The Power Of A Praying Mother

“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.