“Ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. Or what man is there among you who, if his son asks for bread, will give him a stone?"
Matthew 7:7-9
The Power of a praying mother…on this Mother’s Day I am reminded of a time when the mothers would be the first ones in the church on Sunday. They would be the ones who kept watch for those that entered before service that didn’t seem to have it together. A mother would take whomever it was and lead them to the altar for prayer. And the power of that praying mother would in most cases bring a quick result.
To my knowledge my mother was not one that would go to prayer, but fortunately I had a praying grandmother who prayed hard for me. I believe that it was the power of her prayers that I can stand before you today and give this message about the power of prayer. You see, I never had any desires to be in the ministry; my only desire was to be an electrical engineer, which the Lord has blessed me to be. But it was my grandmother who prayed for something more than I would have ever imagined…she prayed for my salvation and that I could be used by the Lord. And because of the power of her prayers God has saved me from dangers seen and unseen so that I can stand here and attest to the facts of her prayers. I must tell you; the power of her prayers and the mighty hand of the Lord has changed an individual who my eldest son describes to his friends as a father who used to be a thug. And as I thought on it…yeah, I was a thug in my youth and parts of my 20’s and 30’s.
My grandmother has gone on to see the Lord and I can remember so of the last words she spoke to me: she said that she had been praying for me and how overjoyed she was the day the Lord answered her prayer; that was the day I stepped into the church she was attending and accepted membership. As she laid in her bed ready to breath her last, she said that she was now ready to go and see the Lord, and the next day while I was teaching Bible study she passed away. All in all, my grandmother followed the words of our Scripture today:
She asked, and in time it was given to her.
She looked to the Lord for a solution to her cause and she found it on the day of my joining her church.
She knocked upon heaven’s door, and it was opened to, I believe it was opened to something much greater than even she imagined. Something much greater than I even thought of.
Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.
James 5:16
Like I said earlier, I never had a mind to be a minister…I wanted to be an electrical engineer and that was it. Speaking to people about Jesus was not a thought that had ever entered my mind. Let alone being a minister of the Word of God having the title of Reverend. You see, my mother had raised me to believe that all ministers were crooks and that the title reverend was that of an individual who was just out to take church goers money. Now I must admit that in some cases, I have found her to be true, but in my case untrue. And over some time, she saw that was not true in every case, as she saw me doing something different than those crooked preachers that jaded her view of the Christian ministry. And although our beliefs were a bit different, she was proud that I was doing what I was doing for the Lord.
You see within my grandmother’s simple prayer for my and the rest of my family’s salvation was a much more complex plan of God’s. For my grandmother prayed for me, without knowing what chain of events would follow. I know she prayed for her other grandchildren, but somehow, she saw a little glimmer of hope in me.
So, here is where James 5:16 gives us the meat of it all “The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” That much part relates to the reach of that prayer for an individual. You see, she prayed for me, I in turn prayed for my family, and in that I got my children, my sisters, and my niece and nephew to start looking to the Lord. They in turn will influence their friends, and in time their family. So, because of the power of my grandmother’s prayer, I, the one who never thought of being a minister am now praying to be a pastor over a church someday; now that is a far cry from the man who wanted nothing to do with church whatsoever. The man you see before you had a onetime denounced the church and vowed to never be a part of it. But as you can see, I was no match against the power of a praying mother. Standing before you today is a broken man, broken in pride but not in spirit. For you see that the Lord had impressed upon me the need to seek Him because I had not a clue of where I was going. He was even gracious enough to show me how I was steered to Him…by way of the power of a praying mother.
I am a surgical assistant — the surgeon’s right-hand man, and I am also a mother - my husband’s right hand man. At one point in my career, I lost my passion. I wanted a job with spiritual significance, and I prayed for that. Imagine my shock when God led me to a position in plastic surgery. Why would God want me in a hotbed of vanity? I wondered.
During my quiet times, the Lord assured me that this was part of his plan and that I should wait for his direction. So I obeyed, continuing to pray that the Lord would use me in this job.
The first directive when I started my new position was “Gather and pray in my name.” There were only a few Christians who worked in the plastic surgery department, but I started with them. “I’m going to start praying for our workplace each Monday, fifteen minutes before we clock in,” I told them. “I’ll be in Operating Room 2, and I hope you will join me.”
We met each week, praying for our work, our colleagues, and our patients. Soon we were praying boldly for opportunities to witness. By the end of that year, God had answered many prayers, which included ten friends who accepted Christ as their Savior!
God has given me a purpose far beyond patient care. He expanded my circle of influence by transferring me to the main surgery department, where I now rotate through all four departments in the hospital campus. I have started several prayer groups throughout the hospital. Each group focuses on inviting the Holy Spirit to move in their department. We encourage each other in Christ, pray for opportunities to witness, seek God’s will, and ask that Christ be glorified in our work.
Since I realized that I could advance the kingdom of God through praying at work, I have found renewed passion for my job, as well as for the opportunities for ministry it provides.
A mother’s prayer is a special thing. It’s a powerful force that can move mountains and change hearts. When a mother prays for her children, God hears her and answers her prayers. He is always listening, and He always knows what’s best for us. When a mother prays, her children are blessed. God hears her prayers, and He answers them.
He knows what’s best for us and He always wants what’s best for us. When a mother prays, her children are protected. God surrounds us with His love and His protection when we are under our mother’s prayers.
When a mother prays, something amazing happens. She taps into a power source that is far greater than herself. She opens a line of communication with the Divine, and anything is possible.
When a mother prays for her children, she is tapping into a force that can move mountains. She is tapping into a power that can change the course of history. She is tapping into a power that can do anything.
I can tell you for a fact that God indeed answers prayers, not only for the mother but also for each of us that ask of Him.
“It shall come to pass That before they call, I will answer; And while they are still speaking, I will hear."
Isaiah 65:24
Let me relate another true story of the power of prayer when it is directed to God with sincerity.
Shortly after Dallas Seminary was founded in 1924, it came to the point of bankruptcy. All the creditors were going to foreclose at noon on a certain day. On the morning of that foreclosure day the founders of the school met in the president’s office to pray, calling upon God to provide. In that prayer meeting was a well-known preacher and minister named Harry Ironside. When it was his turn to pray, he prayed in his characteristically refreshing manner: “Lord, we know that the cattle on a thousand hills are thine. Please sell some of them and send us the money.”
While they were praying, a tall Texan came into the business office of the school and said to the secretary, “I just sold two carloads of cattle in Fort Worth. I’ve been trying to make a business deal go through and it won’t work, and I feel that God is compelling me to give the money to the Seminary. I don’t know if you need it or not, but here’s the check.”
The secretary took the check and knowing something of the financial seriousness of the hour, went to the door of the prayer meeting and timidly knocked on the door. When she finally got a response, Dr. Lewis Chafer took the check out of her hand, and it was for the exact amount of the debt owed. When he looked at the signature on the check, he recognized the name of the cattle rancher. Turning to Dr. Ironside, he said, “Harry, God sold the cattle.”
I know this story mostly talked about a bunch of men, but did you notice there was a secretary there, she was a mother, and most likely she was praying for her job and the ability to feed her family. So, we can say that the power of a praying mother saved a seminary school. Remember, she was the one who received the check.
I remember a time when I was asked to prayer with a woman who was hoping that her child would make it into a certain school. We met for lunch and prayed in the car for her needs, after which we went and had our lunch. During our lunch she received a phone call from her daughter who told her that a letter had arrived from the school with the good news they had been waiting for.
The power of prayer, for a mother or for anyone lies in this simple fact: “ask, and it shall be given you.” If you don’t ask you don’t get. The terms ask, seek, and knock in our Scripture are in the tense of perseverance and frequent prayer. And looking at those words alone we can see that the first letter of each spell out the word A-S-K.
The power of a praying mother lies not only in the words that are presented to the Lord, but also in their frequency.
An effectual prayer is one that targets a specific need. Although my grandmother prayed for the family, she singled me out for a specific need. I believe through prayer and submission she allowed the will of God to direct her words; which is something that we need to take to heart when we seek the Lord in prayer: are we asking amiss? Are we trying to impress our will upon God?
You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.
James 4:3
Are we praying for those things that are truly needful or are we praying for our wants? When we pray are we taking the time to see God’s response to our request or are we dismissing His response because it is not in the grand scale that we think it should be in. Some of us pray for growth in the church, but don’t give God thanks for the single new person that walks in the door. Some of us pray for more money to help the church survive but dismiss the five-dollar bill that someone dropped in the church mail slot. What I am getting at is this…we tend to focus on the grander things, when God wants us to look at the more granular things…He wants us to have big plans but look at slowly getting there, one step at a time. Most times God needs to grow you for the potential He has prepared for you.
The power of a praying mother does not dismiss the small things, as we see them. Because to God nothing is too big or small, all things are of the greatest importance to God. I will be honest with you, most of the mothers that invited me to pray with them and for them asked for little things, which they believed would lead to the greater things. A mother I prayed with first asked for her child to break free from those friends that tend to lead her astray. When that happened, she started praying for her daughter to look for some stability in her life; breaking away from the promiscuity, when that happened, she prayed for her to go to college and make it through. After 21 years of prayer, she has a daughter who is a college graduate with a master’s in computer engineering, married to a wonderful loving husband with a child on the way. All this from a child who was from the looks of things, destined down a road of trouble making and to hell. The power of a praying mother changed all that.
When we look at the grand scheme of things, God could have wiped us out and started over, but no, he saw a righteous man in Noah. And I am sure that in that righteousness was a good prayer life. And because of Noah’s trust in the Lord and his petitions to God that we can approach the Father with our prayers, because I believe that in his prayers, he looked for a day of salvation, a day of redemption. And we can see that through the works of our Lord and Savior Christ Jesus that his prayer was answered.
So, we looked at the power of a praying mother, but what about the power of a praying Savior? We wrongly call Matthew 6:9-13 the Lord’s prayer, but that is the model of a prayer given by Lord Jesus…it is in John 17 where we find the Lord’s prayer.
