The Power of Prayer

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Photo courtesy of “thephotoholic” /freedigitalphotos.net

This has been an especially terrible week for Bostonians and Americans with terrorism and a freak massive explosion occurring within days of each other.

My heart has cried out especially for those who have lost loved ones and for the injured.

A number of people have mentioned the similarity in the Boston bombings to some of the action in Angelguard; the senseless destruction of innocent lives.

Evil.

How should we respond?

Pray.

Praying mums

One of the key messages I hoped to convey in Angelguard was the power of prayer. For a lot of my life, I’ve said, “God especially loves listening to a praying mum.” There’s the constancy, sometimes desperate prayers of a mum, interceding for her children, that I’ve always admired. With some mums I’ve known, it’s appeared they’ve got a sixth sense about a particular child’s situation that has forced them to pray. As I’ve matured, I’ve learnt to appreciate that sixth sense is in fact the gentle nudge of the Holy Spirit.

In Angelguard, Louise Haines, the lead character’s mum, is a praying mum. I hope in creating Louise I’ve done a reasonable job at portraying a mum who is both sensitive to the Spirit and also obedient to his nudges.

During the Blog Tour last week, I met another praying mum. Annette reviewed Angelguard and wrote me an email where she highlighted a particular situation where God woke her one night to pray for her son, who was a soldier in Iraq.

I’ll let Annette1 tell the rest of the story:

“During my son’s first tour I would often be awakened in the middle of the night with a strong urgency to pray for him. It was as if an alarm had sounded in my sleep, telling me to get up and pray for him. I would scramble out of the covers and pray. I didn’t know what was going on, but would pray. There were a few times that the urgency was stronger. In my mind when I was awakened I was told to “battle in prayer for my son”. That, “this was serious”.

For the first time in my life I prayed prostrate on the floor towards the east and prayed. I remember at least once praying the rest of the night in this way, until the sun arose the next morning. 

Several years ago I asked my son about one of those nights when it was a more serious prompting to pray. He looked at me and said, “momma we were ambushed that night. We were back up support for a group trying to get wounded out, and we were then ambushed.”

God is good.

God doesn’t just listen to our prayers but He answers them. Annette, and more to the point her son and his troop, are living proof.

Sometimes we don’t receive the answer we want but He always answers.

Some friends of mine, some of whom are praying mums, wrote a post during week reminding us that every day there is a family who is suffering because of some heartache, not necessarily the result of an act of terror or freak accident.

This is why we need to be vigilant in our prayers, “pray without ceasing …” (1 Thess 5:17) as Paul exhorts us.

An important aspect to prayer is praying Scripture. I thought I’d share some thoughts on this next week. In the meantime, may I encourage you to read and pray Psalm 91. I love this psalm as it describes the all-conquering power of God to protect His people.

If you are struggling under a particularly difficult situation please let me know so I can join you in prayer. Perhaps shoot me an email via info@ianacheson.com.

Wishing you a blessed safe weekend.

Note: 1. Annette gave me permission to share her story.

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