Joel Kontinen

Prayer: Why God Sometimes Uses People to Get Prayers Miraculously Answered



Posted: Sunday, September 20, 2009

by Joel Kontinen
http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/

I have to admit that I don't understand how prayer works. I know that it has to do with communication with the Almighty God. We might think that He could do things better without our help. However, at times God seems to want to co-operate with Christians in order to avert a dangerous situation, for instance.

I know of at least five missionaries who have had a somewhat similar experience. They were all faced with a potentially fatal danger. One of them was in a fierce storm at sea in the Far East. Another was involved in an automobile accident in Bangladesh. Two of them were attacked by a gang of robbers in Tanzania and one became seriously ill in Kenya.

In each case, God alerted a group of Christians to pray earnestly for these missionaries. Some of them woke up at night and felt that they had to intercede for a particular missionary. They knew that there was grave danger afoot on the mission field although they did not have a clue what it was about. But in each case, they prayed at the very time the missionary was encountering a severe crisis.

God intervened and answered their intercessions. We might say that in each case, He did a miracle and spared the lives of His servants. The storm at sea calmed. No-one was seriously hurt in the road accident in Bangladesh. The robbers failed to harm the missionaries in Tanzania. And God provided a missions pilot to fly the sick missionary in Kenya to a hospital in Nairobi.

God could easily have solved each of these incidents without help from humans. However, for reasons only known to Him, He saw fit to alert Christians to intercede for these missionaries and then used their prayers to save them from danger. It brings to mind the words written in the book of Isaiah:

" For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways," says the LORD.

"For as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways,

And My thoughts than your thoughts." (Isa. 55:8-9).

Or, as the apostle Paul put it in Romans 11:33-36:

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

" For who has known the mind of the LORD? Or who has become His counselor?"

"Or who has first given to Him And it shall be repaid to him?"

For of Him and through Him and to Him are all things, to whom be glory forever. Amen."

Joel Kontinen is an author and translator currently living in Finland. His bacground includes an MA in translation studies and a BA in Bible and Theology. He mostly writes about origins issues.
 
Blog:. http://joelkontinen.blogspot.com/
 
Twitter updates: http://twitter.com/joelkontinen
 
 
 
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Top-level comments on this article: (1 total)
» left by Marijo Phelps
from mountain meadow CO 2 years 222 days ago.
Good reminder with great scriptures - His promises never fail and they are jewels! Thanks for the encouragement! Marijo
» left by Joel Kontinen 2 years 221 days ago.
43 fans.
Thanks, Marijo.
 
Blessings,
 
Joel
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