The Power of Prayer

I had the incredible pleasure of answering prayer calls last night for a network I work with out of Aurora, IL, called TLN.

I have to tell you that I was not looking forward to it. I have had an incredibly busy week. I was on the tv station live Monday and Tuesday, busy with all the other things I do during the days, and could have fallen asleep standing up last night.

But I came in, bad attitude and all, and sat down in front of a phone. The first call came in and I answered, quickly prayed for the woman, and hung up. One down...

Next call came in. The lady was crying and upset. I tried to understand but her accent was heavy. I pushed through the call and hung up. Two down...only five minutes into the night though...

Then God convicted me in the biggest way. What in the world was I doing to be sitting in this seat, answering calls, coming before the throne of God alongside my brothers and sisters, and not taking it serious. I literally pulled my phone off the hook, set it down, and prayed that God would forgive me and give me a heart to help those who were calling.

I took a deep breath, put the phone back on the hook, and waited. About 10 seconds later another call came in. It was a lady who was going throug an incredibly difficult time. Her husband had left her, her father died, and she had ended up homeless all in the matter of about three months. She had given up on God. She knew He was real, but she no longer believed He cared or listened. She would not give me her name and was very angry when I asked. She said she would like to be anonymous. So I asked her if I could simply pray for her and she accepted.

We went before the Lord and I prayed earnestly for her. When I was done praying, I asked if I could tell her a bit about myself. I spent the next five minutes or so telling her about a time in my life where God took everything from me. He took my finances, my home, my cars, my life...everything was taken from me...besides Him. I told her that He taught me that He was ALL I needed. In that time I learned to depend upon Him completely and realize that life is only temporary, but my relationship with Him was eternal.

I finished the story and asked her if I could do anything else for her. She said yes, I would like to tell you my name. She told me her name and began to cry. She said that God had truly blessed her and given her a new hope in life. She told me more about herself and we prayed again and she got off the phone. What a blessing.

Why is it that we, as Christians, sometimes struggle to understand the power of prayer. If we even had the slightest understanding of how incredibly effective our prayers can be if we only have faith, we would never stop praying! We are thick-headed, stubborn, and prideful. If we could simply tap into even the smallest amount of the power behind prayer, we would realize that magnitude of the potential we have to impact the world for Christ.

Don't let your lack of faith today keep you back from making an impact on somebody tomorrow. Commit yourself to pray daily and let God do something new in your life.