Battlefield

Stormie Omartian had a sense of foreboding about her 18-year-old daughter working that night.

So she began doing what she knew best - praying urgently and persistently.

She had reason to be worried.  Her daughter was in the middle of a frightening incident.

Omartian tells the story in her book Prayer Warrior to illustrate the spiritual battlefields Christians face when they become believers.

She states that no Christian can escape Satan's attacks on their minds, their families and their marriages. But Christians have the power to overcome these attacks through the Holy Spirit and prayer.

What happened that scary night to Omartian's daughter demonstrates how Christians can fight back effectively against Satan's malignant efforts.

That evening, Stormie's daughter agreed to go out for coffee after work with a young man she had chatted with occasionally over the previous months.  She did not know him well, but he seemed pleasant.  He suggested they could continue a conversation they had begun earlier in the evening.

They got in her car and he told her he would give directions to the coffee shop.

But the young woman began to be alarmed when he directed her onto a narrow road winding up a mountain side thick with trees.  She wanted to turn around but there was no room on the road.

She began crying, but he did not respond.  The young man, who had seemed so friendly, became cold and unfeeling.

She began praying out loud: "Jesus, help me! Jesus, save me!"

Stormie's daughter knew she might not escape this situation alive.

When they reached the top of the hill, there was a small clearing.  He told her to stop and get out of the car.  He climbed out, leaving the car door open so she could not lock the doors and escape.

She told him she was coming, but picked up her cell phone to call her mother.  She spoke in a normal voice to say she was on the way home so that he could hear - and realize someone was expecting her.

Then, she locked her door and decided to stay where she was.

As she was thinking about how to fight him, he dashed out of the darkness - terrified - and jumped into the car.  He yelled: "Go! Go! Go! There is something horrible in the woods."

He urged her to drive faster and faster - a dangerous thing to do on a narrow, unfamiliar road in the darkness.

The young man was unable to describe what he saw.

When she dropped him off at this car, he jumped out, climbed into his vehicle and roared off.  She never saw him again.

She wondered how he could see anything in the pitch-black darkness.  And why could he not describe it?  If it was an animal or a person, he would have been able to give a description.

"She told me that whatever it was in the forest, it gave her peace," Omartian writes.  "She knew it was from the Lord."

Omartian then told her how she had prayed that night.  She said she prayed for her daughter's protection and that "no weapon formed against her would prosper, and no plan of the enemy would succeed in her life".

"I prayed specifically, over and over, that the Lord would surround her with angels," she added. "At that moment we both came to the same conclusion - that whatever that man saw that suddenly weakened him with fright was sent by God."

As described in the Bible, angels can be frightening creatures - so much so, that they say "Do not be afraid" to the believers seeing them.

Omartian's prayers - and her daughter's - were answered that night.

"We went to battle in prayer and the enemy was defeated," Omartian said.

No believer is immune to attack from the evil one.

But believers have the power to resist and defeat his plans.

In God's presence

Our pastor today shared a striking thought about praying to God.

He quoted an ancient Jewish Rabbi, Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus, who told his disciples on his death bed: "When you pray, know before whom you are standing."

Immediately, I thought: How would I react if I stood before the Lord?  What would God be like?

I would certainly not treat him in an off-hand way as I often do in my prayers.

I would be facing the Lord who terrified some great men of the Bible.  They were frightened when they entered the presence of God because they realized how sinful they were and how pure and just and good God is.

The prophet Isaiah, for instance, saw God in a vision in the temple (Isaiah 6:1-7).  God was seated on a throne, "high and exalted", surrounded by seraphs who were calling out: "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty; the whole earth is full of his glory."  And the temple shook and was filled with smoke.

Isaiah cried out: "Woe to me!  I am ruined!  For I am a man of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty."

A seraph flew to him with a live coal and touched Isaiah's lips, declaring his sin was atoned for.

Now, Christ has atoned for the sins of his followers, so we need not fear death in coming before the Lord.  Still, our God is not a toy, but a very impressive being - a just god as well as a loving god.

So, I am called to be reverent before the Lord, knowing how great he is and knowing that he is powerful beyond anything or anyone I can imagine.

Knowing something of this great, all-powerful god, I must listen to what he is saying to me - through the scriptures and the promptings of the Holy Spirit.  I cannot treat what he says lightly - something I can throw away.

Yet, in Jesus, we see the image of the Father.  And there we see another aspect of God - his immense love and compassion.

God wants to talk with us and give us good things, as Jesus said (Matthew 7:11).

So, the writer of Hebrews tells us that we can "approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive grace and find mercy in our time of need" (Hebrews 4:16).

I like that idea of approaching God with confidence.  I know he loves me and wants the best for me.

Those are the two sides of the picture I have of God - awesome and yet tender and loving.

That image should shape how I pray before the Lord.

Praying in dark times

Years before the Second World War, Winston Churchill warned Britain that the Nazis were gathering a war machine to conquer England and Europe.

But political leaders at the time scoffed and sought accommodation - even sacrificing Czechoslovakia to Germany - to avoid war.  They thought they could prevent war by being nice and giving ground in hopes that Germany would be satisfied.

Are we Christians today under the illusion that the growing darkness in our world - not only political but also social and spiritual - can be stopped by hoping things will turn out well?

I believe we need to pray hard for our country and for our people.  We need to pray against creeping evil.

Above all, I believe we need to pray for ourselves as believers.  Are we part of the reason for the spreading sickness in our society?

It's interesting that God sent John the Baptist to prepare the way for Christ.

John was not a handsome superstar with an impressive resume.  He came from the wilderness, wearing skins and eating locusts and wild honey.

But he spoke truth - truth that deeply disturbed the ruling powers in the Jewish religion and politics.

He called people to repent of their sins and drew a huge following.  Ordinary people were struck to the heart by what he said and came forward to confess their sins and be baptized.

Jesus said this man was a great prophet and grieved after Herod executed him.

John's preaching opened the way for the world-changing mission of Christ.  The hearts of many were prepared by the strange prophet who urged the people to repent.

In the Old Testament, God moved in response to the repentance of his people in hard times.  In fact, he promised King Solomon in 2 Chronicles 7:14 that he would heal Israel if the Israelites humbled themselves and confessed their sin and prayed for forgiveness.

Is it time for us Christians to admit that we have turned away from God in many ways?  Are our hearts far from him?

Pressured by society, we have come to accept anti-Christian social views even among ourselves.

And if I saw Christ face to face today, I would be embarrassed because I know there is a lot of hardness in my heart.

We have become so accustomed to the way the world is that we doubt that it will - or even can - change.  But God has proved many times in human history that he can transform societies with the gospel of Jesus Christ, aided by the power of prayer.

Jesus believed in prayer.  He spent nights in prayer to the Father as he prepared for the overwhelming crowds of needy people the following day.

If he believed prayer can change things, why don't we?

Fear and prayer

I will make a bold statement: Most people fear something or someone.

"Fear influences human behaviour in many ways, and it's probably no exaggeration to say that it is at the root of most human problems," says Roy Lawrence, author of How To Pray When Life Hurts.

Can God and prayer help?  Most definitely, says Lawrence.  As a British pastor, he has helped many deal with their fears through healing prayer over the years.

I have had fears over my long life - among them fear of people, fear of the future, fear of failure. With experience and God's help, I am better able to deal with fear than I once was.

I have never been crippled with fear as some people have.  But Lawrence says that people severely affected by fear have one advantage over the rest of us - they're willing to admit they have a problem.

"Because they acknowledge their problem in a straightforward way, they have already taken the first steps along the road that can lead to healing," the author writes.

Many people do the opposite.  They try to hide their fears from others through various defence mechanisms.  They may become attention-seekers, or appear super-confident, or go into a shell and pretend indifference, or descend into fantasy.  And there are many other schemes we use.

After admitting our insecurities, Lawrence says that "we can then go to our Lord and avail ourselves of his healing resources."

There, we will find that Jesus truly understands our anxiety.  After all, he called out to the Father on the cross that he felt forsaken, alone in the face of a horrible death.

"He assures us that we are loved by God and that perfect love casts out all fear (1 John 4:18)," Lawrence says.

He continues: "How then do you pray when you are anxious and fearful?  You just meet Jesus and allow him to surround you with his own special love - and the power of that love cannot be overestimated."

Lawrence says that a medical doctor named Meryl was so emotionally afraid that she could no longer work.  Doctors felt she was incurable.

A Christian friend had searched the Bible and presented Meryl with a sheet of 22 verses about fear and God's love and asked her to read through them prayerfully morning and evening till they made a difference.

Meryl agreed and then a "slow-motion miracle" began to unfold.  In six months, she was completely healed.

It would take too much space to include all those passages in this blog entry, but anyone interested can search a Bible concordance and find verses speaking about God's love and care for his fearful creatures.

"If we are willing to be loved," says Lawrence, "God is willing to love us, and to go on and on loving until love's healing work is done."

Once healed, we can help others who are plagued with fear.