I don’t know why I am always surprised by the fact that God answers prayer. It’s as if a recognized answered prayer is some sort of supernatural, earth shaking occurrence to me, rather than just an everyday product of God’s nature. This past month, we have seen answered prayer after answered prayer, and my faith has skyrocketed because of it.
On the first day of the month, the other team leader, Kendall, and I decided to make it a month where we would be absolutely tireless and unrelenting in prayer. So, with the glory of God in mind and with great accountability from each other, we sought God together and did so every night. We prayed for supernatural physical energy, supernatural desire, a higher and higher view of God—that we may cast out cheap, mundane views of God from our hearts and minds—and for health and protection. In addition, we interceded for family, teammates, classmates, and everyone in between.
God showed up, without a doubt, but it wasn’t until the second half of the month that the answered prayers began to become more tangible. We were both convicted of the specificity of our prayers. There is absolutely nothing wrong (in my opinion) about praying more “general” prayers—prayers for joy, health, and a deep relationship with God, for example—and all of these prayers serve as fuel in the tank for an effective Christian life.
It was when we started praying the specific, however—for specific people and specific occurrences to happen, that my faith was really stretched. Admittedly, I am often so nervous about praying the specific. I feel as if, were God not to answer my prayers (which is indeed the case, sometimes), my faith would decrease. This is a double-edged sword, of course, because the only way for my faith to truly grow will be to pray the specific.
So, with a beautiful and seemingly contradictory mix of timidity and boldness, we began to pray the specific. We prayed for specific individuals to show up to class, for specific individuals to have softened hearts, and, most of all, for one person to come to saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. Throughout the month, we named this unknown individual “The One”. “The One” was something we talked about and prayed about all of the latter two weeks of the month.
I also used to assume, though, that praying for God to save people was off-limits, or even cliche. After all, “God has mercy on whom he wants to have mercy, and he hardens whom he wants to harden.” (Romans 9:18). I finally realized, however, that it was ridiculous for me to think that I can’t or shouldn’t pray for God to show up and save souls. After all, things like heath, rest, and peace are entirely under the sovereignty of God as well, and we pray for those things unashamedly! The Kingdom of Heaven will be brought on the backs of saints who plead—specifically—that God may save specific souls. So, with that in mind, we persisted in prayer for “the one”.
Finally, and when I assumed all hope was lost, one of our Knowing God students, David came up to me after church, unannounced, and asked to talk to me. He told me, nervously, that he had news for me. “My mother came up to me last week,” he said, “and told me, David, ‘I want to be born again. I want to accept Jesus Christ.” I congratulated him excitedly and franticly talked about all that would follow—it was our last day in Kampot—but my mind was elsewhere. I knew God had answered the specific. David’s mother was “The One.”
Another thing we had prayed for was for David to develop a love for reading the Bible. On the first day of class, David asked me why he didn’t really like to read the Bible, and I didn’t have all that great of an answer for him. Instead, we lifted his desires up in prayer, asking that God would supernaturally intervene to change his desires.
“Ben,” he told me, while I my head was still spinning from the first answered prayer, “I want to show you something.” He opened up to the book of Matthew in his Bible and preceded to show me all the highlighting he had done. “I like to read the Bible now.” What he said next was the kicker, however. “I don’t know what changed, I don’t know why, and I don’t know what happened.” Luckily, we do.
It was a beautiful reminder, as we prepare for the Philippines, that God truly does answer prayer. It’s simply part of his nature. Not to take advantage of the fact that we have a say in the unfolding of the universe would be a colossally wasted opportunity. “The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.” (James 5:16).
