"About midnight Paul and Silas were praying and singing hymns to God, and the other prisoners were listening to them. Suddenly there was such a violent earthquake that the foundations of the prison were shaken. At once all the prison doors flew open, and everybody's chains came loose."
-Acts16: 25-26
I wish I knew the power of my own prayers.
My prayer life is routine at best, and completely absent at worst. My prayers are never consistent. I find my myself praying for something once or twice and then never praying about it again. Often I justify it with... "Well if I pray about something more than once, does that mean I don't have faith?" But sometimes I wonder if the reason why I do it is because I'm more scared of what it means if my prayers aren't answer. I don't want to boldly proclaim my belief in miracles to unbelievers and then if my prayers go unanswered leave them with an excuse to invalidate my God.
Isn't that where most unbelief starts. I think if you ask non-Christians, or lukewarm Christians, why they don't believe in God I'm sure you could trace their unbelief to a time where God didn't show up. It's not so much of an intellectual problem, but an emotional one.
But today Pastor Gregg asked us "Do we believe in miracles? YES!"
There was no room to wonder. The answer was there. Yes. We believe in miracles.
A few days ago a little boy at church by the name of Braden was diagnosed with Leukemia. My leader Alysa asked told us the story from Acts about the apostles praying so hard, and fervently that the foundations shook. She asked us to attempt to achieve that ourselves as we prayed out loud, all at once, for this young boy.
We are all in desperate need of our own miracles. If you want you can keep this little boy in your prayers with us. Maybe you've given up on prayers, because God didn't show up for you. I think if you were to look back on your own life, you could think of some pretty miraculous things that have happened. Just because you don't recognize something as God's doing, doesn't mean he wasn't behind it.
But I don't want to be a person who only prays once. I want to pray consistently, continuously, fervently.
So I have a prayer list, I will try and attempt to pray over every single day this month. Braden will be on it and I will pray for him knowing that our God does indeed do miracles.
There is power in Christ's name for those who believe.
"Whatever you ask in MY name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son."
-John 14:3
"Then Jesus told his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up."
-Luke 18:1
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