The potency of prayer has subdued the strength of fire; it has bridled the rage of lions,; hushed anarchy to rest,; extinguished wars; appeased the elements, expelled demons, burst the chains of death, expanded the gates of heaven, healed diseases, repelled frauds, rescued cities from destruction, stayed the sun in its course, and arrested the progress of the thunderbolt. Prayer is an all-sufficient panoply, a mind which is never diminished, a treasure which is never exhausted, a sky unobscured by the clouds, and a heaven unruffled by the storm. It is the root, the fountain and the mother of a thousand blessings. Is this mere rhetoric? Ah, no. The Bible knows no such cunning.
~ St. John Chrysostom
In all circumstances take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming darts of the evil one; and take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance, making supplication for all the saints, and also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak.
~paul, The Least of The Apostles, in Ephesians 6
Oh beloved, fear not. Read on. Perhaps it will free you to pray.
We are the saints of G_d.
We, those who have cast ourselves onto Christ alone for our salvation, are now His. And in some astoundingly profound mystery, we were given the free choice to surrender to Him and the Great Love He is; and still He knew we would, and made sure that it would happen. And no, this fool of writer will not attempt to test G_d with some Platonic or Aristotelian logic model that requires a this-or-that-only answer. For we are both totally free and living utterly Coram Deo (before G_d’s face, under His sovereignty).
What does this have to do with prayer?
Everything.
When we finally come to just even begin to understand who He is, something happens within the believer. Time drops away, and we enter into a present moment with this same One who gave us the free choice for Him to sovereignly save us. We come to understand that we no longer live on some linear timeline dominated by chance and the logic of crucial decisions and their outcomes. No, rather we begin to grasp that He really does inhabit and infill eternity. We do, to put it bluntly, have a G_d who thinks and lives and moves and has His own Being VERY outside any box we can even imagine.
Enter prayer.
Beloved, perhaps ten-thousand of my neighbors may have died over the weekend just 60 miles north of my hometown. And while this writer is currently stationed in another part of Southeast Asia, Christmas beckons us home to our little house on the west coast of Negroes Occidental in the Philippines archipelago. The people their have an almost-odd softness to their voices. And the smiles on their faces sometimes hide the deeper emotions being felt. This is an ancient place, and no stranger to danger and disaster. It is a good place, with deep problems – and hope those problems can be solved someday through faith in Jesus and civil responsibility.
And as i thought about the people who had just gone through the physically horrific onslaught of a super-typhoon, i did indeed imagine many in the last moments of their life on this earth. My neighbors had died. And then i see more specific images and colors and moments. And then He said, “pray for them beloved. I AM there with them, right then.”
Oh dear friends, we are already in eternity. And while the clock is still relevant to our lives, it is not a constraint to our prayers. Just because something happened in the past (from our perception), does not mean we can not, or should not pray for someone in need who is now dead. Jesus spoke clearly on the issue when He said, “before Abraham was, I AM.”
We seem to have no problem praying for people who are a long way away from us. And we don’t usually have any problem praying about the future. Why is it that we constrain our prayers only to events from this moment forward? Does not our G_d inhabit eternity? And have we not entered into eternal life with Him through knowing Him?
Can we see it?
We can pray for those people who are now dead.
We can pray for the survivors while they were facing the storm.
We can bring the dying comfort in their final moments.
We can pray courage for the men who gave themselves to hold the babies above their heads while the flood waters raged.
We can pray strength for the old woman who needed to get her bedridden husband to the safer place in the house.
We can pray for the soft heart of surrender to the Great Love of Jesus, as a person breathed their last.
