A Matter of Perspective
The power of prayer
Note: These are my thoughts about my own experiences. They may differ from your thoughts and experiences. It may seem I am getting “preachy.” I am not. I am telling you about my experience with the supernatural power of God through prayer.
I used to think that prayer was just telling God what I wanted and then waiting for Him to magically deliver it to me. If I wanted a new bike, all I had to do was ask God and it would be given to me.
That’s not how it works, of course. This fact makes a lot of people turn their backs on God. “Well, I asked Him for this or that thing and He didn’t deliver so I don’t believe He even exists.”
That was me.
Oh, sure, I had moments when I believed and trusted. Most of the time, however, I was thinking of God as a wishing well. He was there to hear my demands and He had better follow through on them or else.
Over the past year and a half, I have had a lot of “come to Jesus” moments. They haven’t been easy.
I have had to come face-to-face with my “demons” and confront them and deal with them. These things went back to the days of my earliest memories. Some of those things were horrible and ugly. But I hit them head-on. Sometimes it was so hard to admit that I had been wrong. But you have to do that if you want things to be right not only with fellow humans but also with God.
I had to release a lot of anger and turmoil.
This past year and a half has been like the tip of the iceberg. My “Titanic” hit that iceberg head on and there were bound to be casualties—a lot of casualties because this “ship” had a lot of passengers and baggage.
But, do you know what? After the smoke clears or the ship finishes sinking, you begin to see things from a different perspective. You begin to realize that what you thought were good things were really just cargo that needed to go down with the ship. Things like fear and anger and even rage. Those things had been weighing me down. Those things went down with the ship. But first, I had to cut the line that was tethering me to them.
Last week I was in dire straits. Dire straits means in a very bad or difficult situation.
I sat on my bed and cried out to God for help. This wasn’t a cry for a want. This was a cry for a need! Within minutes I had a phone call that led to my getting some of the help I requested.
I was utterly astonished. I had never seen prayer work this way before.
But you see, what made it work was that my heart was free of all of the garbage that had been polluting it. I was asking in the correct way. I was not asking for a new bike. I was asking for a soul awakening. I was asking for God’s will to be done, not my will.
Many of you know that I have been having a difficult time with the death of my mom. I still am, but a peace came over me that I have not ever felt before.
Instead of being angry at God for taking her, I thanked Him for the beautiful way that He came and got her and took her to heaven. I won’t tell the story again, I have told it in this column before. All I will say is that my perspective has changed. The peace that my mom showed when she died was amazing. It could have only come because she was with her Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
God still does the miraculous. If He can change this stubborn old gal’s heart, well, then He can do anything!