When I cleaned houses, after a long day at work I would come home and ask Andrew why one family needed so many bathrooms? There was one house, I used to clean that was 7,500 square feet (about twice the area of a tennis court). Three floors, six bathrooms, four bedrooms, two kitchens, 1 in-home theater. I have spoken in previous blogs about this family. One day when I came to clean, I could tell my client was preoccupied. That day she was unnerved, and I knew something was up. So, I asked her.
Her elderly father had gone missing back in India. He had Alzheimer’s and wandered out of the apartment. He hadn’t been seen for two weeks, and in the Indian heat, (about November here in the States meant around 80 degrees with humidity there). She didn’t think he was alive.
I asked his name and told her I would start praying for him. I always stopped to pray to the one true God when I vacuumed out the prayer closet where she burned incense to her Hindi Gods. That day I stopped and looked out at the clouds and begged God on behalf of this man I did not know. I had cleaned for about two hours, when she came to me and said they found him, alive!
He had somehow boarded a train and traveled to a nearby province in India. Train workers came to collect tickets and realized he had not paid his fare. While talking with him, they realized he was not well, and took him to a hospital. She said the miracle was that he remembered his full name, the province where he was from, and the town. The police were able to trace him back to the report the family had filed that he was missing, and he made it home. He was fine, other than being very thirsty.
I can bet many of you have many stories of a similar nature. You might have been awakened in the middle of the night and discovered a gas leak (happened to our neighbor in Ukraine). I know of two stories where doctors say they do not know why, but the bleeding stopped, God answers prayer.
Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and the one who seeks finds, and to the one who knocks it will be opened. Or which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him! – Matthew 7:7-11
How many of you are saying, “Why didn’t God stop the cancer from growing?” Why hasn’t God stopped war?” “Why do the bills keep piling up despite my most earnest prayers?”
How many of us ask God for world peace? I know I am! I struggle with answers to these questions just as much as anyone, which is probably why in the end, Paul says,
“Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words.” – Rom 8:26
These are the best answers I can find. If you have ones I don’t, share them in the comments.
I believe sometimes the will of God stops where our will starts. God will not force other people to be good, and that may mean someone’s choices might have a negative impact on me. Someone else might choose to get behind the wheel of a car intoxicated and bring about the destruction of a loved one. A dictator of a country may want more land and I end up hearing the desperation of people I have been friends with for years.
Intercessions in prayer
We pray often for the salvation of others. This has always been somewhat of enigma for me. How does God influence the hearts of others when they have freedom of choice? Preparing for this post, I just went through and pulled up all the verses on prayer. Here’s what I found concerning prayer on behalf of others:
“confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed…” James 5:16.
“And whatever you ask in prayer, you will receive, if you have faith.” – Matthew 21:22
“Therefore, I tell you, whatever you ask in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.” – Mark 11:24
“Brothers, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for them is that they may be saved.” Romans 10:1
“…praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end, keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints,” Ephesians 6:18
“always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy”, Phil 1:4
Often we pray for the salvation of those whom we would like to share in the hope we have in Jesus. But because we can’t control them, we pray for them and hope that God will move where we can’t. Romans 10:1 is the closest that comes to the way we pray for the salvation of others, though that seems to be a general reference for the Jews’ salvation (which has never happened)
Then there’s the infamous prayer list,
In our church we have a bulletin with a list of prayer requests, 90% of which are prayer requests for health concerns. The bible does not say its wrong to pray for each others health concerns. I am just wondering if God had in mind was the litany of health issues that can be found on the back of most bulletins. I believe A new testament prayer list might have listed more of the spiritual needs of those in the congregation. Instead of praying for God to convert sinners, the early disciples seemed concern with having courage to speak boldly to the people who needed it.
Thirdly; Should we be more specific in our prayers?
I was just talking with my eleven year old son tonight about answered prayers, he shared some prayers that God has answered for him. He was going to a birthday party, and needed a laser gun to participate in one of the games. He had been looking for it for a week, he was very excited about this party, but the laser gun was nowhere. He said he had prayed about finding it and he did! (or rather I did, but I didn’t know he was praying about it)
Sometimes we can paint prayer with a broad brush. And just pray for things like ‘World Peace’. Does God want us to be more specific in prayers?
The last and the hardest idea for me is when God says “No”, or maybe just “Later.”
In those cases perhaps death is merciful. I wrote about a dear friend several weeks ago with a terminal illness. He has since passed from his suffering. That story is here: https://asaturdayeveningpost.com/?p=1101
In other situations, God might be allowing things for a different reason other than what they might be intending to accomplish.
Nebuchadnezzar attacked Jerusalem three times, and took the Jews captive back to Babylon and they lived in captivity for 70 years. Nebuchadnezzar didn’t know he was being used by God to cleanse the Jews of their idolatry, He just wanted more stuff. The Jews go back to Babylon cleansed of their idolatry. Oh, and Nebuchadnezzar met Daniel and was introduced to his God with some surprising results.
We only have estimates of how many tanks Russia had in WW 2. Stalin, who was was more cruel than Hitler, was planning something and was building up as WW2 broke out. If Hitler hadn’t have been there to stop him, its possible that Stalin might have been able to take over the free world with a larger army. Though many awful things happened, including the unimaginable death of millions of innocent Jews, Hitler’s presence in Europe significantly reduced the strength of Russia, and allowed the Allies to prevent that great infection from moving west.
One thing we know, is that supplications made for the saints is always heard by God. How he answers is up to him, and at the end of the discussion, how He works is his business. In the meantime it is our duty to pray. Pray for health, but more importantly pray for spiritual things, and specifically pray for your ability to be a part of the solution in a broken world.