Jairus means “Jehovah who enlightens.” This is not a commonly used name and until 2016, it didn’t mean anything significant for me more than any other name. However, through a series of personal challenges, Jairus suddenly became very meaningful to me and thus Jairus Bible World Ministries came to bear this name.
I married my wife in 2006. For 10 years, we battled with infertility. We tried every method available to us including Chinese herbal medicine and in vitro fertilization (IVF). Our five IVF attempts failed, and even our last-ditch effort to secure a pregnancy with an egg donor ended quickly when our donor changed her mind at the last minute. You can imagine the darkness my wife and I experienced. Through a long journey of relentless prayer and fighting to believe a prophetic promise from the Lord, God spoke to me in a dream and told me that my wife would soon become pregnant. Miraculously, and to our surprise, my wife found herself pregnant with our miracle daughter on May 28th, 2016. Elim, our crowning glory, was born healthy months later and remains our precious miracle baby.
Though our hearts are now filled with great joy, this ten-year process was not without many dark moments of the soul. When I look back, I can see that God tried to speak to me and give me strength many times, but I had a difficult time hearing him. The years between 2014 and 2016 were a time of transition for me. I didn’t know it at the time, but God was transitioning me from an Evangelical church to a Charismatic congregation and entrusting a ministry to me! I would move from a season of testing in the wilderness to abundance. Yet, before I could, I had to face the reality of my situation.
The reality of our bareness was difficult. I felt like I had hit a wall when it came to receiving healing and also the baptism of the Holy Spirit (as evidenced by tongues and manifestations). These were two things I had been diligently seeking after I became aware that they were available to me. In fact, my desire for these two things is what drove me into Pentecostal and Charismatic churches. I had been a Christian for 13 years, but I had never attended a Charismatic church. In sharing the rest of this story, please be informed that I am not inferring that one denomination is better than nor superior to another. I have learned that each church who is serving Christ embraces certain biblical truths and no denomination has the whole picture. I remain deeply grateful to all of the churches I’ve attended in the past. They have helped me in numerous ways including both spiritually and even financially. Sharing my experience of being in two very different denominations is for the purpose of showing how God was taking me out of my comfort zone to allow me to learn about Him from a different perspective.
Read More:
https://jbwm.org/elijah-list-conference-testimony-part-iv-why-we-use-the-name-jairus/
