Yes, agreed Albert, actions speak much louder than words.

Don

I'm wondering how a person can spend hours praying for one particular person or thing and not end up repeating themselves. I ask this because we are instructed by God not to make repetitive prayers.

(6) I was recently asked this question: "My question is what do you do when you have done all you can in both human and prayerful terms?"

The best way to respond is to share these 2 stories:
(a) Mike and I had played bridge with an older couple for 2 years. Roz was a Jewish woman who had worked for Dick Clark of American Bandstand and had helped to launch Clark's career. She also was the booking agent for the rock stars, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper.  [She shared the inside story of their tragic plane crash.] Her husband Richard is a lawyer. Richard contracted a smoking-induced terminal lung disease and doctors hinted that he may never go home from the hospital. Mike and I prayed for his healing, but no obvious miracle occurred. Yet to our great surprise, Richard did go home, always needing to be connected to an oxygen tank. That was a year and half ago. We still play weekly bridge and Richard has been thriving. Previously unchurched, they both now attend a local evangelical church. So our Christian witness was quite effective.

(b) My next example is an expanded repost.  I was apparently "the right prayer partner." for my new friend Russ, but almost blew it by just offering up a standard prayer for a miracle. Let me explain. I was pastoring a rural 2-church UMC charge in the Finger Lakes region of western New York. I regularly went for a walk in the nearby woods to Honeoye Lake. One day, as I came to a bend in the path, I received a mystical certainty that someone new would attend one of my churches that Sunday and that it was divinely providential that our paths would cross.

A local judge, Russ, and his wife Linda showed up that Sunday. Russ would later say that he had a profound out-of-body experience, while taking Communion. We later became good friends. After 3/ 1/2 years, I took a church in Buffalo, NY. One day, Linda called me to say that Russ's Mom was dying in the last stages of Alzheimer's Disease in a Florida nursing home. Russ had become alienated from his Mom as a young man, and now desperately wanted to be reconciled with her before she died. But she was now in a vegetative state, and Russ had visited her for a week without any meaningful communication. He was very depressed and Linda asked me to pray for him.

I tried to pray, but felt nothing and had no faith for any miracle. Then I thought, "I love Russ and so merely performing my prayer duty simply won't do!' That Friday, I decided to visit a charismatic prayer group that I had attended only once previously. After we sang a couple of praise choruses, I explained why I was there. I asked the group to gather around me as I sat in a chair and lay hands on me as a proxy for Russ's Mom. They gladly complied and soon the power of God fell and we all wept. I sensed that something had happened--but what?

On Saturday morning, I called Linda to tell her what I had done and felt. A very happy Linda told me that Russ had just called her. He had visited his Mom that morning, when suddenly she became lucid and totally rational. For 45 minutes mother and son wept in each other's arms and expressed their points of view and feelings. They were gloriously reconciled. Then, as if someone clicked a switch, his Mom sank into a manikin state and, 20 minutes later, was gone.

I was acutely aware that (a) God called me to minister to Russ during that fateful walk in the woods when God spoke to me and (b) Russ's reconciliation would never have occurred if I had just prayed in my apartment and not going the extra mile of attending that charismatic prayer group meeting. The actual prayer method used is based on the faith proxy principle illustrated by Paul in Acts 19:12. Blessings are applied to cloth aprons and handkerchiefs, which serve as proxies for sick people who can't come to see Paul. are then brought to the sick, who are unable to come and see Paul. When this cloth is brought to the sick, they are healed!

Yes, Don makes good use of stories. They are an effective way of illustrating.

Prayer does work; it is real. I could not have done the jobs I have done in the past, nor the work I do now, if not for prayer. Prayer has enabled me to do, achieve and learn far more than my personal capacity would be capable of. I would not be who I am today if not for prayer. And when I have failed it has been largely due to neglecting prayer.

Of course there is true prayer and false prayer, and mediocre prayer, as there are true and false gods, and mediocre gods. One man is improved by prayer, is made kind, wise and strong. Another man prays and is imbued with hatred, becomes murderous and treacherous. Another man prays and nothing seems to happen.

cb