Previous Challenge Entry (Level 2 – Intermediate)
Topic: Key (02/14/13)
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TITLE: The Power of Prayer | Previous Challenge Entry
By Shanta Richard
02/21/13 -
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“The fundamental fact of existence is that this trust in God, this faith, is the firm foundation under everything that makes life worth living. It’s our handle on what we can’t see. The act of faith is what distinguished our ancestors, set them above the crowd. (Hebrews 11:1-2.)
After defining faith, the writer draws from the Old Testament examples to show how others have responded to God’s promises. These are concrete examples of how God successfully invaded the lives of people, how the spiritual and physical were joined to make faith both visible and viable.”
I always thought that this faith is feasible only when God and man had an ongoing working relationship, where God would meet man face to face and talk to him as a friend. In today’s world would that kind of a faith be practical? Would it not be considered foolish, if not insane to have faith in the impossible? I had to prove to myself that faith is still the basis for practical Christian living. I had to find facts that would substantiate this statement. My search yielded the following results:
A few days ago I heard a sermon over the TV preached by Pastor Joel Olsten. He told the story of a group of Christians who prayed for a church. Someone had donated a piece of land. At one corner of the property there was a little hillock. The City did not approve the blue print of the church because they had no provision for a parking lot. The only way they could have a parking lot would be to remove the hillock, which would cost a lot of money. Confronted with the impossible they took the matter to God and prayed.
A little later a construction company planned to build an apartment complex in the adjoining area. They need dirt to level the land. They requested the church permission to remove the hillock and pave the place. The church not only got the hillock removed but also got their parking lot paved – for free!
My second example was something I read in an old missionary magazine. In a remote village in Africa the only hospital ran out of vital medical supplies. They sent an appeal to pharmaceutical companies in the US for help. In response a whole consignment of supplies were shipped to them. But when the hospital personnel went to collect the shipment they were told that they would have to wait for a couple of weeks as the workers were busy unloading other ships. There was nothing to do but just pray and wait.
One of the big factories in Africa had ordered a consignment of expensive electrical equipment which they needed urgently. They hired a crew to unload the supplies which had been packed in the same ship beneath the hospital supplies. The hospital supplies had to be unloaded before they could get to the electrical goods. And so the next day the hospital received their supplies without having to pay for unloading!
I found many more examples of living faith in impractical conditions. They proved to me that:
Prayer is the key that opens the door of faith releasing the wonders and miracles of God’s power to help His children out of impossible, impractical, inconceivable and incredible difficulties and adversities. As long as we are humble and earnest in our prayers God is faithful to answer them, in His own way, in His own time. That is His promise and He would honor it for all time.
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