Ronald Dunn says prayer is like a guided missile - it can travel around the world and hit a target thousands of miles away.
Prayer is powerful and it can do things we can't do any other way.
Dunn, author of Don't Just Stand There: Pray Something, says prayer gets a bad rap. He tells the story of a pastor who heard him speak at a conference and came up to him afterwards worried that people would stop working if they started praying more.
"Prayer is not a substitute for work, or merely preparation for work," writes Dunn. "It is work."
A fine Christian I know once told me that he was busy doing evangelism and didn't have time for prayer. Another strong believer said to me he did not feel that prayer is effective.
As Dunn says, this is strange considering the strong emphasis on prayer in Jesus' own ministry and throughout the Bible.
As I see it, prayer is how we join our all-powerful God in implementing his plan for the world - and our own circumstances.
In fact, Dunn says, our prayers can have an impact on our descendants long after we have died. In John 17:20, Jesus says he prays for those who will believe through the word of his followers.
Indeed, a good example of prayer being answered after a long time is the Israelite slaves pleading with God for generations for freedom. God answered in his time - and his time is always right.
I like Dunn's comment that Satan has no defence against prayer. An unbeliever can reject our words and refuse to believe what we say.
"But he cannot prevent the Lord Jesus from knocking at the door of his heart in response to our intercession."
Dunn gives a delightful example of an answer to prayer under great stress. A woman was just placing a pie in the oven when the school nurse called to say her son had a high fever and could she come and take him home?
She wound up rushing him to the clinic where the doctor gave her a prescription. She drove her son home and headed to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. When she left the pharmacy, she realized she'd locked her keys in the car.
She called her son and he told her to find a coat hanger. After finding one in the mall, she started towards the car and realized she didn't know what to do. And she suddenly remembered the pie in the oven.
Crying with frustration, she prayed that God would send her someone who knew what to do with the coat hanger. A young man with a scraggly beard came along who knew exactly what to do.
She hugged him and said: "The Lord sent you! You're such a good boy. You must be a Christian."
The young man said he wasn't a Christian and had just got out of prison the day before.
She hugged him again and said: "Bless God! He sent me a professional!"
He loves it when we come to him in prayer. And often he responds in ways we cannot predict.
Like the woman in Dunn's story, we need to launch our prayer missiles and look for God to guide them home.
Prayer is powerful and it can do things we can't do any other way.
Dunn, author of Don't Just Stand There: Pray Something, says prayer gets a bad rap. He tells the story of a pastor who heard him speak at a conference and came up to him afterwards worried that people would stop working if they started praying more.
"Prayer is not a substitute for work, or merely preparation for work," writes Dunn. "It is work."
A fine Christian I know once told me that he was busy doing evangelism and didn't have time for prayer. Another strong believer said to me he did not feel that prayer is effective.
As Dunn says, this is strange considering the strong emphasis on prayer in Jesus' own ministry and throughout the Bible.
As I see it, prayer is how we join our all-powerful God in implementing his plan for the world - and our own circumstances.
In fact, Dunn says, our prayers can have an impact on our descendants long after we have died. In John 17:20, Jesus says he prays for those who will believe through the word of his followers.
Indeed, a good example of prayer being answered after a long time is the Israelite slaves pleading with God for generations for freedom. God answered in his time - and his time is always right.
I like Dunn's comment that Satan has no defence against prayer. An unbeliever can reject our words and refuse to believe what we say.
"But he cannot prevent the Lord Jesus from knocking at the door of his heart in response to our intercession."
Dunn gives a delightful example of an answer to prayer under great stress. A woman was just placing a pie in the oven when the school nurse called to say her son had a high fever and could she come and take him home?
She wound up rushing him to the clinic where the doctor gave her a prescription. She drove her son home and headed to the pharmacy to fill the prescription. When she left the pharmacy, she realized she'd locked her keys in the car.
She called her son and he told her to find a coat hanger. After finding one in the mall, she started towards the car and realized she didn't know what to do. And she suddenly remembered the pie in the oven.
Crying with frustration, she prayed that God would send her someone who knew what to do with the coat hanger. A young man with a scraggly beard came along who knew exactly what to do.
She hugged him and said: "The Lord sent you! You're such a good boy. You must be a Christian."
The young man said he wasn't a Christian and had just got out of prison the day before.
She hugged him again and said: "Bless God! He sent me a professional!"
He loves it when we come to him in prayer. And often he responds in ways we cannot predict.
Like the woman in Dunn's story, we need to launch our prayer missiles and look for God to guide them home.
No comments:
Post a Comment