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Prayer and Answers "...The effectual fervent prayer of a righteous man availeth much." (James 5:16b) This page shares prayers, articles on prayer, and reports of answered prayer from the past and present. Something new is usually added at the top of the page each week. Please share with us anything you believe will help and encourage others to pray and trust God for His will to be done in answering their prayers. I know not by what methods rare, But I know: God answers prayer. "Then shall thou call, and the Lord shall answer; thou shalt cry, and he shall say, Here I am..." (Isaiah 58:9) ---from God's Little Instruction Book on Prayer "The Rest of the Story" I'm not sure of the date of this prayer given in Kansas at the opening session of their Senate, but it's a good time for our nation to consider it again! When Minister Joe Wright was asked to open the new session of the Kansas Senate, everyone was expecting the usual generalities, but this is what they heard: "Heavenly Father, we come before you today to ask your forgiveness and to seek your direction and guidance. We know Your Word says, 'Woe to those who call evil good,' but that is exactly what we have done. We have lost our spiritual equilibrium and reversed our values. We confess that we have ridiculed the absolute truth of Your Word and called it Pluralism. We have exploited the poor and called it the lottery, We have rewarded laziness and called it welfare, We have killed our unborn and called it choice, We have shot abortionists and called it justifiable, We have neglected to discipline our children and called it building self esteem, We have abused power and called it politics, We have coveted our neighbor's possessions and called it ambition, We have polluted the air with profanity and pornography and called it freedom of expression, We have ridiculed the time honored values of our forefathers and called it enlightenment. Search us, Oh, God, and know our hearts today; cleanse us from every sin and set us free. Guide and bless these men and women who have been sent to direct us to the center of Your will and to openly ask these things in the name of Your Son, the living Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen!" The response was immediate. A number of legislators walked out during the prayer in protest. In 6 short weeks, Central Christian Church, where Rev. Wright is pastor, logged more than 5,000 phone calls with only 47 of those calls responding negatively. The church is now receiving international requests for copies of this prayer from India, Africa, and Korea. Commentator Paul Harvey aired this prayer on his radio program,"The Rest of the Story," and received a larger response to this program than any other he has ever aired. With the Lord's help, may this prayer sweep over our nation and wholeheartedly become our desire so that we again can be called "one nation under God." A Simple Prayer My son Gilbert was eight years old and had been in Cub Scouts only a short time. During one of his meetings he was handed a sheet of paper, a block of wood and four tires and told to return home and give all to "dad". That was not an easy task for Gilbert to do. Dad was not receptive to doing things with his son. But Gilbert tried. Dad read the paper and scoffed at the idea of making a pine wood derby car with his young, eager son. The block of wood remained untouched as the weeks passed. Finally, mom stepped in to see if I could figure this all out. The project began. Having no carpentry skills, I decided it would be best if I simply read the directions and let Gilbert do the work. And he did. I read aloud the measurements, the rules of what we could do and what we couldn't do. Within days his block of wood was turning into a pinewood derby car. A little lopsided, but looking great (at least through the eyes of mom). Gilbert had not seen any of the other kids cars and was feeling pretty proud of his "Blue Lightning", the pride that comes with knowing you did something on your own. Then the big night came. With his blue pinewood derby in his hand and pride in his heart we headed to the big race. Once there my little one's pride turned to humility. Gilbert's car was obviously the only car made entirely on his own. All the other cars were a father son partnership, with cool paint jobs and sleek body styles made for speed. A few of the boys giggled as they looked at Gilberts, lopsided, wobbly, unattractive vehicle. To add to the humility Gilbert was the only boy without a man at his side. A couple of the boys who were from single parent homes at least had an uncle or grandfather by their side, Gilbert had "mom". As the race began it was done in elimination fashion. You kept racing as long as you were the winner. One by one the cars raced down the finely sanded ramp. Finally it was between Gilbert and the sleekest, fastest looking car there. As the last race was about to begin, my wide eyed, shy eight year old asked if they could stop the race for a minute, because he wanted to pray. The race stopped. Gilbert hit his knees clutching his funny looking block of wood between his hands. With a wrinkled brow he set to converse with his Father. He prayed in earnest for a very long minute and a half. Then he stood, smile on his face and announced, 'Okay, I am ready." As the crowd cheered, a boy named Tommy stood with his father as their car sped down the ramp. Gilbert stood with his Father within his heart and watched his block of wood wobble down the ramp with surprisingly great speed and rushed over the finish line a fraction of a second before Tommy's car. Gilbert leaped into the air with a loud "Thank you" as the crowd roared in approval. The Scout Master came up to Gilbert with microphone in hand and asked the obvious question, "So you prayed to win, huh, Gilbert?" To which my young son answered, "Oh, no sir. That wouldn't be fair to ask God to help you beat someone else. I just asked Him to make it so I don't cry when I lose." Children seem to have a wisdom far beyond us. Gilbert didn't ask God to win the race, he didn't ask God to fix the out come, Gilbert asked God to give him strength in the outcome. When Gilbert first saw the other cars he didn't cry out to God, "No fair, they had a fathers help". No, he went to his Father for strength. Perhaps we spend too much of our prayer time asking God to rig the race, to make us number one, or too much time asking God to remove us from the struggle, when we should be seeking God's strength to get through the struggle. "I can do everything through Him who gives me strength." Philippians 4:13 Gilbert's simple prayer spoke volumes to those present that night. He never doubted that God would indeed answer his request. He didn't pray to win, thus hurt someone else, he prayed that God supply the grace to lose with dignity. Gilbert, by his stopping the race to speak to his Father also showed the crowd that he wasn't there without a "dad" but His Father was most definitely there with him. Yes, Gilbert walked away a winner that night, with his Father at his side. Jabez Prayer "Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!" So God granted him what he requested. (Chronicles 4:9,10) Jabez and many others have found that God answers prayer. Will you pray this prayer today? And remember, "According to your faith, so be it unto you!" 1. Oh, that You would bless me indeed, 2. And enlarge my territory (for service), 3. That Your hand would be with me, 4. And that You would keep me from evil. Father, today please help me get my priorities straight as I prayerfully seek a closer relationship with You. When my husband Larry and I toured Ireland not long ago, we visited the ruins of several monasteries, some dating back as far as the seventh century. One site that particularly impressed me was the Gallarus Oratory, a stone hut on the Dingle Peninsula that was once used by monks for private prayers. Seeking solitude, they had walked for a mile down the path from their monastery to kneel on the dirt floor of the oratory to commune with God. As I huddled inside that dark, claustrophobic room, I thought of my own prayer time back home, so often neglected. When I prayed, did I have to walk a mile in a cold sea wind to kneel on a rough floor? No, I could sit in my own home in my upholstered "prayer chair." I even had central heating in winter and air conditioning in summer to keep me comfortable. Why then did I sometimes bypass my prayer time to run errands, make phone calls, take care of petty chores? I heard another tourist in the doorway behind me say, "Boy, those monks were really disciplined." Then she added, "Devoted, too." Discipline. Devotion. Two elements missing for too long in my spiritual life. Inside that oratory, I resolved to place "the two D's" at the top of my prayer list. Madge Harrah, Daily Guideposts, Shoes In New York City, on a cold day in December, a little boy about 10 years old was standing before a shoe store on the roadway, barefooted, peering through the window, and shivering with cold. A lady approached the boy and said, "My little fellow, why are you looking so earnestly in that window?" "I was asking God to give me a pair of shoes," was the boy's reply. The lady took him by the hand and went into the store and asked the clerk to get half a dozen pairs of socks for the boy. She then asked if he could give her a basin of water and a towel. He quickly brought them to her. She took the little fellow to the back part of the store and, removing her gloves, knelt down, washed his little feet, and dried them with a towel. By this time the clerk had returned with the socks. Placing a pair upon the boy's feet, she purchased him a pair of shoes. She tied up the remaining pairs of socks and gave them to him. She patted him on the head and said, "No doubt, my little fellow, you feel more comfortable now?" As she turned to go, the astonished lad caught her by the hand, and looking up in her face, with tears his eyes, answered the question with these words: Are you God's Wife?" Christ's Business is Supreme by Mrs. Charles E. Cowman "His disciples said unto him, Lord, teach us to pray . . . and he said unto them, When ye pray, say. . . Thy kingdom come" (Luke 11:1, 2). When they said, "Teach us to pray," the Master lifted His eyes and swept the far horizon of God. He gathered up the ultimate dream of the Eternal, and, rounding the sum of everything God intends to do in the life of man, He packed it all into these three terse pregnant phrases and said, "When you pray, pray after this manner." What a contrast between this and much praying we have heard. When we follow the devices of our own hearts, how runs it? "O Lord bless me, then My family, My church, My city, My country," and away on the far fringe as we close up, there is a prayer for the extension of His Kingdom throughout the wide parish of the world. The Master begins where we leave off. The world first, my personal needs second, is the order of this prayer. Only after my prayer has crossed every continent and every far flung island of the sea, after it has taken in the last man in the last backward race, after it has covered the entire wish and purpose, of God for the world, only then am I taught to ask for a piece of bread for myself. When Jesus gave His all, Himself for us and to us in the holy extravagance of the Cross, is it too much if He asks us to do the same thing? No man or woman amounts to anything in the kingdom, no soul ever touches even the edge of the zone of power, until this lesson is learned that Christ's business is the supreme concern of life and that all personal considerations, however dear or important, are tributary thereto. Dr. Francis PRAYER AND THE WORD OF GOD Some years ago a man was travelling in the wilds of Kentucky. He had with him a large sum of money and was well armed. He put up at a log-house one night, but was much concerned with the rough appearance of the men who came and went from this abode. He retired early but not to sleep. At midnight he heard the dogs barking furiously and the sound of someone entering the cabin. Peering through a chink in the boards of his room, he saw a stranger with a gun in his hand. Another man sat before the fire. The traveller concluded they were planning to rob him, and prepared to defend himself and his property. Presently the newcomer took down a copy of the Bible, read a chapter aloud, and then knelt down and prayed. The traveller dismissed his fears, put his revolver away and lay down, to sleep peacefully until morning light. And all because a Bible was in the cabin, and its owner a man of prayer. -- Rev. F. F. Shoup. God Hears the Prayer of the Boy in Trouble My first recollection of God hearing my prayer goes back to the time when as a bare-footed lad I lived with my parents on a farm. A few days before I had been presented with my first jack-knife, in those times quite an era in a boy’s life. That morning, while playing in the pasture, I had lost the precious knife and had spent over two hours in a fruitless search for the same. When my mother called me in to dinner my heart was too full of sorrow over my loss to care for any. It flashed into my mind that the Lord knew where that knife was, then why not ask Him to show me where it was? The only prayer that I knew up to that time was my evening prayer that I always repeated on my knees by my bed before retiring. That was the only place for prayer that I knew, so while the family were at dinner, I slipped into my bedroom and kneeling by my bed I poured out to the Lord my trouble and asked Him to lead me to where the lost knife lay. I got up from my knees, dried my tears, and with full confidence that I would find that knife, ran out again into the pasture, and walked straight to where I picked up the knife, about twenty-five yards into the field. I was too young to understand the theology of prayer, but I well remember that that day I had an overwhelming sense of the fact that God was interested in a boy’s troubles, and my heart was filled with gladness. ---R.L.E. The Glasses My Mother's father worked as a carpenter. On this particular day, he was building some crates for the clothes his church was sending to some orphanage in China. On his way home, he reached into his shirt pocket to find his glasses, but they were gone. When he mentally replayed his earlier actions, he realized what happened; the glasses had slipped out of his pocket unnoticed and fallen into one of the crates, which he had nailed shut. His brand new glasses were heading for China!The Great Depression was at its height and Grandpa had six children. He had spent $20 for those glasses that very morning. He was upset by the thought of having to buy another pair. "It's not fair," he told God as he drove home in frustration. "I've been very faithful in giving of my time and money to your work, and now this." Several months later, the director of the orphanage was on furlough in the United States. He wanted to visit all the churches that supported him in China, so he came to speak one Sunday at my grandfather's small church in Chicago. The missionary began by thanking the people for their faithfulness in supporting the orphanage. "But most of all, " he said, "I must thank you for the glasses you sent last year." "You see, the Communists had just swept through the orphanage, destroying everything, including my glasses. I was desperate. Even if I had the money, there was simply no way of replacing those glasses. Along with not being able to see well, I experienced headaches every day, so my coworkers and I were much in prayer about this. Then your crate arrived. When my staff removed the covers, they found a pair of glasses lying on top." The missionary paused long enough to let his words sink in. Then, still gripped with the wonder of it all, he continued: "Folks, when I tried on the glasses, it was as though they had been custom-made just for me! I want to thank you for being a part of that." The people listened, happy for the miraculous glasses. But the missionary surely must have confused their church with another, they thought. The Power of Prayer Peter was in prison awaiting his execution. The Church had neither human power nor influence to save him. There was no earthly help, but there was help to be obtained by the way of Heaven. They gave themselves to fervent, importunate prayer. God sent His angel, who aroused Peter from sleep and led him out through the first and second wards of the prison; and when they came to the iron gate, it opened to them of its own accord, and Peter was free. There may be some iron gate in your life that has blocked your way. Like a caged bird you have often beaten against the bars, but instead of helping, you have only had to fall back tired, exhausted and sore at heart. There is a secret for you to learn, and that is believing prayer; and when you come to the iron gate, it will open of its own accord. How much wasted energy and sore disappointment will be saved if you will learn to pray as did the Church in the upper room! Insurmountable difficulties will disappear; adverse circumstances will prove favorable if you learn to pray, not with your own faith but with the faith of God (Mark 11:22, margin). Souls in prison have been waiting for years for the gate to open; love ones out of Christ, bound by Satan, will be set free when you pray till you definitely believe God. --C. H. P. Emergencies call for intense prayer. When the man becomes the prayer nothing can resist its touch. Elijah on Carmel, bowed down on the ground, with his face between his knees, that was prayer--the man himself. No words are mentioned. Prayer can be too tense for words. The man's whole being was in touch with God, and was set with God against the powers of evil. They couldn't withstand such praying. There's more of this embodied praying needed. --The Bent-knee Time ---From Streams in the Desert

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