The Power of Prayer

We all admit that there is power in prayer. We all say that there is nothing that is impossible with God. We all KNOW that God possesses the power to turn things around. So why is it that when most of us pray, we only pray half-hearted, as if nothing that we do (including prayer) is going to make a difference? Why do we have a mindset of "it's already going to happen" or "if it's God's will, it's going to happen with or without me"? We need to not only realize that prayer is powerful, but we need to believe that our petition to the Almighty God has enough power to change the course of this world. We've all heard stories about missionaries praying and receiving miracles from our Heavenly Father, so why don't we pray like we're going to receive a miracle too?

I will never forget the time that I fully realized the power that God has put in my hands. I was laying in my bed around 11 or 12 o'clock late Thursday night trying to sleep, when I really felt a burden to pray for a friend of mine. It didn't happen all of the sudden really...I had been praying for this friend for quite awhile on and off. I had recently committed him to more continuous and consistent prayer, so I was had been praying for him that night already. As I was praying, a sense of "urgency" came over me and I prayed for him like I had never prayed before. It was intense. I can't tell you how long I prayed like that, but I fell asleep praying.
I was a little shocked to see my friend in Sunday School that Sunday. He was a member of that church and came to services, but he hardly ever ventured into the youth Sunday School class. Being that we were good friends, I had no problem coming up to say "Hello," but before I got to where he was standing, he looked at me with a really strange look in his eyes and said four words that I'll never forget, "I almost died Thursday." I was shocked. As he was telling me what happened, I realized that his near death experience happened at the exact time that God laid it on my heart to pray so passionately for him. A drunk driver had somehow managed to get onto the wrong side of the freeway (on the other side of the big cement wall that separated the two sides). As my friend was driving back home, he almost got hit. He was passing another car and noticed some headlights that looked a little funny. When he realized that the truck was on the wrong side of the road, he jerked back into the other lane. Miraculously, the car that he was passing seems to have disappeared. God was with him that night, and the experience turned my friend's life around.

Another experience that's much more recent is with my friend Brandon. Some of you may know his story from all of the prayer chain text messages I sent out. Brandon was involved in a very bad car crash. He decided to street race with four other cars and lost control of his car. Brandon lost control as he was turning the corner at over 75mph. Brandon did have the sense to wear his seat belt, thank God! The car rolled about 50ft, hit a light post, and then began to roll back. Some cymbals that were in his car slit his head open from his hairline all the way back. He had a huge gash on the right side of his face, and fractured a vertebrae in his neck. Brandon had to be air-lifted to a large hospital after the doctors at the local hospital couldn't get the blood moving in his arm for over six hours. The doctors got the blood back into his left arm and hand, but were unsure if Brandon was ever going to have full function of his limb. The doctors, although already amazed that there was no damage to Brandon's spinal chord, were very sceptical.
There were (and still are) probably over 100 people praying for Brandon. Most of them don't even know who he is. There IS power in prayer! Brandon got to go home a lot sooner than anyone thought. He had to have numerous surgeries. Very often, the doctors would tell Brandon's parents that there was no way something could be done, and the very next day, a miracle happened and it COULD be done! The fractured vertebrae was all of a sudden not able to be found. Brandon wasn't supposed to be able to use his fingers, and now he can move them. There was a skin graph that needed to be done as well as some stitching up in his arm, and the doctors said that there was "0% chance that it can be dome on the same day." And it WAS done on the same day.
As much as the doctors want to think that it was them that made all these miracles happen, everyone that knew about what was happening around Brandon could see at a glance that God was the One at work. Why do we think that it's all up to fate, or that everything is going to happen the way it's already "planned out" no matter what? We can change history!! We need to spend some serious time on our knees. God is in the business of doing miracles, and all we have to do is ask for them. Just think of what we could do for our friends and family; our country; our church and neighborhood; our president! We can change lives with this power that God has given us. Why don't we? As a challenge to ourselves, let's commit to pray. I'm not talking about the "auto-pilot" prayers that we pray because we're "good Christians" before we eat or go to bed, but truly communicate with our Abba, Father and pray in a way that can change the world.