My phone started to ding and I picked it up to read a very discouraging message. Someone I loved was in distress. Just a few days earlier, my friend had been released from the hospital after battling COVID. I thought he was past the hard part and home, but he took a turn for the worst and was rushed back to the Emergency Room. His life now hung in the balance.
In the days that followed, I fervently prayed for God to turn things around and heal this husband and father of three. Doctors can provide a diagnosis and do what is humanly possible to heal, but only a supernatural God can breathe life back into our lungs.
How we position our hearts when we are in pain speaks to the watching world. I learned a great deal from the faith-filled response of this man’s tight-knit family. During a prayer meeting on Zoom, his mom professed she believed in the power of prayer. The more she prayed, the more she felt God’s peace. She looked to God alone to raise her son from his sickbed so that he could proclaim God’s glory. One day later, her Instagram post read: “Thank You for holding me up, Lord. You are my strength.”
I raised a hallelujah when just 48 hours later my phone dinged with awesome news. A man who spent 18 days intubated was now breathing on his own, eating lunch, and asking to speak to his wife. The ICU doctor called it a miracle.
There is no one like our God.
Theologian Oswald Chambers shared wise advice about prayer: “We tend to use prayer as a last resort, but God wants it to be our first line of defense. We pray when there’s nothing else we can do, but God wants us to pray before we do anything at all.
When we start each day by lifting our eyes to our great God, the enemy of our souls cannot grab hold of our hearts and keep us in bondage to fear and doubt. Acknowledging we need God for this day aligns our will with the sovereign purpose of the Almighty.
We don’t look to the news to give us the big picture of our world. We cry out to our omniscient Lord for wisdom.
We don’t depend on the stock market for security. We know Jehovah Jireh alone is our Provider.
We will not yield our hearts to the ways of this world. We exalt the King of Kings above all else. Nothing on earth can compare to the glory of our God.
With surrendered hearts, we can choose to lay our discouraging emotions, our disappointments, and our unfulfilled dreams on the altar of prayer. When we say, “God, You are greater than even this,” our worry washes away and worship strengthens our resolve to move forward in faith.
Instead of becoming overwhelmed by what we cannot change or control, we can communicate our need for God’s help and trust He will fight for us. Our circumstances may change, but our God never fails. Our faithful God reigns over all, and His plans for us cannot be thwarted by the schemes of man.
Friend, our lives never hang in the balance. We are always held in God’s all-powerful hands.
We can trust that our Father always responds in power to what we whisper to Him in our prayers. He is a compassionate God who hears our cries and gives us His strength to meet each day. Let’s make prayer our first response and revere our Mighty God with fully surrendered hearts.
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Let’s start the New Year right by focusing on prayer! As we set new goals and routines, let’s commit to filling our time with prayer first! The Importance of Prayer will walk through how we pray with boldness and confidence and how we grow in our faith as we connect with God through prayer. We would love for you to join us!
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