Tags
Answered Prayers, Christian, Elijah, Facing Giants, Faith, Game Shows, God the Father, Jesus, Panic, Pray Without Ceasing, Prayer, The Great I AM, With All My Heart, Worship
God uses a lot of things to bless His kids. He’s not opposed to using ordinary stuff and everyday situations to accomplish His purposes and answer prayers.
After praying, a friend of mine in Arizona won a sports car on a game show. She had wanted a sports car for the longest time, and prayed for one for the longest time.
Like, Father, I would really love to have a sports car, if that would fit into your will somehow. You know, just someday.
Eventually she made plans to be in California for a week or two (I’m a little fuzzy on the details), and she found out auditions were being held for a Hollywood game show. So she went, and got in, and then she won a sports car! A Mazda-type something or other with letters and numbers after the name.
And other people I know have prayed for really crazy things that mattered only to them. I could fill pages and pages of answered prayers in the lives of family members and church members and close friends and even in my life.
And God gave them their hearts’ desires. And mine, too.
Because that’s how God is with His kids. With those who take the time to pray. For those who keep praying. For those who pray in secret. And for those who love Him most of all.
But God is not Santa Claus, an ATM machine, or a game show host.
Running around tagging as many people as I can to pray for my request before the buzzer buzzes, in a mad-dash attempt to get God to answer my prayer, isn’t how it works.
And choosing the right door on the studio set in front of a live audience doesn’t work, either.
Okay, are you ready? One of these doors opens to the biggest prize of all – you get your prayer answered after only one person prays! Woo hoo! (*audience cheers*)
But the other doors will require a lot more effort. (*audience gasps and then gets quiet*)
Because behind one of these doors, you have to find FIFTY people to pray before your prayer is answered. (*audience groans*)
And behind one of the other doors, you have to find ONE HUNDRED people to pray before your prayer is answered. (*audience gasps and then boos*)
Now, are you ready? (*audience cheers even louder*)
Yeah, it’s silly.
I sort of thought that way when I was younger. I believed the more people I found who were willing to pray for my requests, the more God would listen. And the greater my chances were of getting what I asked for.
But that’s not how God is. Especially with His kids. And even with those who aren’t His kids.
I mean, think about it. When has God ever been about the numbers?
More often He’s telling people, You have too many warriors on your side. Get rid of them.
Like, we should know by now. The Almighty specializes in producing awesomeness from smallness. The great I AM is the Master of doing really huge and amazing things with the barest amount of resources, and with the most insignificant people.
One of God’s prophets challenged four hundred of Baal’s prophets to a duel. By fire. And all by himself. Remember? Afterwards he told the Lord, he was the only faithful one left.
One teenage boy faced a soldier three times his size and killed him with a slingshot and one small stone.
A faithful Hebrew slave who was all alone in the world after being betrayed by his own family, became second in command in the Egyptian government, and implemented a most brilliant economic strategy to save the country from future starvation.
Jesus told those watching, the two coins placed in the offering by an elderly widow were more than all that had been given previously.
A single cup of cold water given in His name to relieve thirst brings tremendous reward.
Where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name, He is there in the midst. Whether in a tent on the desert floor or behind cement block walls of the county jail. He is there.
And countless other times in Scripture, in ancient history, in current history, in lives being lived right now…
God continues to use the passionate prayers of one and sometimes two obscure, solitary individuals with hearts devoted fully, to meet needs and heal wounds, to change circumstances and transform lives.
Because of the persistent prayers of just one. Or just a few.
Believe it.
So, you and I can stop running around in a panic, trying to get ten or twenty or a ba-jillion people to pray for us. If we will just stop, and find a quiet place, and if we’ll kneel to ask our Abba Father for His help—and I keep asking—just me, myself, and I—we’ll be amazed at what God will do.
When we choose deliberately to obey Him, then God will tax the remotest star and the last grain of sand to assist us with His Almighty power. – Oswald Chambers
debbiecroft 