaries, they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're moms, they're dads impacting this next generation. What a legacy is that.
[00:40:57] I remember getting a letter of this precious young woman that's in college and she got a full on, uh, scholarship either to Yale or Harvard. And she said, thank you for praying for me in elementary school. I know Jesus today on this campus because of that. Now, that blew my mind, praise God. But that's not only happening here in the United States. I, I wanna share with you the power of prayer and how it can leave an incredible legacy.
[00:41:19] When the first women I met as they began to work with their international women, was a lady from Rwanda. Her two oldest kids were killed during the genocide that happened there. She comes to America as two more kids, and, and then she, um, learns about moms in prayer and begins to pray and she takes it back to Rwanda and begins to show these tribes instead of fighting, killing each other, begin to pray, begin to pray for one another, and a few years later, as we trained in one leader, I love what she told me she was so we'll no longer be known as a nation of genocide, but we will be known as a nation of prayer that transformed a whole community.
[00:42:00] And, and I pray a whole country. I love how the leader of Cameroon sent her women forward and she says, don't ask God what type of the nation, you're gonna leave this generation, but ask her, what type of generation are you going to leave this nation? And, and that's what we have to know. And, and that's what we have to believe.
[00:42:21] We are going to give hope to this next generation as we pour forth our prayers to them. And, and I want you to hear this quote from this, this young man who's impacting, he was a Moms in Prayer, uh, young man, and he started impacting college campuses, so much so that he started a ministry called Foltz, and his name is Nick Hall, and this is what he says:
[00:42:46] There's a generation rising up that doesn't see boundaries and knows no limits. They're hungry for the things of God and ready to go bold, fearless, full of faith. They aren't after a name as much as The name, not after fame unless it's His. There is so much hope for tomorrow. So don't let anyone tell you elsewise. I'm telling you, God, as we pray, is raising up a mighty generation all over the world. I'm witnessing seeing it, and we must keep on praying. We must leave that type of legacy.
[00:43:15] And even thinking with my own home, I was probably the most imperfect parent one could be. I was not rai... I was raised in a good home, but not a Christian home.
[00:43:24] So I had to learn along the way. But a legacy we all can leave and a legacy of prayer. Think about my oldest boy, when my kids, uh, as they were growing up, after I had my quiet time, they'd come into my room and I would teach 'em to pray and we'd pray through the four steps. Well, my oldest boy, he was starting to go to high school, and he says, mom, I gotta skip that prayer time because we're praying around the pool. We're praying for our fellow students and our teachers. And he continues to do that. He's now part of their church prayer team. My other daughter, my youngest, she uh, was part of a, the high school that we prayed, Oh Lord, may they impact their campus for Christ. May their campus not impact them. And her and her friends began to start a Bible study and then they began to pray for their fellow students, just like we were doing Moms in Prayer on there. Well, at one event, they saw 91 kids fall on their faces and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And on that school campus, it was like a revival of more and more kids began to receive Jesus and they start going to a Bible study and I'm like, ah, what are you teaching them?
[00:44:30] It's just the book of Romans. We're all just going through the book of Romans, and today there still is a Bible study on that high school campus and my oldest boy started on Humboldt at his college, a Bible study that's still going today. They can leave a legacy of prayer and each one lives different legacies.
[00:44:47] My, my, uh, third child, my son David, is a man of integrity and in our community, I always pray that wherever our kids are, they will impact our community and. He's only 24 years old, and yet when I go to a major event to rather speak or whatever it may be, I'm known as David's mom. I, I love that. He's impacting the community for Christ.
[00:45:08] He's known as a man of integrity. My daughter is a mom and she's a mom who, who loves her kids. Well, that's another legacy. There's different type of legacies that we can leave, but I gotta tell you, every single one of you can leave a legacy of prayer that will long outlive you, and your life, and that will impact generations, communities, and countries for Christ.
[00:45:30] And we need to keep on praying. Never giving up. You know, I, I was the most imperfect parent one could ever imagine. I remember my daughter coming up to me and asking if she could go to an event, and I said, no, you know, you, you can't go to that, in fact, and she goes, well, mom, all of the other parents let them.
[00:45:48] And I said, I wanna share something with you. Um, I am an imperfect parent. I'm learning I'm gonna make mistakes. And, and, um, in that God has chosen you to be part of my family. So we're gonna learn this together. And, and the same daughter, I remember one time in getting ready to speak at this event and I needed her to rush and to hurry and to get ready for school.
[00:46:12] And I'm yelling at her, I'm going and I drop her off for school. And then I plan to go and speak about the Lord and, and the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. I'd go back to the school, apologize to my daughter before I, dare went there.
[00:46:29] My kids could always tell when I was a little upset. Um, as a matter of fact, when I would get upset and I would start to battle them, I would tell them, wait, wait. Mama has to go be with Jesus. And I'd come back a different person. I'd go in my prayer closet, pray and come back. Well, pretty soon my kids started to begin to tell me, mom, mom, you need to go be with Jesus, you need to go be with Jesus.
[00:46:51] As parents. We're not gonna be perfect. We just aren't gonna be perfect, but God is perfect. God gets all the glory if we pretend like we're perfect. If we never ask forgiveness, if we go on like we did everything right, if we do not hear or listen to our children, we do them a big disservice.
[00:47:10] So as a parent, you will leave a legacy. You can leave a powerful legacy, but also know that you're gonna fail time and time again. Just keep getting up. Keep loving your kids unconditionally and keep praying for them.
[00:47:26] Steve Gatena: When we surrender our lives to God, we trust Him to use everything, including ourselves according to His will.
[00:47:35] Surrendering to God isn't a one time event, but a daily practice, although it's not easy to let go of control or the illusion that we know better, the more we practice surrendering, the more peaceful we become. Surrendering our lives to God means becoming willing partners with Him, knowing that we don't control everything.
[00:48:00] This week on Relentless Hope, Sally Burke, the President of Moms in Prayer International. Taught us about living the surrendered life. Sally reminded us that our lives are about God and living the fullness of life that He has given us. Life is a precious gift. It's a gift from God, and He has chosen us to live an extraordinary life.
[00:48:26] He created us with all of our greatness and all of our weakness, knowing our past, and forgiving us and understanding our futures, and how He can work through us to bring glory to His name. Sally taught us that great leaders focus on pleasing God, not on pleasing other people. God has chosen us to be leaders and He will equip us with everything we need while empowering us to lead the people we serve.
[00:48:59] Sally urged us to spend time in prayer and to read the Bible, the greatest leadership book ever written. She told us to first listen to God, then the people we serve, to truly hear what they're saying. What's working, what isn't? What recent victories they've had and what they're struggling with.
[00:49:21] We also learned that Sally hopes to leave a legacy of prayer. She passed on a legacy of prayer to her children and is working to realize this dream as president of Moms and Prayer International. Sally reminded us that we'll never be perfect and we all make mistakes, still, God is perfect and he wants us to surrender everything, including our failures and mistakes to Him.
[00:49:52] She urged us to keep going after every stumble. Loving our children and the people we serve unconditionally, praying for everyone and surrendering our lives to God.
[00:50:06] God has given us the most precious gift of life, and He wants to work through us to transform this world.
[00:50:15] God wants to help us transform this world, and in order to do that, we must surrender our hearts to Him, to let Him move through us and allow His will over ours.
[00:50:32] Jesus taught us how to do this, surrendering everything, including His life to God's will until His final breath.
[00:50:40] By surrendering, we open our lives for God to transform them in extraordinary ways.
[00:50:50] I want you to transform someone else's life in an extraordinary way, so I'm asking you, if this podcast inspired you, please share it with someone you know. You never know the impact that one inspirational podcast can have on someone's life. My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of the Relentless Hope Podcast, and until next time, always remember to give hope a voice.
From Space Shuttle Engineer to God’s Servant - Sally Burke
[00:00:00] Steve Gatena: Our society is often focused on ego and the pursuit of external rewards, leading us to believe that we control our destinies. However, this is a fallacy. The truth is that God is the one who controls our lives and we serve Him by surrendering everything we have to His will. Though it may seem daunting, surrendering our hearts to God is a liberating and peaceful experience.
[00:00:33] We must trust in him and rely on prayer and His word to help us continually surrender our lives to Him.
[00:00:41] On this episode of Relentless Hope, Sally Burke, president of Moms in Prayer International, shares her personal journey of surrendering her life to God. She went from a successful career as a space shuttle engineer to being a stay-at-home mom who found Jesus and committed her life to Him.
[00:01:03] Sally's story shows us that when we surrender to God, He will carry us through all of life's trials and tribulations. She shares the heart-wrenching experiences of almost losing two of her children and how she relied on prayer to surrender control of their lives to God.
[00:01:24] As leaders, we must also surrender our hearts to God to lead in a way that honors Him.
[00:01:32] Sally encourages us to surrender to God's will for our leadership and to turn to the Bible as the greatest leadership book in the world, featuring God and Jesus as the greatest leaders in the world.
[00:01:47] Sally is also passionate about leaving the legacy of prayer. Prayer is the most powerful tool available to us, and it invites God's presence and power into our lives and the lives of those around us.
[00:02:01] We are created and fueled by God's power through prayer, and we have the ability to change not just individual lives, but entire communities and countries. In conclusion, God has given us the gift of life. And we must let go of the illusion of control to live a surrendered life that allows Him to work through us.
[00:02:28] Welcome to today's episode of Relentless Hope with Sally Burke.
[00:02:36] Not too long ago, Sally Burke rushed her son to the hospital when she thought he was having stomach pains.
[00:02:46] Sally Burke: Uh, my, uh, son David, his, um, intestines had exploded. We didn't know he had Crohn's disease. All we knew he had a tummy ache. Took him, um, into the hospital there and I could tell his body was going into shock. And they did not know what to do. They just knew he was in great pain. And I remember the specialist coming in and he says, we, we don't know what to do exactly.
[00:03:09] And I knew we only had a, a matter of a short time, so I asked the doctor, do you pray? I remember getting on my knees and praying, going, Lord, his life is Yours. You can either take him, heal him by taking him home or heal him here. And I asked the doctor, if it was your son, what would you do? And he said, I'd go in and I'd operate.
[00:03:30] Steve Gatena: On episode one of this three part series, the President of Moms in Prayer, Sally Burke, talks about her life growing up as a NASA engineer working on space shuttles and turning to prayer during her son's life threatening event, she transformed her life, found God and now gets to impact others for Christ.
[00:03:57] Sally Burke: I wanna begin by, by sharing with you really my life philosophy. I really believe life is a precious gift from God, and every breath we breathe, we can live this glorious life for Christ as he has lived for us and given us all that we need. God has chosen us before the foundations of this world to live an extraordinary life.
[00:04:20] He created us in a, an incredible way with our DNA, our giftedness, our weakness and, and our past and our future, all to bring glory to His name, and if we allow Him, we can bless others too. We are created to be loved by Him, to love Him. We are created for his pleasure, His fellowship, and, and to really find out what is our calling here on this earth.
[00:04:47] My life story is a story of much forgiven, much given, and now so much to live for, I was very fortunate to grow up in Cocoa Beach, Florida, and it was a beautiful place to grow up. It was a very peaceful place, and I want you to imagine this: we lived, uh, where the ocean waters just were in our backyard because of manmade outlets and, and porpoises, sea turtles, and sea manatees. So we swam with them and in our, on our dock, they would land flamingos and pelicans. It was an amazing, amazing place to grow up, and we also, uh, could watch and see from our backyards or on the beaches, uh, the Apollos take off and, and most of our dads worked in Cape Canaveral on the, the spacecraft, the mancraft that, the craft that took man to the moon.
[00:05:41] And, and so that was my growing up experience. And my mom, who had four kids, kept us very busy. We did sports, all of us, and my chosen sports were swimming, which led to lifeguarding, and then I played tennis, which led to the high school tennis team, which all, all of that impacted my life and really gave me a vision of, of what it meant to persevere when things got hard.
[00:06:06] We are very blessed, our schools were great. Some of our teachers were former engineers on the Apollos. They came home to raise our kids and they taught us, and they taught us such things as math. And my dad was great on helping with math and calculus was my thing.
[00:06:21] And it served me well when I, I went to college, I graduated from the school of business and, and the thing that I focused on was called quantitative analysis, computers and calculus. And soon as I graduated, they grabbed me and took me and I moved to California and I worked on the space shuttle. And what I did there on the space shuttle was, um, as we, we worked at the assembly plant where they, they put these space shuttles together and we would test them afterwards to see is the environmental control working? Is the main propulsion system working? And if you saw Hidden Figures, those computers that those women were working on is what I worked on.
[00:06:59] It was extremely exciting, but it was also extremely demanding, and I remember this one time in particular, there's only like five of us women engineers, and we really had to prove ourselves, and at one time, one of the computers went out and I, uh, you know, the manager came down and was just yelling at me in front of everybody. You're costing us $10,000 an hour until those computers get back up. And that was my job to make sure they got back up and, and to, if there was a problem, I had to decipher it and see what was going on, and it was amazing, uh, to watch the space shuttles take off and defy gravity, but soon I, I met my husband there. He is a fellow engineer, and we had a child and we had a son, and I realized pretty quickly they're a lot more complex than the space shuttle. And for me, I need to come home and stay and, and raise him because my work, it could be seven days a week, it could be 12 hours a day, and I wouldn't have got to raise my children.
[00:08:01] So I, we chose for me to come home and my husband still worked and I remember one day he comes home and he is working long hours just like I was, commuting, and by this time we had two and I had one child on the hip and one holding onto my legs. And we always greeted my husband when he came in.
[00:08:17] And he comes in, he goes, Sally, and he had tears inside. He goes, I was listening to the radio station and John MacArthur was on, and he goes, I pulled over and I received Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior. And I thought, whoa, what's happened to my husband? He must have had a nervous breakdown or something, you know, this isn't right. It did not compute in my brain because you see, as we worked on the space shuttle, we worked with the, the brilliant, most brilliant minds from around the world, and really our intellect was our God, you know, we, we defied gravity, we did this, we did that. And it, it wasn't, you know, even I grew up in the south and I believe there was a God, I believe that Jesus, you know, but he didn't live that surrendered life. You know, if you live in the south, they go, what church do you go to? What college football team do you like? And you go to church. But he didn't live that surrendered life, and my husband did. He surrendered his life to the Lord and made him his savior.
[00:09:11] And, within a matter of time, I watched him walk in, in such a way, a peaceful way, a way that said no to the world, cause we, we were living fully for the world and a very selfish life.
[00:09:23] That's what you do if you don't know who God is.
[00:09:25] And that Christmas, my husband, um, buys me, was used to him buying me diamonds and different things like that, he bought me a Bible and he told me, oh, I searched all over for just the right Bible and I'm thinking of Bible, Bible. So I opened it up, and I began to read it, and I, and I read, you know, first of all, I read, uh, Genesis. You know, I mean, you think about it. God spoke the heavens and the earth into being, and, and I, I saw science in that.
[00:09:52] I mean, it takes time, energy, and space to create anything, and only God could create something from nothing. There is that scientific analysis that was true, and he created it and, so I, I went to the Book of Psalms and all that I learned in college, everything that told me there was no, God. I saw whoever wrote this Bible was brilliant.
[00:10:13] He could make simple truth, a complex truth, so simple and profound that I even, I can understand it. And then I read the book of John and I saw that Jesus was God. And right then and there I started my life to Lord. I had no idea. I mean, I hadn't started going to church. I didn't know what he did, but I, I began to be transformed.
[00:10:31] And from that point on, I've lived the most extraordinary life you could ever imagine. I mean, I get to watch lives transformed. I I was saved outta darkness into his glorious light. And now I, I get to be a part of impacting others for Christ, and. And it, it has just totally changed me. There's nothing like it.
[00:10:52] I remember when I was talking to Dr. Dobson one time, I've talked to him twice and both times he asked me, cuz he was so into the space program, he goes, do you miss working on the space at all? I said, no, what I get to do now, that was exciting, I get to be a part of an amazing prayer ministry in which lives are forever changed and touched by God through the power of prayer.
[00:11:13] Great power in taking a shuttle up, but even greater power as people come together and pray.
[00:11:19] God has a great plan for our lives and, and I, I think about that. I was forgiven. I lived a life of sin. Yeah, Jesus forgave me. I, I lived an abundant life. I was very fortunate with parents who loved me unconditionally, parents who, who taught me right over wrong, and, and I live that life, and now that I'm saved, I get to live a full exciting life for Christ. And, and it's never ever been the same.
[00:11:48] So, so that's my life. And, and, and now I, I serve as president of the Moms in Prayer. I get to watch lives, all over the world in 146 different countries, transform daily, daily as they meet with God face to face.
[00:12:02] That's what our life is about. Our life is about God, and it's about living this fullness of life that He has given us, this abundant life that he wants us to, to live before the foundations of this earth he chose us unto him to live that kind of life. And, and, and so for you guys out there that, that's my desire for you.
[00:12:23] Every day I wake up, I thank God for this breath that I have today. Life is hard. My life's been since I became a Christian, you know, kind of went easy before as a Christian. Then after I became a Christian, um, both of my boys, they're young adults now married, they have gone through life, uh, changing life threatening lifelong diseases.
[00:12:40] Both of 'em been in the hospital, one for over a year, another one, uhm for 12 days, and both of 'em almost died and, and yet they still live with these lifelong diseases, yet Christ in them.
[00:12:54] One's an incredible evangelist. The other one is a, a young man who walks integrity of, of God. Both of 'em are married.
[00:13:02] And, and yet in those trials and those tribulations, and watching my dad take his last breath, he, he died of emphysema. That's hard to lift him up and know he's taking his last breath yet. God carries us through and he carries us through in such an incredible way that we can turn around and, and bless another that has gone through trials and tribulations.
[00:13:22] Uh, my, uh, son David, he, he almost died. His, um, intestines had exploded. We didn't know he had Crohn's disease. All we knew he had a tummy ache. Took him, um, into the hospital there and I could tell his body was going into shock and, and they did not know what to do. They just knew he was in great pain. And I remember the specialist coming in and he says, we, we don't know what to do exactly.
[00:13:47] And I knew we only had a, a matter of a short time. So I asked the doctor, do you pray. I remember getting on my knees and praying, going, Lord, his life is yours. You could either take him, heal him by taking him home or heal him here. And I asked the doctor, if it was your son, what would you do? He said, I'd go in and I'd operate. And they went in and they were able to, uh, tie his intestines together and really save his life.
[00:14:10] The most remarkable thing to me about that, my son was like triple majoring and he was getting his CPA license and he was being interviewed by top CPA uh, companies. And, uh, a few days after he came home from the hospital, he goes, you know, mom, I was thinking about it. I, I was talking to God and I said, you know what, if I just have two years to live and, and he's lived past those two years, he goes, how would I live for God? He changed his totally, his major. He is now in the medical field. Uh, he's impacting others, has a very compassionate heart that would help anybody at any time to do anything.
[00:14:47] And I think about how God used that trial as scary it is for a mom. But to transform my son, I always pray that my kids would love God even more passionately than I do, and live a life that is a hundred percent for him, and I, I watched him do that.
[00:15:01] My other son, when he was 15, he had grand mal seizures. And I remember when we got the first phone call, he was spending the night at some friends and I got a phone call, something wasn't right.
[00:15:12] Ambulance come flying by our house and I knew it was for him, and when I walked in the door, he was in the end of his grand mal and his eyes rolling back in his head and me being the great prayer warrior, what do I do? I faint, not once, but twice. And we, they get him into the ambulance and, and bring him to the hospital there I can pray for him.
[00:15:31] But it, it was a series of grand mal seizures for years and the different medicines, they would be up and down that they would take him and really lost who he was, his personality, 'cause his medicines change who you are. But the most remarkable thing to me was he never lost his love for Jesus Christ. And, um, a few years ago, his brain literally just shut down.
[00:15:54] It just, it just stopped talking to itself. He stopped being able to move or talk. And, and I, I remember we were in the hospital with him and they were able to save him in time, give him a shot that would keep his brain awake, and eventually got him on medicine that helps, uh, the brainwaves work in his brain.
[00:16:13] And we're taking him around, uh, the hospital. And my son is such an evangelist, he loves Jesus, and even in this state, he kept saying, Jesus is Lord, Jesus is Lord. And his beard had grown and his hair was on top of his head. And, I looked at my husband as we're walking him around with the IV, I go, we got John in the Baptist here.
[00:16:31] And, and I remember telling him, Ryan, you may scare people, they won't, they won't understand. Wait until you can fully talk and walk, and so they can understand the gospel that you're trying to tell them. And, and, uh, several months later, he's doing better. He's doing great. Uh, the medicines really helped and his brain's working just great, and a few months after that we went to the doctor's office and he's walking and he is talking and we run into a kid, a young man in his twenties, he has a bike beside him and he goes, um, Ryan starts saying, hey man, I like your bike. I know what he is gonna do. He's gonna share Jesus with this guy. So I step back, let him do his thing, and pretty soon they're going back and forth talking, preaching.
[00:17:08] The guy goes, man, I recognize you, and Ryan goes, great, you know, he's thinking and I'm thinking, oh no. He goes, a couple months ago you came up to me at Carl's and you told me Jesus loves me, I need to go to church. He goes, I've been going to church, it's the most amazing thing. And, and I just rejoice in that, you know, uh, we can be thankful in all things because God has a plan for it.
[00:17:28] So this young man is, is going to church and we get to witness God working through him even in the depths of the worst possible place. I would never want my boys normally, I would never say, great God, that's a good idea, let's do that. But God carries you through it, and then when you look back, you get to see God's hand print through it all.
[00:17:46] You get to see Him glorified and others impacted.
[00:17:49] And that's life.
[00:17:50] Life is hard.
[00:17:51] It's not easy.
[00:17:52] But with God, God in the midst of it, we can walk, um, unshaken in it and through it.
[00:18:00] Joshua was not a perfect man. He fell, he blew it on occasions, but he got up and he kept going. At the end of his life, he says, it's for me and my household, we will serve the Lord.
[00:18:10] And that's what we learn. We're gonna make mistakes, but we're gonna get up and we're gonna keep going. So I, I wanna implore you if you are a leader, and I say if you're a mom, you're a dad, you're a leader. Uh, if you have employees under you, you're a leader. If you're in a ministry, you're a leader.
[00:18:26] Learn from the word of God.
[00:18:33] Steve Gatena: On episode two of this three part series, Sally Burke teaches us about the power of listening to God and sharing your victories. She explains how her Moms in Prayer's led and encouraged leadership all over the world. As a leader, she impacts children every day through prayer.
[00:18:57] Sally Burke: In my life, the first leaders I witnessed was, of course, my parents and, and how they unconditionally loved us, how they led us, and how we felt the freedom to fail and get up and, and do it again. And, and I was an extremely average, ordinary person that had no extraordinary gifts or talents or anything.
[00:19:20] And, and I, I remember how my parents gave me so much confidence in just who I was. This is who and how God created me and he could do great things through me. And I remember the age of 15 doing something that was extraordinary where the, this young boys baseball team, they're my age. They're 14 and 15.
[00:19:40] They didn't have a coach. No dad wanted to coach them. They said, hey, you know baseball cuz my dad taught me to pitch like a guy. He goes, hey, will you be our coach? And then we got a young adult cuz we need adult to coach us. And we began to coach this baseball, um, team and, and we, I encourage them the same way my parents is, is you encourage them, you lead them forward.
[00:20:01] You can do it. Just get up and, and give it your best try. And if you fail that's okay.
[00:20:05] And it was so cool cuz by the end of the season we were battling for first place. We end up losing, but we got second place and all the other teams had dads coaching them. But my parents and their leadership allowing me, I mean they love me unconditionally, they disciplined me, but then they also gave me the freedom to fail and to get up and, and learn again and I'll, I'll never forget that.
[00:20:26] And then of course, the next ones that you usually have are teachers and coaches. And you always saw the good. Leadership, uh, a teacher that had a calm class and every te, every student in there, no matter their ability, felt like they could learn something and they end up liking that.
[00:20:42] And, and those that weren't, uh, was chaos and mayhem in the classrooms and, and people could not learn. And so you learn from that, uh, you know, as a, a leader, a teacher leads the class and then coaches, you know, I had some great coaches. I had those coaches that we thrived if we won, we thrived if we lost and we were one for another, we cheered each other on and we gave it our all.
[00:21:07] And we gave that because that was, uh, a great leader and with my undergraduate and my master's program, I read so many books on leadership secular, and then when I became a Christian, Christian, uh, books on leadership. But I, I gotta tell you this, if you wanna be a great leader, the greatest book that's ever written on any subject, of course, is the Bible.
[00:21:29] But the Bible is the greatest leadership book ever written. It has deep riches and truths about leading. We, we, we think, the greatest leader, of course, Is God who leads creation, who spoke creation, knows why you were made. He's leading you forward each and every day. You have the Holy Spirit within you guiding you.
[00:21:49] But it also has stories of leaders, good leaders and bad leaders. I, I'm reading through 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles. There's some great kings and there's some very, very bad kings, and you get to learn from them. The good kings followed God, they followed his word. They didn't fear man. Oh, we can never, as a leader, fear man, our whole goal in life is to please God.
[00:22:12] And, and we have to remember that as you lead, it's never about you. God is handpicked you, chose you to be a leader. He's gonna empower you, he's gonna equip you, but you must feist upon His word. You must learn through His word. We look at Daniel, we look at David, we look at Joshua, we look at uh, um, even the women Esther and, and Deborah. Now we have some great leaders in there that are living examples for us. And you know, in Moms in Prayer we have tens of thousands of leaders and, and the very first base of a leader is a Moms in prayer woman who is gathered. If you don't know what Moms in prayer is, it's where two or more women gathered together one hour once a week, and they pray.
[00:22:59] That's their goal and they pray for children in schools. Our mission is to impact children in schools for Christ through prayer, and that leader has women that come into her house, and she leads them to the very throne of God, to battle for the lives of the children and the schools. And what she focuses on is who God is, His word.
[00:23:20] So she starts with praise. God enters the praises of His people. She doesn't know who God is. God's gonna lead her victorious. He's the victorious one. She takes her eyes and the women's eyes off of their situations, off of their trials, off of their tribulations, focuses it on who God is according to His word.
[00:23:38] And then there's silent confession. We want to make sure the Holy Spirit moves in us. And then there's a time rejoicing thanksgiving. You, you think about in, in Psalm 78, uh, where God says, tell your children's children what I have done. Don't be like the sons of Ephraim who are in the midst of the battle, fully dressed and ran cuz they forgot the great things I had done a time in thanksgiving and then we intercede using God's word.
[00:24:04] It's all about Him, it's all about His word. And I tell you this truth, wherever there's a Moms in Prayer group, we have over a hundred thousand women around the world, we see victory, we see revival, we see spiritual awakening, but it's all about Him and His word.
[00:24:21] And in fact, as a ministry, because I have leaders of leaders, I have area coordinators and so they're leading the leaders. So in a city, let's say you have 30 schools covered, you have 30 leaders that area coordinator must develop, training and, and send forth and encourage her leadership, well, well, how's she gonna do that?
[00:24:39] And then I have people over them, state coordinators, then all the way up to country coordinators all over the world.
[00:24:45] The word of God. The Word of God is powerful and it transcends all cultures, all language. They can be there in Africa. We have groups in Africa. I have groups in Europe. I have groups in Oceana, South America, Latin America, North America, all over.
[00:24:59] The word of God transcends it. So what I did with them last year, I said, we're gonna focus on the book of Joshua. We're gonna read through it. We're, we're gonna digest it, we're going to, and we're gonna see how Joshua one man led his people, million people, victoriously. Into the land that God was gonna give 'em.
[00:25:15] Now God was gonna fight for them and through them, but they had to know this and, and, and so I think about our women, they're like, Joshuas. It can be in Gabon, Africa. It, it can be in South America. It doesn't matter that school is the land they're fighting for. They're fighting for the very souls of the children.
[00:25:35] And, and every time they pray, they bring victory. But as they read God's word together, God is the one that teaches them and trains them. I mean, I have the responsibility of, of tens of thousands of leaders, I'm gonna point 'em to God. I'm gonna point 'em to His word. And as we read it together, we grasp, you know, what God is saying and how to follow him.
[00:25:55] Joshua was not a perfect man. He fell, he blew it on occasions, but he got up and he kept going. At the end of his life, he says, for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. And that's what we learned. We're gonna make mistakes, but we're gonna get up and we're gonna keep going.
[00:26:10] So I, I wanna implore you if you are a leader, and I say if you're a mom, you're a dad, you're a leader. Uh, if you. Have employees under you. You're a leader. If you're in a ministry, you're a leader. Learn from the word of God. Learn the lessons that you, you can learn. I, I, I look at Joseph, Jehosaphat, he was a great king.
[00:26:30] He followed God, but then he bound himself with King Ahab, who was a worldly king. One king Jehosaphat was the king of Judea, uh, that kingdom. And, and then you had Ahab, the King of Israel. Well, he was, the Ahab did not follow God, but Jehosaphat wanted unity. We could never have unity with the world. We, we just can't do it.
[00:26:52] He bonded together. He went to battle with him. He almost died. He comes back. And God speaks to him. God rebukes him. As soon he gets on there, a prophet comes up to him and asks him, what were you doing? You know, and, and, and then Jehovah as catches, what God is saying to him, and he immediately takes his people.
[00:27:15] He points to God. As a leader, we must always point to God, Jehosaphat is gonna have great victories. You're gonna see him in 2 Chronicles 20 victorious over three vast armies. He comes to him. But what he did before that was very important. He took all the people of that land, and he sought the Lord, and they all sought the Lord.
[00:27:36] Then he set up leadership and, and, and throughout they had judges. They had different people and, and I love what he said to them. Not to fear man, but to seek God. Judge justly, but seek God's face. And, and I wanna read this cuz I think it's important. We have a tendency to want to please man. And in our hearts, we must only please God, believe this or not, whatever decision you make, uh, the statistical analysis is 19% of those people are not gonna be happy.
[00:28:09] So we must seek the face of God as a leader and say, okay, God, what is your will surrendered?
[00:28:13] Jesus Christ, the greatest leader, he, that ever walked the, the face of the earth always surrendered His will to Lord to his very last breath. Not my will, but your will be done. And we have to do that as a leader.
[00:28:26] We have to get in such a state as we have no will of our own, but only the will of a father. We never can be man pleasers.
[00:28:33] We look at Paul, what a great leader. Paul led the people, but he continually said that I am not here to please man, I'm only here, my life is only here to please God.
[00:28:44] One of the most valuable things I think you can do as a leader is listen, is listen and hear those that you are serving, those that you are leading. I will go to major events and meet. I travel a lot, meet women all over the world, and there's an expectation that I'm gonna talk to them. Well, I do share with them. I do encourage them, I do empower them, I do equip them. But I found out the best thing I can do is listen to them and hear them.
[00:29:10] So what I do when I go to these events, I hear them. What's working, what's not working? What are you struggling with? Share your victories. And what I notice in that these women, as they begin to share what God's doing in their lives, all of a sudden they raise up to the next level of leadership.
[00:29:28] We must always, always hear the people.
[00:29:32] We must first hear God and listen to his word, but we must hear the people. I read, um, um, every other month reports from 146 countries. And the reason I do that, I take time to read each one, and they're simple, short, is what is going on? What's God doing? Am I hearing His voice? Am I hearing the women of the field?
[00:29:53] Am I learning? Am I growing? And we will always grow in our leadership, but will grow by listening to God and listening to those that are under us, and, and then, and that we will serve them well.
[00:30:04] And I, I wanna read this. This is from, uh, Francesco Fennel, A saint of old, but this is what he says.
[00:30:11] Let yourself be humble. Calm and silence under humiliation are a great benefit to the soul. Do not get angry about what people say. Let them talk while you try to do God's will as to the will of man. You can never come to the end of satisfying it, nor is it worth the trouble. Silence, and peace union with God ought to comfort you under whatever men falsely say.
[00:30:36] You must be friendly to them without counting on their friendship. They come and they go, let them go. They're but as shaf scattered by the wind.
[00:30:46] And, and when I wanna say, don't be surprised that the enemy comes after you. You have a big target on, you're a leader. If he, if he can knock out the shepherd, then, then the sheep goes astray.
[00:30:56] And, and the enemy will even use, uh, people of faith to come against you. I just recently, I had a woman call me and, and she had like two and a half pages of ought against me. And, and she wanted just to let me hear it and just go for it. And some of it, some of the criticism, I can take ownership and say, I am so sorry, I never intended that and I can apologize, but some of it was not true and I am able to hold up that shield of faith we're supposed to be stronger. The Lord's strength of his might put on that full armor of God so we can stand against the walls of Satan. And I lifted up that shield of faith and she's like, wait, wait, wait.
[00:31:36] I wanna finish this list. I said, No, I'm gonna speak to you the truth and love. And it, it was pretty cool because after that I pointed her to God and what God has done in our ministry and how we should be thankful and how she was a part of it. Pretty soon we ended by praying and she says, I'm burning that page. I'm done with those two and a half pages.
[00:31:55] And, and you know, you can't blame man. Man's emotions go up and down, every situation. Your eyes as a leader focuses on God and God alone. You are called to this position. God knows your tomorrows. He knows your yesterday's days. He says, call on me. I'll answer you.
[00:32:12] I'll show you great in my things you do not know. And then you go forward listening to Him. Some days you'll be liked and some days you won't. Your only thing that you can do is please God, and you must surrender your heartbeat to Him and allow Him to move through you. Pray. Pray all the time.
[00:32:33] Pray for yourself.
[00:32:34] Pray for those that you lead.
[00:32:36] Know that you'll stumble.
[00:32:37] Know that you'll make mistakes.
[00:32:38] Admit it.
[00:32:41] Always, always know that your leadership is all about Him, not about you, and it's about others. And I, I wanna share with you, uh, what God will do if you do that, you will see revival. You will see spiritual awakening. You will see immeasurably more than ever could ask or imagine according to his power that's worked within you, and to him, be the glory. If you lead in such a way that's filled with God, filled with the Holy Spirit and following Jesus.
[00:33:10] And I remember the very first answer to prayer that I saw was the first grade teacher that my son's classroom was in.
[00:33:18] This boy was sick and, and he was in the hospital and they didn't think he was gonna make it through the weekend. She grabbed me, she goes, you're part of that prayer group. Will you pray for this boy? And and we did. And so the next Monday I run to class and I wanna know how he is. And she goes, he's great, he's healed.
[00:33:33] And I'm like, I'm amazed. Like, ah, how'd that happen? And she goes, you prayed. We all know it's a miracle. And, and that was my first big answer to prayer. Well, that changed that boy's life. That changed that parent's life changed that teacher's life. And they got to witness the power of prayer.
[00:33:55] Steve Gatena: On episode three of this three part series, Sally Burke wants to help moms from all over the world and talks about a time when a woman from Rwanda help tribes transform a whole community through prayer. We learn how she found the power of prayer and how prayer can leave an incredible legacy.
[00:34:19] Sally Burke: All of us are gonna leave a legacy of some type. We all want it to be good and, and what I'm gonna share with you is the legacy of prayer. That's what I'm most familiar with. That's what I'm witnessing. That's what I'm seeing happening all over the world.
[00:34:35] Prayer is the avenue that God himself has chosen to bless his people. He tells us that in James 4:2 you have not, cuz you asked not. Prayer is inviting His presence and power into our lives, into our family's lives, into our situations, into our world. Prayer is where God ushers His will here on this earth as it is in heaven. It is the greatest power available to mankind when prayer is combined with His word.
[00:35:01] Prayer becomes an unstoppable force no matter what is going on here. And this world and and prayer can change the circumstances, history of what is about to happen. Prayer can intervene with that. I'm going to share some Biblical stories. But I wanna share you some lifetime stories with me, and this is what I want you to know about prayer.
[00:35:20] When every time you take a moment to utter prayer, that's a eternal gift and it long lives after you. One of my dearest friends left a legacy, of prayer. She passed away over 20 years ago, and I met her at Moms in Prayer, and we prayed together for her three daughters. And when she would pass away, they'd be young, they'd be 12 and 10 and four years old.
[00:35:45] Well, these girls still stay in contact with me, and I remember when her oldest came home from college and I remember vividly her mother's prayers and her daughter would share with me, uh, her life on campus, and she said, you know what, I, I just don't wanna do drugs and I just don't wanna sleep with my boyfriend.
[00:36:03] I just, and I'm thinking, that's cuz your mom prayed that. That's cuz your mom prayed that. Now her mom had died a decade before that, and yet those prayers live long after we do, and her, her daughters today are all three serving the Lord, and this one in particular is now also in Moms in prayer. And she's impacting lives for Christ.
[00:36:23] So, so that legacy of prayer, many things we can do will, will pass away in this lifetime. But prayer will last long after you have prayed. God has chosen you and I to be His vehicles to accomplish His will. We are created and fueled by His power, and it happens through prayer. In prayer we can change the destiny of not only a life, a community, a country, and prayer can leave a legacy from generation to generation to generation.
[00:36:53] I, I wanna give you an example, in my own life, somebody prayed for me. They prayed me out of darkness into his glorious light. And, and now I get the opportunity of praying for children in schools. And, and I wanna share with you what that type of legacy does, as, as we pray for the children. We, we began to, to pray on this elementary school and, and these teachers and, and the students.
[00:37:17] And we always pray positively. We always pray, if they don't know the Lord, may their eyes be open and they turn for darkness, light, and the power of Saint and to the power of God. So they can be forgiven of their sins in a place among those you're sanctified by faith in Christ. And God answered those prayers that we saw 14 out the 22 teachers come to know the Lord Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior on this public campus. And the thing that's so amazing, not only did the teachers, but their whole feelings came to know Jesus Christ. And that changed the whole culture of that public school as one child, one, uh, teacher after another came to know Jesus Christ, and now they have what they call Teachers in Prayer on that campus that had been praying for well over a decade.
[00:37:57] Also, we, we began to pray as I prayed for my own child, I learned to pray a mom's in prayer. I, I didn't even know how to pray after I came to know the Lord. I read in the book of, of Luke how Jesus taught the disciples to pray, so I called out to Him, oh Lord, teach me to pray. And prayers about that one-on-one relationship with him being FaceTime with him.
[00:38:17] You know how you're FaceTime with your loved ones?
[00:38:18] You're FaceTime and prayer with God. And, and he answered that prayer by teaching me pray with a woman inviting me to pray for my children in their schools. And I walk into this room and these women are, are praising God. And I didn't pray out loud for a while, but I instantly began to see answers to prayer.
[00:38:39] And I remember the very first answer to prayer that I saw was the first grade teacher that my son's classroom was in. This boy was sick and, and he was in the hospital and they didn't think he was gonna make it through the weekend. She grabbed me, she goes, you're part of that prayer group. Will you pray for this boy?
[00:38:53] And we did. And so the next Monday I run to class and I wanna know how he is. And she goes, he's great. He's healed. And I'm like, I'm amazed. Like, wow, how'd that happen? And she goes, you prayed. We all know it's a miracle. And, and that was my first big answer to prayer. Well, that changed that boy's life. That changed that parent's life changed, that teacher's life.
[00:39:14] And they got to witness the power of prayer. And so then as we began to pray for our own kids, oh Lord, may they find favor in the teacher's eyes. May they have Christian friends, may they soar academically, even those that were struggling. And God answered those, those prayers for us.
[00:39:28] And one day they're, they're all standing on the stage, their moms and prayer kids getting awards. They were the most outstanding students. And a friend hits me, he goes, look at that. My, my son was only in third grade. I'm looking at all the other students that didn't know Jesus yet and my heart was broken. I said, oh Lord, may all of them hear the good news.
[00:39:45] Does God care? Yes. Does he wish none shall perish? Yes. And prayers have a new in which we were gonna see revival, spiritual awakening. So we began to pray for each child by name and that they would hear the good news. The gospel of salvation, believe and be so with the power of the Holy Spirit. What does God do on this public school campus?
[00:40:02] He brings a good news club. Those are children of evangelism. They came during a modified day and they shared the gospel, and I came just to hand out candy or whatever. Well, pretty soon so many kids were coming to know Jesus, that they say, Sally, we need you as a counselor, come over here. And what was so utterly amazing to me was these little kids would say, I'm ready to receive Jesus.
[00:40:24] And these are kids I prayed for by name. I looked at their pictures in the yearbook and I prayed for them by name and they put my, their hand in mine and say, okay, I'm receiving Jesus Christ, as my Lord and my Savior, and I would take my ring off and I said do you see this, I, I put in the, the clap of my hand.
[00:40:40] I said, you are now saved and nobody can snatch outta the father's hand. And today they're teachers, they're preachers, they're missionaries, they're doctors, they're lawyers, they're moms, they're dads impacting this next generation. What a legacy is that.
[00:40:57] I remember getting a letter of this precious young woman that's in college and she got a full on, uh, scholarship either to Yale or Harvard. And she said, thank you for praying for me in elementary school. I know Jesus today on this campus because of that. Now, that blew my mind, praise God. But that's not only happening here in the United States. I, I wanna share with you the power of prayer and how it can leave an incredible legacy.
[00:41:19] When the first women I met as they began to work with their international women, was a lady from Rwanda. Her two oldest kids were killed during the genocide that happened there. She comes to America as two more kids, and, and then she, um, learns about moms in prayer and begins to pray and she takes it back to Rwanda and begins to show these tribes instead of fighting, killing each other, begin to pray, begin to pray for one another, and a few years later, as we trained in one leader, I love what she told me she was so we'll no longer be known as a nation of genocide, but we will be known as a nation of prayer that transformed a whole community.
[00:42:00] And, and I pray a whole country. I love how the leader of Cameroon sent her women forward and she says, don't ask God what type of the nation, you're gonna leave this generation, but ask her, what type of generation are you going to leave this nation? And, and that's what we have to know. And, and that's what we have to believe.
[00:42:21] We are going to give hope to this next generation as we pour forth our prayers to them. And, and I want you to hear this quote from this, this young man who's impacting, he was a Moms in Prayer, uh, young man, and he started impacting college campuses, so much so that he started a ministry called Foltz, and his name is Nick Hall, and this is what he says:
[00:42:46] There's a generation rising up that doesn't see boundaries and knows no limits. They're hungry for the things of God and ready to go bold, fearless, full of faith. They aren't after a name as much as The name, not after fame unless it's His. There is so much hope for tomorrow. So don't let anyone tell you elsewise. I'm telling you, God, as we pray, is raising up a mighty generation all over the world. I'm witnessing seeing it, and we must keep on praying. We must leave that type of legacy.
[00:43:15] And even thinking with my own home, I was probably the most imperfect parent one could be. I was not rai... I was raised in a good home, but not a Christian home.
[00:43:24] So I had to learn along the way. But a legacy we all can leave and a legacy of prayer. Think about my oldest boy, when my kids, uh, as they were growing up, after I had my quiet time, they'd come into my room and I would teach 'em to pray and we'd pray through the four steps. Well, my oldest boy, he was starting to go to high school, and he says, mom, I gotta skip that prayer time because we're praying around the pool. We're praying for our fellow students and our teachers. And he continues to do that. He's now part of their church prayer team. My other daughter, my youngest, she uh, was part of a, the high school that we prayed, Oh Lord, may they impact their campus for Christ. May their campus not impact them. And her and her friends began to start a Bible study and then they began to pray for their fellow students, just like we were doing Moms in Prayer on there. Well, at one event, they saw 91 kids fall on their faces and receive Jesus as their Lord and Savior. And on that school campus, it was like a revival of more and more kids began to receive Jesus and they start going to a Bible study and I'm like, ah, what are you teaching them?
[00:44:30] It's just the book of Romans. We're all just going through the book of Romans, and today there still is a Bible study on that high school campus and my oldest boy started on Humboldt at his college, a Bible study that's still going today. They can leave a legacy of prayer and each one lives different legacies.
[00:44:47] My, my, uh, third child, my son David, is a man of integrity and in our community, I always pray that wherever our kids are, they will impact our community and. He's only 24 years old, and yet when I go to a major event to rather speak or whatever it may be, I'm known as David's mom. I, I love that. He's impacting the community for Christ.
[00:45:08] He's known as a man of integrity. My daughter is a mom and she's a mom who, who loves her kids. Well, that's another legacy. There's different type of legacies that we can leave, but I gotta tell you, every single one of you can leave a legacy of prayer that will long outlive you, and your life, and that will impact generations, communities, and countries for Christ.
[00:45:30] And we need to keep on praying. Never giving up. You know, I, I was the most imperfect parent one could ever imagine. I remember my daughter coming up to me and asking if she could go to an event, and I said, no, you know, you, you can't go to that, in fact, and she goes, well, mom, all of the other parents let them.
[00:45:48] And I said, I wanna share something with you. Um, I am an imperfect parent. I'm learning I'm gonna make mistakes. And, and, um, in that God has chosen you to be part of my family. So we're gonna learn this together. And, and the same daughter, I remember one time in getting ready to speak at this event and I needed her to rush and to hurry and to get ready for school.
[00:46:12] And I'm yelling at her, I'm going and I drop her off for school. And then I plan to go and speak about the Lord and, and the fruit of the spirit. Love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. I'd go back to the school, apologize to my daughter before I, dare went there.
[00:46:29] My kids could always tell when I was a little upset. Um, as a matter of fact, when I would get upset and I would start to battle them, I would tell them, wait, wait. Mama has to go be with Jesus. And I'd come back a different person. I'd go in my prayer closet, pray and come back. Well, pretty soon my kids started to begin to tell me, mom, mom, you need to go be with Jesus, you need to go be with Jesus.
[00:46:51] As parents. We're not gonna be perfect. We just aren't gonna be perfect, but God is perfect. God gets all the glory if we pretend like we're perfect. If we never ask forgiveness, if we go on like we did everything right, if we do not hear or listen to our children, we do them a big disservice.
[00:47:10] So as a parent, you will leave a legacy. You can leave a powerful legacy, but also know that you're gonna fail time and time again. Just keep getting up. Keep loving your kids unconditionally and keep praying for them.
[00:47:26] Steve Gatena: When we surrender our lives to God, we trust Him to use everything, including ourselves according to His will.
[00:47:35] Surrendering to God isn't a one time event, but a daily practice, although it's not easy to let go of control or the illusion that we know better, the more we practice surrendering, the more peaceful we become. Surrendering our lives to God means becoming willing partners with Him, knowing that we don't control everything.
[00:48:00] This week on Relentless Hope, Sally Burke, the President of Moms in Prayer International. Taught us about living the surrendered life. Sally reminded us that our lives are about God and living the fullness of life that He has given us. Life is a precious gift. It's a gift from God, and He has chosen us to live an extraordinary life.
[00:48:26] He created us with all of our greatness and all of our weakness, knowing our past, and forgiving us and understanding our futures, and how He can work through us to bring glory to His name. Sally taught us that great leaders focus on pleasing God, not on pleasing other people. God has chosen us to be leaders and He will equip us with everything we need while empowering us to lead the people we serve.
[00:48:59] Sally urged us to spend time in prayer and to read the Bible, the greatest leadership book ever written. She told us to first listen to God, then the people we serve, to truly hear what they're saying. What's working, what isn't? What recent victories they've had and what they're struggling with.
[00:49:21] We also learned that Sally hopes to leave a legacy of prayer. She passed on a legacy of prayer to her children and is working to realize this dream as president of Moms and Prayer International. Sally reminded us that we'll never be perfect and we all make mistakes, still, God is perfect and he wants us to surrender everything, including our failures and mistakes to Him.
[00:49:52] She urged us to keep going after every stumble. Loving our children and the people we serve unconditionally, praying for everyone and surrendering our lives to God.
[00:50:06] God has given us the most precious gift of life, and He wants to work through us to transform this world.
[00:50:15] God wants to help us transform this world, and in order to do that, we must surrender our hearts to Him, to let Him move through us and allow His will over ours.
[00:50:32] Jesus taught us how to do this, surrendering everything, including His life to God's will until His final breath.
[00:50:40] By surrendering, we open our lives for God to transform them in extraordinary ways.
[00:50:50] I want you to transform someone else's life in an extraordinary way, so I'm asking you, if this podcast inspired you, please share it with someone you know. You never know the impact that one inspirational podcast can have on someone's life. My name's Steve Gatena. I'm the host of the Relentless Hope Podcast, and until next time, always remember to give hope a voice.
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