100 Days of Right Believing: Daily Readings from The Power of Right Believing (32 page)

J
oshua, Moses’ successor who led the children of Israel into the promised land, was someone who dared to ask big. When Joshua was caught in the thick of battle with his enemies and the sun was about to set, he cried out for the sun and moon to stand still, and the Bible goes on to record that God answered his prayer.

I love this story. When my leaders and I were in the plains where this battle took place, we could see the sun over Gibeon on one side and the moon over the Valley of Aijalon on the other side. Both the sun and moon could be seen at the same time from that location. Standing there, I could just imagine Joshua in the midst of the battle, raising his voice and pointing to the sun on one side to stand still and then turning to the moon to issue the same command. Joshua was asking God for more daylight because the momentum of the battle was to their advantage. He wanted to completely rout his enemies and not give them time to regroup.

When you think about what Joshua asked, it was both an audacious and inaccurate request! If you were attentive during your science classes in school, you know that the earth orbits around the sun, not the sun around the earth! So technically, when Joshua called for the sun and moon to stand still, God made the
earth
stand still instead. Joshua’s request was scientifically inaccurate, but nevertheless, God honored Joshua’s chutzpah faith! He understood that what Joshua needed was more daylight, and He made it happen.

Isn’t it encouraging to know that God didn’t correct Joshua and give him CliffsNotes on how the solar system that He built actually functions? It gives
me great encouragement to know that even when our faith confessions may not always be perfect, God still honors our hope and faith in Him. He loves it when we ask Him for big things. My friend, you can ask of Him, knowing that the battle truly belongs to the Lord, and that He will fight for you the way He fought for Israel because you are His covenant child.

A
bandoned at birth and adopted by an illiterate widow, she was raised together with four other orphans in a little village in Perak, Malaysia. Life was hard in their tiny makeshift hut with a leaky zinc roof and no running water or electricity. At only nine years of age, she started working in a dusty factory after school, pulling rigid strips of rattan to weave them into bags for a little less than an American nickel per bag, so that her family had food. It seemed her life was destined to be trapped in a cycle of poverty.

Despite her challenging circumstances, this lady shared with me that even as a child, she had always felt there was a God somewhere, who was watching over her, protecting her, and blessing her. She remembered praying a simple, innocent prayer to this unknown God, saying, “If You are the true God, please come and look for me so that I may come to know You.” She had no idea that her Father in heaven had an amazing plan for her life.

She did so well in school that her vice principal encouraged her to continue her studies in Singapore. With her adopted mother’s blessing and only ten Malaysian dollars in her pocket, she headed to Singapore. Despite having to take on various jobs to support herself as well as her family, she continued to thrive in her academic pursuits, went on to a top-tier local university, and graduated with honors in chemistry. She then landed a well-paying job at a multinational company. After three and a half years, she decided to venture out to build her own business in 1989.

In the year 2000, God honored the prayer that she had prayed as a young child when a friend invited her to New Creation Church in Singapore. Having heard different things about God over the years, she remembers the freedom
that she experienced when she learned for the first time through my preaching on grace that God loved her so much more than she could ever love Him. She stopped seeing God as someone far away and instead had a personal encounter with Jesus.

Some time later, she felt the Lord leading her to take her business public to remain competitive. She presented her business plan to a bank for its assistance to underwrite her company’s attempt to undertake an initial public offering (IPO). The bank manager declined, explaining that it was not the right time to attempt an IPO as the Dow Jones had been on a massive downward slide. Half-jokingly he said, “If the Dow Jones starts going up today, come back tomorrow and we can talk again.”

When she walked out of the bank, she remembered a message that I had preached on being bold and asking God for big things. She said, “You told us not to insult God by asking only for small things. You said, ‘Ask God for big things, compliment Him and have a positive, confident expectation of good.’ ” So before going to bed, she asked God to do a big thing for her. She simply prayed and believed, “God, You are Almighty. Surely You can influence the US market and make the Dow Jones go up in Jesus’ name.” Now, Singapore is twelve hours ahead of New York, so the market opens when it is night in Singapore. At about 4 a.m., this lady felt a prompting to get out of bed to check on how the Dow Jones was doing… and found that it was beginning to climb upward! In the space of just four hours, the Dow Jones had risen by an astonishing 18 percent.

Pastor Prince, can God do things like this?

Of course He can. Anything is possible for those who believe God and have a confident expectation of good. This lady had the boldness to ask God to bless her and turn things around for her, just as Jabez did, and God answered her request.

With God’s favor, her IPO was underwritten and her company went public. Remarkably, at that very time the Singapore government launched an initiative to highlight the importance of recycling wastewater into drinkable water and released news of a big tender to build the nation’s first wastewater recycling and treatment facility. She knew absolutely nothing about this project and was just keeping her eyes on Jesus. Nobody could have orchestrated the media hype, publicity, and excitement over water—her very industry. Her company’s IPO became a sensational hit and was oversubscribed seven times. Her company, Hyflux, became the first water treatment company to be listed on the Singapore Exchange.

She shared with me so many other amazing testimonies of how the Lord continued to open doors of favor and blessings for her in China, India, and the Middle East after the public listing of her company. When she submitted tenders for multimillion-dollar infrastructural projects to build wastewater plants or some of the largest membrane-based seawater distillation facilities in the world, she would be the little David among the Goliaths in the industry. Yet she came up tops, and many times was awarded the projects. That, my friend, is called the
favor
of God.

In 2011, Olivia Lum, in a competitive field with close to fifty top-notch entrepreneurs from around the world, was accorded the prestigious Ernst & Young World Entrepreneur of the Year award, the first woman to be recognized with this honor. In her acceptance speech, she thanked her Lord Jesus Christ.

How does a young girl who was abandoned at birth go from weaving rattan bags for a nickel to building a billion-dollar, public-listed company? That is the power of right believing, my friend. Nothing is impossible when you believe right in the person of Jesus and in His love and goodness. It’s not how or what you begin with. You may have been born under severely challenging circumstances, or perhaps your parents are separated, or you may even have suffered abuse as you were growing up. My friend, I am here to tell you that with God in your life, it’s
not
the end of the road! You can have hope and expect good even when things in your life seem hopeless. See His love for you. Believe that He has amazing plans for your life, and ask God for big things.