Tuesday, December 7, 2010

Prayer: A Powerful Thing

Matthew 21:21-23 (New International Version, ©2010)


 21 Jesus replied, “Truly I tell you, if you have faith and do not doubt, not only can you do what was done to the fig tree, but also you can say to this mountain, ‘Go, throw yourself into the sea,’ and it will be done. 22 If you believe, you will receive whatever you ask for in prayer.”


Mondays to me are my favorite day of the week. At 7am I get to start me day praying with many other believers and followers of Jesus and then, in the evening, I get to close my day praying with other fellow believers in my Bible study. I honestly can't think of a better way to start and end my day. I realized that yesterday as I was praying. 


This morning as I was enjoying my very first cup of coffee after a 7 day coffee fast, I looked down to read the front page of the Daily Iowan newspaper. I was pleasantly surprised as I read the words, "Goodbye, party school." I can't tell you how exciting that is!!
So, when I was in high school trying to figure out where the heck I was supposed to go to school, one of the things that turned me off from U of I the most was the fact that it is so well known for being a party school. I knew that the campus was going to be spiritually dark and dead and so many other things that come with the emptiness of binge drinking and shallow relationships that ensure a "great" college experience. I thought for the longest time that I would go to a Christian school and be taught Christian views and only have Christian friends and then I would be ready to go out into the world and shine for Jesus. But then, I got to thinking... God's light shines brightest in the place that is most spiritually dark.  
So, I chose Iowa. Partly because I'm a pansy and liked the idea of having one of my siblings close by to boost my confidence and partly because I felt in my heart that there needed to be more Christians at this school. 


As a freshman, it didn't take long at all before I saw how much drinking and partying impacted the campus. More than that, it happened to be the norm for some of the Christians I met as well. I spent a good deal of my time being discouraged and feeling overwhelmed and thinking, "oh my goodness.. I do NOT belong here. Everyone drinks or used to drink or drinks on occasion still and one little Christian me is not going to make the slightest difference in the world." The idea of drinking or partying has never tempted me in the slightest way.. so I couldn't relate to very many people that I met, Christian or not.  
But, I realized that while I was feeling lost and discouraged.. I wasn't trusting God. Completely forgetting that God had radically changed my life.. how much more can he radically change the life of a college campus. 
I've prayed off and on about the drinking scene here... but not really with any actual faith that God would change it. After all, University of Iowa was ranked #9 in the nation for party schools. College, in general, is a place where a lot of students party and drink and what not. I looked up how many public higher education schools there are in the U.S. and it turns out that there are about 5,277. Being number 9 out of 5,277 is kind of huge. 


So any ways... after reading the article in the paper this morning, the number one thought on my mind was, "Wow.. somebody has been praying for this campus." And it's probably a lot of some bodies. And I wonder if they know how their praying is affecting this school. The new 21-only ordinance seems to be reeking havoc on the party scene in the bars downtown. It's crazy how much simply enforcing the law can change the business of a downtown bar. Because, whomever has been praying for this change is not only making a difference in the lives of students, but less business for bar-owners means less bars, which means less opportunities to drink, thus affecting a whole section of the town. Somethings need to be conquered one step at a time. :) I don't know if you knew this but Iowa City is a fairly corrupt town and a lot of it's profit downtown is built upon underage drinking. 1 Timothy 6:10 says, "For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs." 


I'm not trying to go on and on about how drinking is bad. God did not make it to be evil or sinful or whatever. But, when drinking becomes way out of hand and is used to be the satisfaction of our hearts, or the aspirin for a broken life....it's only going to be detrimental to the lives of the people who are looking for something greater. When you take away this easy access to a temporary fix, then you cause the person seeking to seek harder. Maybe they just find a more painful way to get their alcohol overdosage, or maybe they become more open to other ideas. God works in mysterious ways. 


As I was looking at the headline and thinking about how powerful prayer is that it can change a party school around and was reminded of this one time when I got to see God work a miracle through prayer. When I was 16 years old, me and two of my closest friends were sharing Christ with people at a homeless shelter. We started out our adventure by just mingling with people in line for food and offering to pray for them. We came across this one man named Tom who was slightly hunched over and walked with a limp. We asked how we could pray for him and I think he responded something to the extent of his health. He was having difficulty carrying his food as his limp was rather extreme and his coffee was spilling over his cup. I and my 2 friends offered to carry it for him and we were soon settled down on the cement by the shelter building in a conversation with Tom about his broken life. As he spoke about how he had been in a serious car accident right out of high school that had killed his brother and fiance, we were given opportunity to share with Tom about Jesus. Part way through the conversation, Tom attempted to adjust his position sitting on the cement and I could just hear the bones in his hip grinding and squeaking as he moved. Tom made the comment that it was very difficult to listen to us because his hip hurt so badly. My friends and I offered to pray for Tom and he allowed us to lay our hands on him and pray for God's healing so that he would not be distracted from what God wanted to tell him. We then continued in our conversation for about 10 more minutes before Tom interjected and said, "You know what.. I believe you guys. Because while you've been talking, my hip has been hurting less. And I can feel it... it's healed!" It was a great astonishing moment. While I knew God could do it.. I was just blown away at what happened. The biggest miracle that happened that night was that Tom accepted Jesus. He accepted forgiveness and love over his feelings of hate and bitterness. And when this 47 year old homeless man who had been suffering a bad hip since he was 18 years old stood up, he could walk with out limping. I am still in awe by it. It was so crazy amazing!! 


When you read through the Bible... you see time after time that prayer made a difference in someone's life. 





Isaiah 37:15
And Hezekiah prayed to the LORD:

Exodus 8:30
Then Moses left Pharaoh and prayed to the LORD,
Luke 5:16
But Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed.

1 Samuel 1:10In her deep anguish Hannah prayed to the LORD, weeping bitterly.


Jonah 2:1From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God.


Acts 7:59
While they were stoning him, Stephen prayed, “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit.”


Prayer has been a predominant theme in the lives of believers since the beginning of time. I think that far too often, we miss that. We forget how privileged we are that we get to sit down with the creator of the universe and ask Him to help us with our teeny tiny problems in life. And while He gladly heals us and sets us right when we trip up and stumble off His path, we often overlook how big and powerful He is. He does not limit Himself to our teeny tiny problems. He can bring healing to whole families, whole cities, whole nations, whole countries... heck.. he can heal the whole world. He's that crazy amazing.