Jim Glennon tells a wonderful story of God's miracle-working power through persistent and faith-filled prayer in his book Your Healing Is Within You.
He says Graeme, the adopted son of Mark and Dorothy Bailey of South Australia, began developing rounded shoulders as a very young boy. It became worse as he grew older, approaching his teen-aged years.
They took him to a specialist who told them several vertebrae were collapsing and ultimately his heart would be affected as he grew progressively stooped. He said the boy's future was hopeless.
But the parents were convinced from their reading of scripture that God could do what seemed impossible. They believed that if healing did not come immediately, it would come over time.
So they prayed.
"At first nothing seemed to happen," Glennon writes. "Yet they were not discouraged - they just went on believing."
Gradually, they began to see what seemed to be change. Then, it became more obvious.
After three years, "their boy had grown completely straight". His chest and heart were normal and his hump was gone.
He is now married with three children and a job as a mechanic.
I acknowledge that not all stories turn out as well despite our faith. It is a mystery why some are healed and others are not.
But Jesus does call us to pray persistently, believing that God is good and will work for our good (Luke 18: 1-8).
Sometimes we receive answers in our lifetime - and sometimes hereafter. As Hebrews 11 indicates, many great men and women of the Bible died before seeing the Messiah, but they were to see their hopes and prayers answered in the long run.
In her book The Power of Persistent Prayer, Cindy Jacobs says that she is confident her prayers will be answered if they are based on God's will as made clear in scripture. She points to the apostle John's words in 1 John 5:14-15:
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."
The great 19th century Christian, George Muller, had a remarkable prayer life, feeding and housing thousands of orphans despite having no money of his own. Repeatedly, he did not know in the morning whether he would be able to feed the children later in the day but money would come in at just the right moment. He never issued an appeal for funds but they kept rolling in.
He outlined his approach to discovering the will of God in this way:
He says Graeme, the adopted son of Mark and Dorothy Bailey of South Australia, began developing rounded shoulders as a very young boy. It became worse as he grew older, approaching his teen-aged years.
They took him to a specialist who told them several vertebrae were collapsing and ultimately his heart would be affected as he grew progressively stooped. He said the boy's future was hopeless.
But the parents were convinced from their reading of scripture that God could do what seemed impossible. They believed that if healing did not come immediately, it would come over time.
So they prayed.
"At first nothing seemed to happen," Glennon writes. "Yet they were not discouraged - they just went on believing."
Gradually, they began to see what seemed to be change. Then, it became more obvious.
After three years, "their boy had grown completely straight". His chest and heart were normal and his hump was gone.
He is now married with three children and a job as a mechanic.
I acknowledge that not all stories turn out as well despite our faith. It is a mystery why some are healed and others are not.
But Jesus does call us to pray persistently, believing that God is good and will work for our good (Luke 18: 1-8).
Sometimes we receive answers in our lifetime - and sometimes hereafter. As Hebrews 11 indicates, many great men and women of the Bible died before seeing the Messiah, but they were to see their hopes and prayers answered in the long run.
In her book The Power of Persistent Prayer, Cindy Jacobs says that she is confident her prayers will be answered if they are based on God's will as made clear in scripture. She points to the apostle John's words in 1 John 5:14-15:
"This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us - whatever we ask - we know that we have what we asked of him."
The great 19th century Christian, George Muller, had a remarkable prayer life, feeding and housing thousands of orphans despite having no money of his own. Repeatedly, he did not know in the morning whether he would be able to feed the children later in the day but money would come in at just the right moment. He never issued an appeal for funds but they kept rolling in.
He outlined his approach to discovering the will of God in this way:
- He began by surrendering himself completely to what God wanted in a particular matter;
- He sought the will of God through and in connection with the word of God;
- He took into account "providential circumstances" which pointed to what God wanted;
- He asked God to reveal his will to Muller; and
- Having taken these steps, he would decide what he believed to be God's direction.
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