Win, Through Prayer

Proverbs 12:15  The way of a fool is right in his own eyes, but a wise man listens to advice. 

At a particularly rough stretch of road which bygone days had built, a friend gave some advice. Hearing my hopeless quibble, he asserted,

“You must have a plan.”

My reply was sharp, “O-K — but what is the plan?”

His next words were near the most meaningful ever spoken to me. “Do you know any people who pray?” Yes, I quickly remembered some. “Well, make a list of those prayer warriors and call them up and get them praying. ” What? “You heard me, make the list and start calling them.”

This brother and friend was a successful businessman. I obeyed the instructions. In a short amount of time things began to break, health was restored, and my finances had an answer with a new job.

Since that battle I have used “the plan” many times, surrounding myself with special prayer warriors and making prayer a priority of my own life. Three lessons have been taught me from that initiation:

• One, never be ashamed to ask others for their prayers because sometimes we may be swamped beyond our own attempts at it.
• Two, our life is not a “lone ranger” affair anyway.
• Three, we learn to recognize the many gifts distributed to the Body of Christ, and realize how much we need these gifts.

In Luke 18:1  Jesus “spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint.”

“In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor respected man. And there was a widow in that city who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Give me justice against my adversary.  For a while he refused, but afterward he said to himself, Though I neither fear God nor respect man,  yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will give her justice, so that she will not beat me down by her continual coming. And the Lord said, Hear what the unrighteous judge says.  And will not God give justice to his elect, who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long over them? I tell you, he will give justice to them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?” Luke 18:2-8

• Point one, like the widow, prayer can be forceful and unashamedly bold. It can be troublesomely urgent. Sometimes prayers may be offered in agony or tears.
• Point two, prayer can be insisted on. Seems the widow was not going to take “no” for an answer. She got her answer.

The Bible teaches in the book of 1 John 5:14-15 “And this is the confidence that we have in him, that, if we ask any thing according to his will, he heareth us — And if we know that he hear us, whatsoever we ask, we know that we have the petitions that we desired of him. “

Confidence in prayer seems to be the norm of the teaching on it.

“Ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and it shall be opened unto you. “” believing, you shall receive it” “…that your joy might be full.”

It dawned on me recently that the will of God is not a hard thing. Since God works in us both to will and do of His good pleasure, (Philippians 2:13), I must conclude that many of my very wants and needs are placed there by God. I can ask for these in confidence.

Brothers and sisters. my major problems are when I mentally place myself in a state of alienation from God, I doubt my thought life, lose confidence and question the will of God. But if this happens, I look to my brothers and sisters who can pray with confidence.

I let their prayers restore me to confidence.

In closing, plan two for me was to call all who I owed money, and set dates for repayment in full. I made the calls and believed God for the moneys to repay. God came through with some sacrifice on my part. I took the humble road and got a lot of prayer. God did it. Love ya