How 1 Man’s Faith Prevailed During Global Crisis
How important it is to be obedient to the Lord and remain in the center of His will. It not only impacts your own life—it likely impacts the destiny of countless lives around you.
Faith to Move Mountains
In 1924, Rees Howells founded the Bible College of Wales with the aim of training and sending laborers into the harvest field who had learned not only theology but also a practical life of faith. Students were required to “pray through” for victory in their daily needs and burdens whether that was for a needed toothbrush or for tuition.
Inspired by George Mueller, Rees set the standard for his community as he contended in prayer to acquire the massive properties needed for the school to be established. Leonard Ravenhill gave insight into Rees’ hidden life of faith, obedience and prayer in this area:
“After I spoke at a session in the Bible School of Wales, Mrs. Rees Howells called me for a private talk. We stood on the veranda of her home overlooking beautiful Swansea Bay I can see her finger upheld as she said, ‘Many talk of my husband’s buying this place with a shilling [14 cents] in his pocket. What they forget is that he prayed 12 hours a day for 11 months to know the mind of God.’ Brethren, that’s discipline!”
The two-dimensional promises written on the pages of your Bible have to take on three-dimensional reality in your broken life in spite of your failures and weaknesses. We have to learn that God is love; God is a father; God is a healer; God is a provider.
Each of these revelations demands a personal testimony of their proven truth. Without firsthand knowledge of these realities faith will flounder and lack the power needed for an end-time mission. Heed the apostle Paul’s warning and resist becoming a person in the last days who is content in “having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power” (2 Tim. 3:5).
Not long after the school was established, God called Rees Howells into the ultimate walk of faith and obedience—the preaching of the gospel to every creature (Mark 16:15). He became a man with a world vision. No sooner had he engaged his faith to see the task completed in his generation, than evil dictators and wicked governmental systems arose to stop the gospel’s advancement. World War II had begun.
What was created to be a training and sending center transformed into a company of faith-filled intercessors on their faces day after day, year after year facing the crisis of war. Through it all their vision remained—the “Every Creature Vision”— as they contended for God’s purposes in the earth and for global obstacles to be removed for the gospel to advance.
However, their stories and testimonies of how they affected the world through their prayers are difficult to grasp unless you first understand their effective lives of faith, obedience and abiding.
Consider again the opening quote and hear the determined cry of a man whose faith and prayers expanded to include nations, world leaders, governmental systems and unreached people groups. Let the words impact your heart and create the same hunger for that kind of faith. Let’s follow the example of this humble man of God whose life has inspired thousands of intercessors around the globe.
The Howells Project
Coming soon in the spring of 2016, Justice House of Prayer D.C. invites believers to dig deep into the principles of faith and prayer that will shape the world to come. For four weeks we will look to the life of Rees Howells to create this immersive experience, which will take place in Washington, D.C., and also at Howells’ historic well—the Bible College of Wales.
Dark clouds are forming on the horizon, yet the charge of the kingdom remains the same: “Go!” God wants to raise up people who are fully committed to His work in spite of the challenges to come.
The Howells Project is designed to develop a life of faith that can impact world events at the highest levels. Will you answer this call?
A full-time missionary, Matt Lockett serves as Executive Director of Justice House of Prayer D.C. and Bound4LIFE International. Matt’s passion is to help father a young, consecrated generation of believers. He travels and teaches on the subjects of prayer, fasting and governmental intercession. He and his wife Kim live in the Washington, D.C., area with their four children. Formerly he had a career in advertising and marketing; these days, he really wishes he had paid more attention in government class.
Reprinted with permission from Justice House of Prayer D.C.
