There are times when God will bring us to a place where all
we can do is pray. There is nothing we can do, and nothing short of a miracle
is what is needed, and so He’ll bring us to a place where we have to pray because
there’s nothing else we can do. I was making dinner when the phone rang last
night, and I was not in the mood to talk to anyone about any kind of problems. I was hungry and tired and
worn out from my day and just wanted to make dinner and get into bed early. It
was already late because I’ve had to travel from the Bronx most days of the
week lately, and the trip home takes much longer than it used to when I could
go to and from Manhattan. I get home with just enough time to make dinner and
eat and do some work to get ready for the next day, and then I’m back up early
and doing it all over again. This past weekend was a blessed rest, but it wasn’t
enough. I could use another week or two of not having to rush all over the five
boroughs the way I’ve been doing lately. I know I’m complaining and I know I should
stop, but I wanted to give you an idea of where my head was at when the phone
rang. When I saw who it was I had to answer because I knew it had to be
something important, but I wasn’t in the mood to deal with anything at all
except to take care of my own need for food and rest.
At first I tried to get off the phone as quickly as possible
because I was in the middle of making dinner and things were starting to cook
too much – I was sautéing vegetables and while I was on the phone I couldn’t
keep doing what I needed to do because the area where the kitchen is doesn’t
have good phone reception so my phone kept cutting off the conversation. I kept
getting more and more frustrated, and finally I said, a bit angrily I am sorry
to say, “Do you want to pray now? I’m going to turn off my dinner and we’ll
pray, ok? My dinner is burning, so I’m going to take it off the stove, all
right? And we’ll pray.” And so I started to pray and I knew that my heart hadn’t
been in the right frame of mind at all, and of course that passed as I started
to pray. The person I was praying with doesn’t ever really listen to what I’m
saying – that’s part of the frustration – and it finally occurred to me that
all that was needed was that prayer. Simple really. Why I didn’t think of it right
away is beyond me.
Sometimes the very simplicity of prayer makes me forget how
powerful it is. I can pray any time anywhere with anyone. I can pray by myself,
I can pray in a group. I can pray for and with. When I got the call last night,
at first I kept trying to give advice, saying that I didn’t know what to do to
help but that this person needed to find people who could give the kind of
advice that was needed for the specific problems in the specific situation. I
kept saying, I can’t help you, and the more I said that the worse I felt. The
person who called me had said right away that all they needed was prayer, so
why didn’t I just start to pray right then and there? The answer is actually
very easy if I’m really honest with myself. I wanted to be able to fix the
problem and I couldn’t, so instead of accepting that and praying, I got all
angry with the person calling me because they couldn’t fix their problem
either. Forgive me Father, I lift up my hands to you. I can do nothing
without you, forgive me for being angry and frustrated because of what I can’t
do instead of turning my focus to you and what you can do.
Earlier in the day I’d been talking to someone who hadn’t
eaten in three days. He has food available to him, but he’s on medication and
the medication is making him not want to eat. At first when I was talking to
him I thought he was high on heroin or methadone – he kept nodding out and I’ve
seen that before so I thought that’s what it was. But as I talked to him I
found out that he hadn’t been sleeping much because of where he’s living, and
then he said he hadn’t eaten in three days. Even if he hadn’t been taking
drugs, that would have been enough to put him into the state he was in. I
started to talk to him about how important it was to eat, and some of the other
people around were saying the same thing, but he wasn’t listening much at all.
He wasn’t able to. He knew what he needed to do for his health but he just wasn’t
able to do it. I kept getting a prompting from the Holy Spirit to pray, and finally
I asked him if I could pray for him – lay hands on and pray, and he said I
could and I did. I don’t have the gift of healing in my hands the way that some
people have it, but when the Lord tells you to pray and you do it, things start
to happen. The energy in the room shifted, and I could tell that something
happened. This man was still exhausted and half starved, but something had
changed. My prayer was simple, and it wasn’t very loud. I just asked the Lord
to break the hold of the enemy over this man’s appetite, that He would break
whatever demonic presence was there and give this man freedom and healing so he
could eat again. In the name of Jesus, amen. The prayer, as simple as it was,
helped the other men in the room too – and the way prayer works it probably
helped people in other rooms nearby. When we pray with the power and prompting
of the Holy Spirit, things just change.
And praying for these people helped me too. I went from a
place of feeling helpless and hopeless to a place of knowing that I could trust
in God. On Monday night I’d written a word to a friend who has also been going
through some tough times. It was a word that the Lord had told me to write and
even though I didn’t understand why He had me writing it, I went ahead and did
it. When I’d sent it off, the Lord did something He only does on rare occasions
– He spoke to me through my own words coming out of my own mouth. He’s only
done that once before that I remember, and it’s a very strange thing that
happens. I’ll say something to myself out loud and I know it’s coming from Him.
When I had sent that word to my friend and I was wondering silently why I'd sent it, I said aloud, “You know I’m always
right.” I know that I’m not always right, but I do know He is, and I knew that
was Him answering me.
I don’t know why He had me write what I did to my friend,
and I don’t know what He’ll do with the prayers I prayed in person and
afterward with and for those people. But I do know that nothing we do for the
Lord is ever wasted. 1 Corinthians 15:58 tells us, “Therefore, my beloved brethren,
be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that
your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” That’s the New King James, and the New
Living Translation has this, “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and
immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing
you do for the Lord is ever useless,” and the New International Version has
this, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move
you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that
your labor in the Lord is not in vain.” He takes what little we have and what little
we ourselves are able to do and makes miracles happen every day. All we have to
do is just do what we can and He will do the rest.
Blessings,
Jannie Susan
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