James 5:16
Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
Nothing is more satisfying than seeing friends and loved ones come and pray over my wife. For one who suffers daily from a physical pain that nearly paralyzes her, and interrupts her sleep at night, it comforts me and takes some of the stress off me when others pray for her.
The prayers are effective.
The prayers that I and others have spoken over her, sometimes produce a positive response. Other times they don’t. But that doesn’t mean God hasn’t heard the prayers, or that He is ignoring them. He does answer them in His way, His will, and His time.
It is impossible to know how God will answer our prayers. Much of the speculation falls on our own assumptions and desires for God to answer prayer in our time and expectation. However, God expects us to be prayerful and expectant, believing that He will answer us. The answer may come immediately, or later, or not at all. But He will indeed answer our prayers, with a yes, no, or not now.
We have friends who we have prayed over who were sick and given only a short time before they made the transition from this life to the next. We have prayed that God would heal them, preserve them, and not take them away. But the God of heaven and earth is a righteous and loving God. Sometimes He must take them from us to provide them complete healing.
Some may cease to pray for another by giving up and thinking there is no use. Some who see others they love sorely suffer may say that God isn’t going to do anything, because He hasn’t done anything yet. That is a poor reason for not praying.
The key word here is “yet.” Just because He has not done anything, doesn’t mean hasn’t or won’t. Maybe He has answered your prayers, but you missed it because it did not come in the way you expected?
In the movie “Rudy” Father Callahan told Rudy, who was trying hard to get into Notre Dame, about the way God works. Rudy said perhaps he wasn’t praying enough. The priest said, “I don’t think that’s problem. Praying is something we do in our time. Answering those prayers comes in God’s time.” Then he went on to say after Rudy asks if there is anything more the priest can do, he responds, “Son, in all my years in ministry there are two hard and inconvertible facts: There is a God, …. And I’m not Him.”
So, as we go through life, with all the joys and sorrows, let’s just take time to look out for one another and always pray for one another – and let God be God.
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