A friend of mine told me one time many years ago that I was an entrepreneur and he was not. I asked him what differentiated us. He replied with an allegorical illustration. He said that he would cautiously belly crawl inch by inch over to the edge of a cliff to view a river far below. He said when he finally got there and worked up the nerve to sneak a peek at the river far below, he would see me half way down doing a swan dive.
I have done some stupid crazy things from time to time, some of which have put me in life and death situations. When I was growing up my mother was an atheist, but she found Jesus as did my father. After I left home they went on to found three different churches and teach Sunday school. Mom taught for 15 years until her death at 52 and my father taught for 40 years until his death at 92.
I was unsaved and running hard from the Lord and they prayed and prayed for me, seemingly to no avail. I was all stoned on drugs one night and I had not talked to anyone in my family for quite some time. Suddenly I just felt the urge to call home. I did and my mother answered the phone and began crying as she related to me that she had been on her knees praying that I would call home at the precise moment that I called. It was one of the first steps I took towards gaining salvation and it started with prayer.
Since then I have seen prayer work so many times that I couldn’t begin to relate them all. It is astonishing to see the power of prayer. I have counseled hundreds of distraught mothers and fathers about their children. I tell every one of them to pray for their kids each day and not to give up on them.
Prayer is as normal to me as breathing. I pray throughout the day, but I have a special place in my bedroom with a little footstool where I get on my knees and rest my head on the foot stool and pray my very serious prayers. It is my home prayer alter, and I go there when my wife is not around and there are no distractions such as cell-phone. There in the quiet I pray and thank God for my blessings and petition Him to help those I know who are sick, discouraged, or have lost their way. I pray that God will protect me and restrain satan from ruining my life or harming my family. I pray for just about everything that I’m involved in.
I believe that prayer is the most powerful tool that God has given us. We have the luxury of doing it while we drive down the street or in a church, prayer group, at a home prayer alter, or while we lay in bed and review our day.
There has been an outpouring of people who prayed for Teresa and I and our fight with our health problems. One of my friends is a Catholic and he wrote the following: “I have a silly little prayer routine that I call my “knuckle rosary”. It rotates between “Our Fathers”, “Glory Be’s” and “Hail Mary’s”, with each knuckle reserved for a special intention as my index finger from one hand traces over the knuckles of the other. I pray that abridged rosary often, and I find it to come in handy as I am sitting on airplanes or in waiting rooms of one sort or another. I suppose it is a better boredom battle than lap top solitaire. At any rate, I wanted you to know that you and Teresa have all my prayers and at least two of my knuckles with all of God’s prayer power that come with them”.
As I have worked towards trying to unify the church with The Jesus Alliance I have found that many church goers, (especially fundamentalists), intensely dislike Catholics and how they worship. I’m not a Catholic. In fact I’m non-denominational and don’t claim any of the 43,000 denominations. I prefer to read, study, and believe the Bible and I try my utmost to emulate Jesus. Only God knows someone’s heart and I don’t try to judge anyone. I do know that my Catholic friend knows Jesus and loves Him with all His heart and I hope that I can remain one of his knuckles until my wife and I celebrate full recovery.
As mentioned above we were blessed with an abundance of folks who are praying for healing for my wife’s breast cancer and my back surgery and I’m trying to answer them as fast as I can. If you have not received anything yet, please bear with me. I cannot sit up straight for long periods of time. At any rate I have asked God to bless you and we thank you for your prayers. Have a great weekend and go to Honey Lake Church or somewhere this Sunday.
Ephesians 6:18
And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests.”
February 27, 2015 – Click here to listen