The weapon of prayer

          I love watching testimonies from CBN’s the 700 Club. It is sometimes kind of like my therapy at the end of the day to just unwind by listening to people’s testimonies of God’s goodness and faithfulness to them. Recently, this week, I listened to a testimony about a man’s experience with the Corona virus. He is a sports writer who covers college football for the University of Mississippi. He contracted the virus along with his wife and one of his daughters. His symptoms were severe in comparison with their milder experience. He found himself in the hospital and although initially reluctant to be put on the ventilator because he had heard of the high mortality rate of those who did, he was finally convinced by his family to do so anyway. He lost consciousness and his wife was told that he had a 20 percent chance of being able to come off the ventilator. What amazes me and humbles me at the same time is his wife’s response. She was thankful to God for that 20 percent. She made up her mind that they would hang on to that 20 and just keep praying. 
         Her response reminded me of the fact that we need to be thankful for the little or much God chooses to give us. It would have been so easy to be thankful for 80 percent – in fact it would be easy to rejoice! But to be thankful for a mere 20 percent, I think, was just as important to God. He wants us to be thankful even when it doesn’t make sense ... and to keep praying... 
         I am reminded here of the story of the prophet Elijah in the Old Testament who believed God  for rain during a season of drought in Israel (1 Kings 18:41-45). He sent his servant to check the sky to see if there was any sign of rain. The servant saw nothing. Seven times he went and finally the seventh time he saw something ... a very tiny something. It was a cloud about the size of a man’s hand! It didn’t seem very significant. It didn’t even seem like something worth mentioning but when he told Elijah, Elijah immediately told him to go and tell the king that rain was coming. Isn’t that amazing?! So many times we search the proverbial skies looking for something significant, something huge, something worth telling, something that is an indication that God is answering our prayer. But sometimes God only chooses to give us a tiny glimpse, a seemingly insignificant something that doesn’t seem like an answer to prayer at all. So I love it when this woman says that they were going to hold on to that 20 percent and keep praying. To her that 20 percent was not an indication to stop praying and give up. That seemingly tiny whisper from God was more like a shout declaring that help is on the way! Isn’t it so like God sometimes to answer us but not in the way we expect or hope?! It’s almost as if He is waiting to see what we will do – will we give up or will we keep trusting Him; will we give up or will we keep praying; will we give up or even stop serving Him if it doesn’t work out the way we would like?
         A couple of days later, his liver and kidneys started failing and she was encouraged by a doctor to start planning his funeral. She was  told to just take him off the ventilator. She was being encouraged to give up! But she responded that she believed in miracles and that her husband was a fighter. She would not come between God and her husband. When I heard this response I was amazed. She would not get between God and her husband! I took that to mean that she was not going to make that decision to take his life, that would be God’s final decision. She let God make that final decision and when she did He chose to give her husband life. They never stopped praying. They never stopped believing God for a miracle. Her husband believes that prayer was the key weapon to bring about his deliverance. As her husband put it, he was prayed out of there. He admits he doesn’t know why God chose to spare him but he believes that God allowed him to go through that experience so that he can have a story to share with others about the power of prayer.
          I am actually in agreement with him. Prayer is more powerful than we can ever imagine. However God chooses to answer is still an answer because God will never respond with anything less than His best for us. It’s not always about getting what we want or about things working out the way we want them to, but it is always about getting God’s best for us. So, my encouragement to us? Don’t stop praying. God has been teaching me this important lesson over the past several years and I am not disappointed. And if I am not disappointed you won’t be either.
         If you have not accepted Jesus Christ into your life as Lord and Saviour, I encourage you to do so now. It is so nice to have someone on call 24/7. It doesn’t matter the time of day or night, God is ALWAYS there. He has promised to never leave us or forsake us. That means that He is always there when we need Him. Even when others fail us God never will!

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