Years ago, my wife was in China on a trip, before she was my wife. She was traveling with a group of people when she was 18 years old. At one point, she was grabbed by a man who was trying to drag her into a building to kidnap her. Fortunately, members of her team saw it and they had a tug of war over her with the man on one arm and the others pulling on the other side.
Thankfully her team was able to rescue her.
BEHIND THE SCENE
We have a cousin named Jonathan. (My wife’s cousin) He has been severely developmentally disabled since birth. His speech is usually limited to speaking one or two words at a time. Most of the time it is random things like ‘cheeseburger’ or some other craving he desires.
But on one particular day he got the attention of his mother and father and said, “Connie pray!” So, they prayed for Connie. It was only later when they asked Connie about it, they found out that Jonathan had gotten their attention to pray for her the exact moment she was in danger in China.
WHY PRAY?
I know there is a Calvinistic belief out there that says that God will get everything he intends to do done, so it is not necessary to pray because God will do it anyway. However, in my own study of the Bible and through my own experience I have not found this to be the case. Whenever God does something in the Bible, he seems to do it through an individual. I myself have been directed by the Lord to pray in different circumstances. I believe prayer is very important. Even vital!
There was a time when I was going through some intense spiritual warfare for about three days. Then after three days I had come out the other end of it. It was a very difficult three days. A short while after this I was talking to my aunt (Jonathan’s mom). She told me that for about three days Jonathan had been saying my first and last name over and over again. I inquired when he had done this. It turned out to be the exact three days I was going through those rough waters. I understood then that Jonathan had been appointed by God to be the one to pray for me those three days.
MAKE YOURSELF AVAILABLE TO GOD
I asked the Lord, “Why Jonathan?” The Lord said only one thing back to me, it was, “HE WAS AVAILABLE.” I don’t mean to put anyone down, but I don’t think anyone else at the time had the time or cared enough to pray for me for three straight days. Most of the time when we hear prayer requests -including myself-, we just pray quickly and move on. And all God needed was for someone to call out my name for a long time I suppose. It wasn’t necessary at that time for the prayers to be smart and eloquent or educated. Jonathan was my intercessor simply because he was available and willing.
I am not saying a person has to have a severe handicap for God to use them, in fact if great talent and intelligence is yielded to God’s will, it can be used in amazing ways by the Lord! But sometimes our own ability can get in the way when we put too much confidence in it.
ANOTHER PLACE, SIMILAR PATTERN
I was at a conference a while back and there was a little girl there who was a lot like Jonathan. Her mother would lead her around by the hand and this little girl would point to someone who she felt God wanted her to pray for. I had been watching this little girl pray for people. She had the fire of God working through her, it didn’t seem like she had any unbelief in her at all. She didn’t know enough to doubt. She came up and pointed at a woman in the foyer between meetings. Her mother told the lady, “She wants to pray for you.” The woman looked the little girl up and down with all of her disabilities and said with indignity with scoff, “You want her to pray for me???” The mom said, “Trust me, you want her to.” After a little huffing and puffing the woman reluctantly agreed to let the little girl pray for her. The moment that little girl got a hold of that woman she began pointing to her chest and prayed with great passion. Her words were not even all discernable, but the power of God was all over this woman.
When the little girl was done praying the woman was out of breath and just kept saying, “It’s gone, it’s gone!” We asked her, “What’s gone?” She said it was the pain of a trauma she had had from her childhood on, that she had had carried around until she was old. She was ashamed of the prior attitude she had had.
At this point one might ask, “If the little girl was being used by God like that, how come she wasn’t healed herself?” I don’t know. Perhaps you can ask God about it and let me know. But these scriptures portrait this well. 1st Corinthians 1:27 “But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.”
This is great news for us! We don’t have to have it all figured out or be awesome. God can do far more with our availability and faithfulness than he can do with our ability. It really is true, -from Zechariah 4:6-, that it’s “not by might and not by power, but by my Spirit, says the Lord of Hosts.”
