The Wonder of Prayer

There are so many things I love about Prayer right now.  God has opened my eyes the past few years to the power of prayer, the types of prayers, how to pray, which types of prayers He delights in, the faith that should accompany each prayer, how to pray specifically (for me to understand God’s character more and to also help my faith when it is struggling), when to pray generally (He knows my every desire, etc), and how GRACIOUS the Lord is to even hear my prayer.  Lately, we had the chance to pray for a couple who were really going through some tough things in their lives.  Incredibly tough.  Our hearts were breaking for them.  God moved our hearts to pray for them.  And we got a quick answer to prayer this time!  Our hearts were joyful and our faith was invigorated to hear the answer to prayer.  As we hiked up this little hill behind our house today…they call it “blackie”…(it is not so little when you have a 23 pound baby on your back!!!)…Brian shared with me their answer to prayer.  I kept thinking how awesome prayer is!!!  How amazing it is that God hears our prayers.  How uniting it is to pray with other believers.  You see, this couple was so vulnerable to open their hearts to us to share with us what was going on in their lives.  Through that vulnerability, we were able to quietly pray for them as a family.  It united our family’s hearts.  It united us with this other couple–feeling their pain, feeling their fears, imagining their circumstances were upon us….our hearts were united.  It was one of the most amazing answers to prayers I have ever heard!!!  God did a MAJOR MIRACLE in their lives!!!  They were faced with unthinkable circumstances, I cannot even imagine.  And God reached down and made EVERYTHING ok….and brought incredible BEAUTY out of their situation.  You see, nothing can stop HIM!!!!  Yay!!!  We serve a BIG, POWERFUL, and MIGHTY GOD!!!!!!! 

 Praying for this couple did the following for all of us:

1) It moved God’s heart to even greater compassion hearing His children’s love and concern for each other (which He always wants to encourage!).

2) It allowed vulnerability and opportunity to help and pray for them and take ourselves out of our own lives and to think about them.

3) We were able to witness a powerful, compassionate, and MIGHTY God make everything ok for them despite very scary circumstances.  This makes our faith much stronger in the Lord.

4) It made us feel really special to God–all those praying for them—that God heard our prayers!!!

5) We’ve shared this experience–the trials and triumphs, the witness of a miracle from the Lord–and have shared something very special with this couple.  We shall never forget it.  Prayer is UNIFYING!!!

It is tough to be vulnerable.  It is tough to be open and honest.  But, God will protect our hearts.  It is worth it to unite with other believers in prayer.  We must be considerate and private.  We must be gentle and non-judgemental.  We must have great FAITH that God will answer our prayers–Jesus tells us if we pray in truth, He will hear and answer us.  We must pray with all our hearts.  God answers us because He is an awesome God…so full of grace and mercy.  It is worth it to pray with OTHER people.  It builds up the body of believers. 

These are just a few aspects of prayer.  There is so much more!  But, I was so excited to hear about God’s miracle to this family today.  It MADE my day.  Press into your holy Father and do NOT give up on prayer.  He WILL answer you.