“Don’t Stop Pressing In!”
By Jacob Hawkins, Harvard Kennedy School ’20
About a year ago, my mom asked me, “When did it all change for you?” Without thinking, the answer was clear. “When I started to read my Bible every day,” I responded.
Upon arrival at Harvard Kennedy School, I was six months removed from the darkest point in my life. I grew up in a legalistic, Christian household, and quickly decided I did not want to follow all of my parent’s/God’s rules, nor could I. I left God up in the sky and told Him I could take care of myself. I was smart and bound for success by the world’s standards. My arrogance preceded me.
Jacob Hawkins Through a series of poor choices, I found myself in an emotionally abusive relationship. Without God giving me my sense of worth, the sum of my value hinged on one, imperfect woman. When that relationship ended, I felt even more worthless. I was depressed and suicidal.
Grasping at straws before ending my life, I decided to give the God that I left up in the sky a call. How faithful He is. How much pain I must have caused His heart, yet He didn’t reject me for a second. He rushed in and rescued me from the pit I dug myself. I found a real relationship with Jesus and felt His presence for the first time.
He began to restore my heart and free me from addiction, rejection, and pain. Instead of desiring the things this world had to offer, God started putting a desire on my heart for His ways, His sheep, and the lost. I developed a desire and felt like God wanted me to pray for healing for the sick.
This is how I showed up at Harvard, recently saved, baptized in the Holy Spirit, and with a desire for the power of God. God restored all the pain and gave me a double portion of joy. I met my now wife, Marianna, and we began to grow closer to God together.
In the second year of my program, I met Justin Yim, Christian Union’s ministry director at Harvard Law School. I knew I needed a godly mentor in my life. He encouraged me to contemplate what God was showing me. He also introduced me to other strong student believers.
In 2020, I was listening to a sermon about the importance of daily Bible reading. Something clicked in metformin-online.com. Hungry for more, I took up that challenge. I began a year’s journey to read through the Bible, using a plan I received from Christian Union.
During the pandemic, God began to use my wife and I in the miraculous. We became involved in the healing and deliverance team at our church. Backs, shoulders, hips, lungs, kidneys, cancer, and so much more—all healed in Jesus’ name. We were getting words of knowledge and prophetic dreams. We learned how to cast out demons and how to pray with the authority God has given us. We saw God work miracles on a daily basis. The transformation was evident. Two years ago, I almost ended my life, yet here we were witnessing to the homeless on the streets, people in Walmart, people in restaurants, friends, and family members, and everywhere we went.
Now we are back at Harvard, as my wife is at the law school. We have devoted our best to seeking revival here on campus. God is faithful, and He has heard everyone’s prayers. Things are beginning to move. Harvard students are starting to be healed, set free from bondage, and baptized in the Holy Spirit. Students are stepping up and getting involved in huge ways. We have been hosting prayer meetings, equipping classes, and revival nights. The momentum is building, but the Holy Spirit is just getting started. Please pray for more. More fire, more anointing, more presence, more hunger, more power, and more laborers.
My personal change all started when I decided to trust God and believe that He knew best. He tells us to dwell with Him and feed daily on His Word. I started reading my Bible, and God showed Himself faithful. No one is too broken, too dirty, or too lost for Jesus to find and make whole. And then, if you don’t stop pressing in, He never stops doing more! He wants to use all of us to preach the gospel and perform miracles in His name. We cannot quench the Holy Spirit or limit God to just our intellectual understanding of Him. Our God is powerful, alive, and always doing a new thing. His love and will for us is more relentless than the grave. Press in. Dwell with Him. Seek Him. He promises to reward the diligent, and He is not a liar. Let the bride at Harvard make herself ready. Come Lord Jesus.
Jacob Hawkins is a graduate of the Harvard Kennedy School, where he received a Master in Public Policy with a focus in Business and Government Policy and Decision Making and Leadership Sciences. He is a First Lieutenant in the United States Air Force and graduated from the Air Force Academy in 2018 with a B.S. in Management and a minor in French. Currently he works in military intelligence and is in the process of becoming a licensed pastor in the Foursquare church. Jacob serves as the head of the healing and deliverance ministry of a Portuguese speaking Brazilian Foursquare church in the Boston area.
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