I’ve Prayed...now What??

I’ve Prayed, now what?

Illus. by sermon central

Bill Broadhurst, who entered the Pepsi Challenge 10,000-meter road race in Omaha, Nebraska. Ten years earlier, surgery for an aneurysm is the brain had left him paralyzed on his left side. But on a misty July morning in 1981, he stood with 1,200 lithe- looking men and women at the starting line. The gun cracks! The crowd surges forward. Bill throws his stiff left leg forward, pivots on it as his right foot hits the ground. His slow plop-plop-plop rhythm seems to mock him as the pack fades into the distance. Sweat rolls down his face, pain pierces his ankle, but he keeps going. Six miles and two hours and twenty-nine minutes later, Bill reaches the finish line. A man approaches from a small group of bystanders. Bill recognizes him from pictures in the newspaper. He’s Bill Rodgers, the famous marathon runner. "Here," says Rodgers, putting his newly won medal around Bill’s neck. "You’ve worked harder for this than I have." Broadhurst had also been a winner. He didn’t win but he was faithful and finished the race.

We live in a now generation and society, everything is instant. We expect our computer access to our information to be instant, the preparation of our food, the way that we expect everyone to respond to us. Everything is now now now and when it’s not now now now, we grow tired and quickly move on or redirect our energy into other areas, or the next expectation of instant gratification!

Our prayer life is no different, we tend to pray feverishly for our needs and place them in God’s hands for a short time and if the answer or desired outcome is delayed, we take our efforts in another direction on what we think will be a quickly desired outcome.

Ephesians 6:13 MSG

Be prepared. You’re up against far more than you can handle on your own. Take all the help you can get, every weapon God has issued, so that when it’s all over but the shouting you’ll still be on your feet. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, and salvation are more than words. Learn how to apply them. You’ll need them throughout your life. God’s Word is an indispensable weapon. In the same way, prayer is essential in this ongoing warfare. Pray hard and long. Pray for your brothers and sisters. Keep your eyes open. Keep each other’s spirits up so that no one falls behind or drops out

What we have been given access to is a big deal! The shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the word, the breastplate of righteousness and the ability to access all those weapons through our prayers through the One True Living God, is a huge deal!

Let us never take what we have been given for granted! Through our relationship with Jesus Christ, we have been given access to the one true living God!

The same God who created the heavens and the earth! The same God who measured the galaxies in the universe with a span of his hand! The same God who spoke The world into existence and breathed life into man!

Sometimes we like to think because of our limited knowledge, that God is out there somewhere in the universe.

I heard Karen Wheaton say, “The universe doesn’t contain God! Everything that has been discovered, everything that is yet to be discovered in our galaxy, in our solar system, and what we know as to be the universe, is contained within God!!!”

Our world is part of God!

Have you ever googled earth? The location in which you live is a tiny area, viewed from outer space. You have to magnify your location hundreds of thousands of times times to see it. And you are even a smaller space within that space!

We are like a dot, on the dot, of the dot on the radar screen of life! And we, this tiny microscopic dot in the universe, have been given complete access to the creator of it all!

I mean think about it, if you were to go down to the local factory to apply for a job, you wouldn’t even get past the front door without an appointment. Much less be able to see the person who does the hiring, let alone the one in charge of the operation and certainly not the actual owner of the business!

And yet, through your relationship with Jesus God‘s only son you have been granted unlimited access, to the one who is responsible for the very air you breathe!

Your direct line of access and communication, is prayer!

When you get a new phone, what’s the first thing you learn how to do? The first thing you learn how to do is use the device, because if you don’t it will never be any use to you!