Saturday, April 18, 2015
Prayer
“Pray without ceasing.” 1 Thessalonians 5:17 (KJV)
As soon as I came up with a theme for this challenge, I knew
that P would be for prayer. Prayer is very powerful and my church has recently
gone through a tragedy that has proved its power. My assistant pastor’s
children were in car accident with their grandparents in February and the
youngest was in severely critical condition. They didn’t think she was going to
make it, and my church did the best thing we could do, we prayed. It has been 8
weeks since that accident, and she is still in the hospital but she is doing
much better. Her life is a miracle of God and she has brought many people
together in prayer. It is also a miracle that the rest of the family in the
accident were unharmed besides her brother who had a fractured ankle, and he is
already walking around again. This is a very dear family to me and this
circumstance has helped me to see that in those moments when all seems
hopeless, God is still right there with us. When things are completely out of
our control, there is liberation in handing it all over to God. “Do not be
anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and petition, with
thanksgiving, present you requests to God. And the peace of God, which
transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ
Jesus” (Phil. 4:6-7, NIV). It is much better to lift everything up to God in
prayer, not just in times of disaster. Sometimes, He won’t answer the way we
expect, but He will work things out for good according to His will. For further
study on prayer, I suggest reading Matthew 6:5-13 and James 5:13-18. And if you
do pray, keep this little girl in your thoughts as she is on the road to recovery,
her name is Victoria.
I am currently participating in the Blogging from A to Z April 2015 Challenge. My theme is life lessons from the Bible. You can find more information about the challenge by clicking on the badge to the right or click here for a list of participants. It has been an interesting experience so far and I have enjoyed finding and visiting other blogs. If you are a fellow participant, thanks for stopping by and feel free to leave a comment!
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Loved your post, and that Scripture is one of my favorites! Like you, I love the relief in handing the problem over to God. And I have recently become aware of the importance of those two words imbedded in the middle of the passage..."with thanksgiving"!!! So, so important. So thank you for another great post, and I will join you in praying for that little girl.
ReplyDeleteThank you for praying, and you're right, those 2 words are important, something else God has been working on in my life.
DeleteI do hope the little girl eventually makes a complete recovery; but so true about the power of prayer. Its "funny" but a lot of times people will say "all we can do is pray" and that's the FIRST thing we should do is pray. Definitely something we should all do more and not less in our lives.
ReplyDeletebetty
So true!
DeletePrayer is practical and powerful and should never be neglected. After all, prayer is our communication line with God. He's listening to us. We should be listening for Him as well.
ReplyDeleteArlee Bird
A to Z Challenge Co-host
Tossing It Out