Have you ever found yourself in a
situation that was so overwhelming that you found yourself, maybe figuratively
or in all actuality, on your knees in prayer? I have numerous times. I remember
being in the back of a Bradley in Iraq on my first patrol. I was a
medic/dismount then and that first ride out was spent in deep prayer. When the
ramp lowered and I stepped out for the first time into our AO, I was praying.
When I walked the patrol with my squad, I was praying.
Another time I found myself in
prayer was when my daughter, Sophia, presented with a fever and rash. She was
only three months old at the time and having a fever that rose to 104* was
dangerous. You can bet Amanda and I were in prayer. When the fever wouldn’t go
down, we prayed. When Sophia had to have IVs introduced through her head
because the Vanderbilt ER team couldn’t find veins in her little arms, we
prayed. When the Vanderbilt Infectious Disease team confirmed the diagnosis was
Kawasaki Disease as our pediatrician had suspected, we prayed. When the doctors
assured us that despite not knowing its origin, they did have a cure, we
prayed.
What I’ve come to believe is that
the Book of James speaks absolute truth regarding prayer:
Are
any of you suffering hardships? You should pray. Are any of you happy? You
should sing praises. Are any of you sick? You should call on the elders of the church
to come and pray over you, anointing you with oil in the name of the Lord. Such
a prayer offered in faith will heal the sick, and the Lord will make you well.
And if you have committed any sins, you will be forgiven. Confess your sins to
each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer
of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results (James
5:13-16 NLT).
Most, if not all of us, have heard
that saying, “There are no atheists in foxholes.” I’m not 100% sure that I
believe that but I wouldn’t put it past a few of them to consider God in prayer
during a firefight or a “broken arrow” type event. I also suspect that people
have appealed to God in prayer for healing or restoration or in any number of
circumstances, and having not gotten the answer they desire, choose to deny
faith of any kind as a means of “getting back at God because He didn’t answer
my prayers.”
Maybe his purposes are bigger than
our prayer requests. Maybe, just maybe, He has a much greater plan for prayers
than we can sometimes see from our foxholes. Maybe the change your praying
for is happening in you because you are praying. I know that’s what usually
happens to me. If I’m frustrated with a situation or want to “kill somebody,”
about the only way I can come down from that wave is through prayer. I pray for
God to move me past my frustration or desire to do bodily harm to someone else.
And as I pray, an amazing thing happens. I begin to change: my anger dissolves,
my worries are minimized, and my focus, most importantly, gets off me. My focus
goes back to center and for me that’s God. Usually after that, my perspective
on things begins to change. I might still be a little hot or bothered but I
begin to see things from a perspective other than my own. That is a win when
the ultimate prize in prayer is to be changed. Richard foster wrote:
Meditation
introduces us to the inner life, fasting is an accompanying means, study
transforms our minds, but it is the Discipline of prayer that brings
us into the deepest and highest work of the human spirit. Prayer is the central
avenue God uses to transform us. If we are unwilling to change, we will abandon
prayer as a noticeable characteristic of our lives.[1]
“Prayer brings us into the deepest
and highest work of the human spirit.” I believe this wholeheartedly. When I
can’t stand to be around somebody, a situation is overwhelming, or I simply
want to be at peace then that’s what I do. I pray. That’s the only endeavor
that changes and builds my body, mind, and spirit to any degree. And when you
don’t get the answers that you want or you get an answer that you don’t desire,
don’t throw up your hands in defeat. Continue to pray. Remember, “The earnest
prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results”
(James 5:16 NLT). The change will be in you and that’s the win. That’s where
the magic will happen. That’s where the hope will happen. Prayer is an
incredible opportunity to maximize transformation: in you!
[1] Richard Foster, Celebration of Discipline: The Path to
Spiritual Growth, 20th Anniversary Ed., 50 of 325, Harper
Collins e-books, 1998.
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